‘Furnace’ to fall behind ‘Frozen’ & ‘Fire’

The weekend after Thanksgiving is typically a quiet one for the nation’s box office, and this year, only one new release is opening wide. That would be Out of the Furnace, a gritty, bleak revenge drama starring the gritty, bleak Batman, Christian Bale, as well as Casey Affleck, Zoe Saldana, and Woody Harrelson. Expectations aren’t quite as dour as the film’s subject matter, location and production stills, but they’re not overly hopeful. To compare, Killing Them Softly was in the same position this time last year, as a new release bowing after the holiday weekend. It boasted a big movie star, Brad Pitt, but failed to leverage the actor’s perceived wide appeal. Softly opened to $6.8 million. Furnace isn’t tracking great with critics, either, (52% rotten on infallible taste barometer Rotten Tomatoes), though it’ll likely fare better than Brad’s failed bet. Screening in 2,101 theatres, odds are, it’ll earn around $10 million.

That kind of haul would likely place it at No. 3, behind last weekend’s reigning champions Frozen and The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. General consensus has Games finally slipping from the top slot, to the gain of family friendly Frozen. This will be the action flick's third weekend in theatres, while Frozen, now in its sophomore outing, has youth and a bit more novelty on its side. Comparable franchise series Twilight and Harry Potter both experienced a significant downturn in sales over this same weekend, on average dropping about 60%. Games, however, has consistently done better business than either of its blockbuster peers, meaning its dip shouldn’t be quite as severe - probably about 50%. Both the princess and the provocateur (there’s a college term paper for you) should earn figures in the mid-to-high $30 million range, with Frozen gaining the edge.

Art-house aficionados have been edge-of-their-seats with anticipation over the new Coen brothers’ film, Inside Llewyn Davis, opening in four locations in LA and New York today.  The film, allegedly inspired by the experiences of folk singer Dave Van Ronk in 1960’s Greenwich Village, has been earning rave reviews (95% fresh on RT). Not to mention, its hooky, ridiculous protest song “Please Mr. Kennedy” has steadily been making its viral way into the hearts, and that part of your brain that’s like fly paper to a catchy tune, for a few days now. It doesn’t have the foot-tapping appeal of a “Man of Constant Sorrow,” from the brothers’ O Brother, Where Art Thou? But it does have “Girls” actor Adam Driver as a real-life space cowboy.  Between the siblings’ cachet, the film’s positive buzz, and the below clip, Davis should significantly out-earn its predecessor, A Serious Man, which opened to $41,890 in 2009.

 

‘Catching Fire’ does just that

As predicted, records were shattered this past weekend, thanks to The Hunger Games: Catching Fire’s fantastic bow. The sequel to 2012’s Hunger Games (and we thought that film was popular) earned $161.1 million domestically and $307.7 worldwide. Here’s how it stacks up against previous cinematic and pop culture phenoms:

• Catching Fire had the highest-grossing November opening of all time. The old record-holder, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, debuted to a paltry (it’s all relative) $148.2 million.


• Catching Fire had the fourth highest-grossing opening ever. Its cume ranks just behind The Avengers’ $207.4 million, Iron Man 3’s $174.1 million, and the last Harry Potter movie’s $169.2 million.


• Katniss & Co. just barely dethroned The Dark Knight Rises, which got bumped down a peg to the No. 5 slot on the list of most successful domestic opening weekends. Knight opened to $160.9 million back in 2012.

Catching Fire is also Lionsgate’s most successful release to date. It had the 12th most lucrative international opening ever.

Some other movies made some money this weekend, too, although their stories are less uplifting. Thor: The Dark World earned $14.1 million, the most money of any film that was not Catching Fire. As its total suggests, The Dark World suffered a freefall of a drop in sales, down 61% from last week. The Best Man Holiday, last weekend’s surprise success story, also staggered, falling 58% to gross $12.5 million. While reverberations from the revolution brewing in The Hunger Games' Panem have clearly hurt the cinema’s other offerings, neither The Dark World nor Holiday has been fatally wounded. The Thor sequel will likely finish out with a little over $200 million, while The Best Man Holiday will probably top out at $75 million.

Similar reassurances cannot be made on behalf of Vince Vaughn’s latest vehicle, Delivery Man. The comedian begat a bomb with his tale of a boy-man sperm donor whose contributions result in 500+ children. Delivery Man grossed $8.2 million, less than half of each of Vaughn’s last two films, The Internship and The Dilemma. At least Vaughn can take comfort in knowing other name stars, at least those who were not christened Jennifer Lawrence, have also seen their stock fall this season. Both Runner Runner, starring Ben Affleck and Justin Timberlake, and The Counselor, whose credits read like the guest list for Vanity Fair’s Oscar party (Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz, Javier Bardem, Michael Fassbender, and Brad Pitt) opened to less than $10 million. Times, they are a changin’.

One thing, however, remains constant: the undeniable appeal of Judi Dench. The grand dame’s Philomena opened in four locations and earned a respectable (how could it could have been anything other than?) $133,716, or $33,429 per theatre.

Neither has Tom Hanks lost his enduring appeal. The actor’s Oscar contender Captain Phillips sailed past the $100 million domestic mark this weekend, its seventh, with no sign of slowing pace.

‘Games’ to make child’s play of weekend b.o.

It’s a foregone conclusion the second installment in the Hunger Games franchise, opening today in 4,163 theatres, will prove victorious at the box office this weekend  – and the next weekend, and the one after that, and so on and so forth, until Catching Fire has not merely broken but incinerated most sales records set before it.

If our expectations sound a tad hyperbolic, consider the context. The first Hunger Games film opened to an awe-some $152 million. It continued to hold strong through the duration of its theatrical run, resisting any significant downturn in sales thanks to strong word-of-mouth and favorable reviews. By the time it finally closed, The Hunger Games had amassed $408 million. That makes it the 14th highest-grossing movie of all time. Surprisingly, it out-earned any of the Harry Potter or Twilight films, which had previously set the bar for frenzied-fan fare.

Then there’s that small, shiny pated statue perched somewhere in Jennifer Lawrence’s house. The actress who plays Katniss Everdeen has seen her star rise and rise since 2012’s Games. She won an Oscar for her turn as a stubborn yet compassionate (we spy a theme) dancer in David O. Russell’s Silver Linings Playbook last year, and stood out within an ensemble cast of pretty mutants in Marble’s lucrative tentpole X Men: First Class. Add to the mix all those viral videos of her acting lovely, like the one in which she comforted a crying fan, and Jennifer Lawrence is capable of calling upon quite a large group of faithful for support.

However, there are those pundits who believe it would be difficult for any film, even this one, to surpass a $152 million weekend opening. There’s little doubt Catching Fire will match its predecessor – beyond that, it may eke out another $8 million or so for a staggering $160 haul. Odds are favorable.

Less so for the latest Vince Vaughn comedy, Delivery Man. Once a bankable draw, Vaughn has taken his lumps of late. Neither The Internship nor The Dilemma (no, can’t remember them either) was very successful, with the one opening to $17.3 million and the other $17.8 million. Man is tracking for an even poorer debut.

Specialty release Philomena also opens in four locations today. The film has seen a small boost in publicity in recent weeks, thanks to Harvey Weinstein’s successful campaign to change the movie’s R rating to PG-13. Weinstein’s hoping the softened label will reap dividends when Philomena opens wide and becomes accessible to family and church-going audiences, but for now, its largely positive reviews should appeal to the weekend’s arthouse viewers.

In all, between Catching Fire and the still popular Thor: The Dark World and The Best Man Holiday, this coming weekend could be one of the cinema’s best ever.

Dear Harry Potter, thanks for the memories

By Sarah Sluis

In the decade since Harry Potter first came out, I've aged from 16 to 26. There were a couple of movies lagging toward the end (including the penultimate Potter, Deathly Hallows Part I) that had me questioning my loyalty to the series. Maybe I had just outgrown it.

Rest assured, Harry Potter fans. The final film will not disappoint. Clocking in at a swift 131 minutes, the story propels swiftly the finish. Action scenes, which can be a little harder to visualize on the page, adapt to the screen in perfect form. After seven films, the eighth still manages to innovate on the existing Potter shorthand. As the series has evolved, it seemed as though we would be stuck with whatever the original set designers came up with. Instead, we get a Gringotts bank like you've never seen it before. Small changes, like the layout of the Gryffindor common room, help keep everything fresh.

Seeing Harry Potter and the evil Lord Voldemort duel for the final time adds excitement and finality to the series. Unlike earlier films, which had to omit or adapt the charming, meandering scenes that made the book so great, the final film is mostly business. The attack on Hogwarts castle is even more memorable than in the book, especially with the epic-level crowds of wizards fighting for control.

As the advance tickets sales and midnight screenings that characterized the series suggest, Harry Potter is one of those movies that demands to be seen with an audience. There are very few films that prompt audiences to clap and whoop not only after the movie, but during (I won't say when). So much of the laughter and involvement was from seeing Harry, Ron, and Hermione evolve over the decade. In flashback scenes, Harry looks so young! It's like flipping through a family photo album.

Deathly Hallows Part I finished with just under $1 billion worldwide. Surely, the final film will attain the $1 billion mark. I hardly believe that will be the end for the series, which is something like the Star Wars of a generation. DVDs will be bought. Books will be re-read. Action figures will be purchased. The series will live on as a theme park experience.

In fact, I couldn't help but watch the Gringotts scene and think that the creators must have consulted roller coaster creators when staging the set piece (which includes a water soaking, a traditional roller coaster addendum). The just-opened, wildly successful Wizarding World of Harry Potter attraction in Universal Studios has plans (indeed, a mandate) to expand and incorporate material from the final films. What better way to cap the Harry Potter experience than to take a ride through Gringotts yourself?

'Tangled' climbs to the top

By Sarah Sluis

As predicted, Disney's Tangled rose from second place to first in its second week. The Rapunzel retelling dipped 55% to $21.5 million, a strong hold given that last weekend had higher-than-average traffic because of post-Thanksgiving crowds. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I took a steeper dive, falling 65% to $16.7 million. Many Harry Potter fans presumably saw the film shortly after its release, while Tangled should play well to families throughout the holiday season.

The Warrior's Way, a hybrid of the Asian action and Western genres, with some supernatural enemies as a bonus, eked out $3 million its opening weekend, below an estimated $5 million opening. The genre amalgamation follows this summer's sci-fi/comic book/Western flop Jonah Hex, and the (critical, sort of commercial) failure a decade before of another Western hybrid, Wild Wild West. Let it be known: The Western does not take kindly to genre mixing.

Just outside of the top ten, 127 Hours dipped 6% to $1.6 million as it increased the number of theatres showing the film by a third. Love and Other Drugs ($5.7 million) and Burlesque ($6.1 million), which both opened over the Thanksgiving holiday, fell in the 40% range. Thanks to the added holiday receipts, each of these films has each crossed the $20 million mark.

As prestige, awards-seeking movies make their end-of-the-year debuts, per-screen averages of specialty films have skyrocketed. Multiple films posted averages in the tens of thousands. Leading the pack with the highest average of the week, Black Swan opened in 18 locations to a stunning $77,000 per-screen average. Another Oscar frontrunner, The King's Speech, in its second week, made a comfortable slide into a $55,000 per-screen average as it went from four to six theatres. All Good Things, the true-crime drama, tallied up $20,000 per screen at two locations, just ahead of I Love You, Phillip Morris, which averaged $18,000 per screen at six locations.

This Friday, Tangled will have some competition from The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, a former Disney franchise that has been passed to Fox. The Angelina Jolie-Johnny Depp smoldering thriller The Tourist will offer adults some fresh intrigue set in an exotic location, and another Oscar contender, The Fighter, will hit select theatres.

Are ticket pre-sales turning 'opening weekend' into 'opening day?'

By Sarah Sluis

It used to be that opening weekend would predict a movie's success. But increasingly, fan-driven movies are defined by their opening day--from Harry Potter to Twilight, many films now see ticket sales drop significantly the second day of their release. Last weekend's release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I sold $61 million worth of tickets on Friday, then dropped 38% to $38 million by Saturday. In the most extreme example, this summer's The Twilight Saga: Eclipse fell a staggering 68% in its second day, from $68 million on Wednesday to $24 million on Thursday. (A caveat: the first two Twilight films released on Fridays in November, and dropped in the 40% range on their second day. Eclipse's fall was accelerated because it released on a Wednesday during summer break, when kids presumably were free to attend both midnight and weekday screenings.)

The latest movie to follow such a trend is Justin Bieber's concert film, Never Say Never, (trailer) which sold 26,000 out of 100,000 available tickets for a February 9th sneak preview in twelve hours. The ticket promotion (which included tchotchkes like a glow-in-the-dark lightstick and special 3D glasses) dovetails nicely into the marketing money being poured into the release of Bieber's new album, which partially explains why tickets are being sold four months ahead of time. Though 26,000 tickets actually isn't a lot (at the more average price of $12 a ticket, it's just $312,000), these tickets are being sold for the astronomical price of $30, which means a sellout of the preview alone could yield $3 million.

This kind of promotion--with its "one day" emphasis and the inclusion of special gifts--doesn't feel like a typical film release. It falls a little more toward the side of alternative programming, which makes films "events." While movie theatres have tried (successfully, I believe) to capture viewers with technological bells and whistles like 3D and IMAX, event-based promotions use a more old-fashioned method, creating a "must-see" event the way live performance theatres and concerts do--by making them seem like time-sensitive, unique experiences, not something that will feel exactly the same if you catch it on a Tuesday night, because that's what's playing at 7pm. As promotions like these catch on, they have the potential to transform what it means to go to the movies.

'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1' boasts high advance ticket sales

By Sarah Sluis

Even as the marathon Potter series reaches its penultimate installment, the movie is still a must-see ticket. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 (4,125 theatres) boasts over 1,900 sellouts and a fifth-place spot among all advance ticket sales, according to Movietickets.com. Fans will be greeted with a dark, adult film and oh-so-slightly incomplete feeling. Hogwarts is absent from this film, though the architectural wizardry of the Ministry of Magic makes up for the change in setting. "The film's centerpiece, Harry, Ron and Hermione's daring raid on the Ministry...recalls an episode of Mission: Impossible, complete with the trio temporarily donning false faces," notes critic Ethan Alter, praising director David Yates' maturation into a "more confident director of action." Thursday midnight screenings could give the film some $30 million, with a $100 million plus weekend in the crystal ball. Like the opening weekend behemoth Twilight: New Moon, Harry Potter will benefit from all-digital multiplexes that can program the film in every theatre at midnight and give the movie lots of screens to meet demand. 239 IMAX screens will help boost ticket sales.

For adults in search of some non-wizard focused entertainment, The Next Three Days (2,564 theatres) sets it target on those who "favor twisty plotting over slam-bang action," according to critic Daniel Eagan. The action thriller has similarities to last year's hit Taken, with its family-oriented kidnapping/rescue plot. Liam Neeson, who starred in Taken, has a supporting role here as a kind of advisor to Russell Crowe's character, almost creating a sense of continuity from film to film. An older, more male audience, the exact opposite of the Harry Potter demographic, will ensure this movie won't have to compete with Potter-philes. Still, The Next Three Days has been pegged as a $10 million or so opener, with a chance that it will disappoint and open in the single digit millions.

The U.S.' Payroll Fairness Act may be caught in a Republican filibuster, but on the screen, a group of U.K.-based female autoworkers receive just such a right in Made in Dagenham (3 theatres). "Catching the ripples of optimism of Britain's swinging '60s, the film is intelligent and feel-good and should pull in the usual suspects," critic Doris Toumarkine predicts, comparing the movie to Norma Rae.

Also opening today is Heartless (1 theatre), an "ambitious horror-art movie hybrid," according to critic Maitland McDonagh. The movie centers on a mildly disfigured photographer who is convinced crime is being caused by "feral thugs" that are less than human. Director Philip Ridley's style "walks the line between campfire creep-out and cautionary fable," and "should appeal to horror buffs who prefer lingering unease to the gut-bruising sucker punch."

"[I]ntriguing but inconsistent, drifting back and forth between sequences of razor-sharp insight and slack, ponderous stretches," according to critic Jon Frosch, White Material (3 theatres) centers on a white French woman who refuses to leave her plantation home even as the African country she resides in falls into civil war.

Screener will be taking a break. Look for new posts starting December 1.

'G-Force' scurries over 'Harry Potter'

By Sarah Sluis

In an impressive 1-2-3 finish, the top three films this weekend each made around $30 million. G-Force, a spy caper cast with guinea pigs, took the #1 spot with $32.5 million, luring viewers with its blend of "photorealistic CGI" and live action. In its second weekend, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince dropped 61%. While 50%-plus drops are normal for fan-based films, it's surprising that a movie with a two-week cumulative gross of $221 million didn't take the top spot for a second weekend. Still, with a $30 million second weekend, lucrative international box office, and the last book split into two films, Harry Potter has turned out to be the franchise that keeps on giving.

The Ugly Truth, a romantic comedy that hews closely to the genre's tired conventions, but "has just enough laughs to squeak by," rounded out the top three with a $27 million opening. Written by Legally Blonde's Karen McCullah Lutz and Kirsten Smith, the female-oriented film has drawn in its fair share of moviegoers, but has left critics crying misogyny, and craving a more original take on the romcom formula.

Horror flick Orphan gathered up $12.7 million in tickets in its debut weekend. "Gimmicky though effective," Orphan passes up the chance to comment on "the crack-up of an American family [that] lies right under the filmmakers' noses," according to our critic Kirk Honeycutt, but for fans of the demonic child genre (and that's not the wizard-with-a-lightning-scar kind)," this "dumb" film is perfect for summer moviegoing.

Right below the top ten, Fox Searchlight's (500) Days of Summer expanded from 27 to 85 theatres and brought in $1.6 million, a 95% increase from last week. For a slowly expanding specialty release like (500) Days, this performance is in the sweet spot. IFC's In the Loop brought in $25,000 per theatre in 8 locations, making the "riotous satire" a film to watch in weeks to come.

This Friday, Judd Apatow-directed Funny People and Aliens in the Attic will open wide, along with specialty titles Thirst, The Cove, and Adam.

'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince' on its way to a magical weekend

By Sarah Sluis

This weekend, it's all about Potter. The 6th film in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, earned $100 million in 24 hours. $58.2 million came from its 4,235 U.S. theatres, and the other $45.8 million came from theatres abroad. No wonder Warner Bros. has decided to make the last book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, into two films. Most critics enjoyed the latest trip to Hogwarts, and took particular interest in seeing how the stars have grown up. Our reviewer Doris Toumarkine found the "packed" film to be "great fun and engaging populist movie entertainment, even at 153 minutes and even for those of voting age." By appealing to fans and casual viewers alike, I suspect that it will do business for much longer than Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which slightly bested Half-Blood Prince's debut. Plus, next weekend the film will open on IMAX screens, after Transformers finishes its one-month run, which will boost its box office. Fan response, too, has been overwhelming. I'm getting a huge kick out of the "hp6" Twitter search, a multilingual homage to the muggles' excitement.

Releasing on just 27 screens, (500) Days of Summer is opening small in the hopes of setting off a snowball of word-of-mouth endorsement. I interviewed director Marc Webb before the film's release, and blogged my initial reaction back in April. One of the big pluses of (500) Days is that it allows you to watch a romantic comedy without having to endure the exact same contrivances with only slightly different set-ups. While A. O. Scott from the New York Times is quick to point out all the ways (500) Days hews to the generic conventions of a romantic comedy, he also concedes that the Memento-type plot structure "restores a measure of the suspense that is usually missing from the romantic-comedy genre, which relies on climactic chases to the airport and ridiculously contrived choices between rival mates." Our critic Doris Toumarkine suspects that "(500) Days should emerge a summer winner. The little film that could and does is smart, funny, real, surprising, and hits the bull's-eye on all production counts." While almost everything about this film is positive, up until the point some people declare it treacly and syrupy sweet, I'm curious as to how, and when, this film will really catch on. Fox Searchlight would certainly like Juno, Little Miss Sunshine or Garden State-type success. Unlike with films that release wide, Searchlight will have the opportunity to tweak their marketing campaign over the coming weeks to make sure this film sparks. Each of those three films slowly increased the theatres in their release over a period of eight weeks, so it may be until the end of summer before (500) Days of Summer can be evaluated on the indie success scale.

I will be on vacation next week, so I'll see you back on July 27th.

Twitter is just another form of word-of-mouth advertising, not a harbinger of doom

By Sarah Sluis

So last weekend, Bruno did big business on Friday, then dropped dramatically through the weekend. Who's to blame? According to some, Twitter.

An article posted in The Wrap (on Thursday, before the movie released) posited that the new communication tool could spread word-of-mouth reviews even faster, making disappointing films drop before the weekend is through, instead of on their second weekend. Time seconded the article, which was in turn followed by a backlash on Movie Marketing Madness, which cited an even more vehement backlash on The Hot Blog.

The gist is that information is disseminated faster and faster (through Twitter), making movies that are bombs more easily recognizable. However, Bruno was something of a "fan" film, the kind that normally has outsized grosses on Friday because people want to be the first to see it. Couldn't that be the reason? I noted on Monday that most of the other comedies in the top ten (The Proposal, The Hangover) barely dropped at all, indicating that people just weren't that interested in seeing Bruno. Perhaps they felt they had already had their fill of Bruno from all of his talk show appearances, done in character.

Also, Twitter isn't new. It's the same idea as AOL Instant Messenger away messages, which people use to broadcast their whereabouts, and Facebook status updates. The only difference is, it's more visible, which has made it the darling of journalists. Feelings about the Iraq election, for example, could be viewed not only by someone's friends, but the whole world. You can do a Twitter search for "Harry Potter," for example (one of the "hot trending" topics right now) and instantly have access to the vox populi. The "man on the street" is replaced by "Je_taime_Erik: has seen Harry Potter 6 and is impressed." The sheer volume of Harry Potter-related tweets shows the excitement over the film. Even when people grumble about authenticity, they're not giving a negative review, but voicing an opinion that can make people even more eager to see the film, so they can weigh in as well. Bruno, apparently, did not inspire that level of engagement. Negative or positive

tweets don't matter nearly as much as volume. The question to ask is, "Is this the kind of film that people will talk (or tweet) about before and after?

People love talking about films they loved (or hated), and Twitter is

just another place to do that. There's something to be said for the

amount of people on my Facebook (which I prefer over Twitter) who have

their status updates set to "Going tonight Harry Potter" or "[insert comment

about] Harry Potter." It makes the film more of a must-see. Yes,

this happens more quickly than if you were to wait until the next time

you have coffee with your friend or speak to him/her on the telephone.

In focusing on people's impressions of movies after they see them, these journalists often overlook forward-looking statements like "JaRaized: On our way to watch Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince! Wheeeeeee!" and people saying things like "Going to tonight with [insert friend]" or ""Who wants to go see Harry Potter with me?" Looking at random people's plans can help studios (and journalists) gauge interest and also measure the effectiveness of a marketing campaign. People's tweets do serve as word-of-mouth advertising, and can even recruit audience members. When Sugahill tweeted "I dont have anyone to go see Harry potter with :(", and Etsears tweeted "...Also, I need someone to see Harry Potter with me. Anyone?" I bet it was only a matter of time before these Twitter users found a friend to join them.

I see Twitter as more of a reflection of people's interest in a film, as well as a visible, written version of "word-of-mouth." According to this Nielsen survey, word-of-mouth and online are among the top four ways people hear about a film, but I think it's no coincidence that studio advertising from television and in-theatre are the other big two. Personally, as an 18-34 female speaking, I think people like to see the trailer and commercials for a movie as well as some kind of social reinforcement, whether it's a recommendation from a friend or a pre-release conversation along the lines of "I really want to see this movie!" Twitter is certainly part of that, but it doesn't have the power to make a film bomb over one day.

'HSM3' voted 'Most Likely to Succeed' at weekend box office

By Sarah Sluis

In the all-time top twenty for advance ticket sales, High School Musical 3: Senior Year (3,623 screens)
will rule the box office this weekend, with prognosticators estimating at least $30 million for the weekend. The series first made waves two years ago, when gift card-rich kids put the musical's singles in iTunes' top ten after Christmas.  The launch of the series into mainstream culture inspired the same mix of bafflement and resentment as when Harry Potter books hit the New York Times bestseller list. 

I always had a soft spot for Disney original movies, with their film school-inspired Busby Berkeley shots (look for them in the HSM series!) and buoyant, cheesy innocence that high schoolers and above recognize as a guilty pleasure.  The G-rated movie will have the most resonance with aspirational grade school and middle school students, who imagine their high school experience will be Just. Like. the. Movie., but certainly high schoolers will turn out to see the series they grew up with and have watched several times through its endless replays on the Disney Channel.

Horror sequel Saw V (3,060 screens) should compete for some of the older high school audience, but there are signs that the series has lost steam--unlike HSM3, which is the first big-screen version of the franchise.

Crime-and-intrigue Pride and Glory (2,585) releases this week to little fanfare.  Based on an actual corruption scandal, the film centers on a police officer, part of a family legacy of cops, who uncovers rampant corruption involving his family members.

Changeling (15 screens), Synecdoche, New York (excl. NY/LA), Let the Right One In (4 screens), and Passengers (125 screens) all open in limited release this week, with plans to expand.  Changeling has received so-so reviews, with FJI critic Daniel Eagan dismissing the film as "a period version of a movie on Lifetime," and both Eagan and the New York Times review dubious about a genre shift that occurs towards the film's climax.

Let the Right One In's Rotten Tomatoes listing boasts a lone dissenter to the sublimely fascinating Swedish horror character study, which I discussed earlier this week.

Intricate Synedoche, New York, another Charlie Kaufman world-within-a-world film, has inspired a whole new level of meta activity among critics attempting to mimic his layered realities--Wired did a "profile of a profile of Charlie Kaufman" you can check out here.

Anne Hathaway's Passengers might be a blink-and-you'll-miss-it airline crash thriller, depending on its performance and expansion from its limited release. I've Loved You So Long (NY/LA), Stranded: I've Come from a Plane that Crashed in the Mountains (1 screen, NY) and Fear(s) of the Dark (1 screen, NY) also open this week, for those in the city of skyscrapers or highways, respectively.