'Daybreakers,' 'Leap Year' finish behind holiday releases

By Sarah Sluis

Avatar led the pack for the fourth week in a row, posting a gross three times higher than its closest competitor, $48.5 million. Its week-over-week drop totaled just 29%, compared to drops in the in the 35-55% for the rest of the top ten. Its international gross, a few times that of its domestic gross, helped push the film to a wordwide $1.3 billion. It's the international market, not the domestic one, which will give this movie its best chance at beating the $1.8 billion worldwide record of Titanic--also directed by James Cameron.

The three films debuting this weekend cumulatively made less than Avatar. Vampire pic Daybreakers fared the best of the bunch, earning $15 million and the #4 spot.

Below Daybreakers, Amy Adams romance Leap Year finished sixth with $9.1 million. It failed to exceed the gross of its three-week-old competition, It's Complicated. The Nancy Meyers-directed romantic comedy earned another $11 million, bringing its three-week total to $76 million.

Youth in Revolt opened ninth with $7 million. With just 1,873 theatres in its release, the movie made efficient use of its screens, finishing with a per-screen average of $3,700, higher than half the movies in the top ten.

Many of the end-of-the-year specialty releases are expanding through January, posting significant increases in their grosses from week to week. The Young Victoria added 311 theatres for a 476-theatre release. The humanizing look at the budding monarch brought in $1 million, a 23% boost from the previous week. Fox Searchlight's Crazy Heart went from 12 to 33 theatres and earned $460,000.

After shedding theatres for the past two months, The Men Who Stare at Goats added back 120 theatres, boosting its gross 189% to $120,000. The week before, it jumped 30% unexpectedly--perhaps viewers are paying attention to those "For Your Consideration" ads?

The most successful of the films positioned as awards winners, Up in the Air, has grossed $54.7 million so far for Paramount. This week it enjoyed a $7.1 million gross and settled into its fourth week in the top ten. Its timely success at the box office could give it that extra push come awards season.

This Friday, The Spy Next Door (Jackie Chan + children) will compete with dystopic sci-fi tale The Book of Eli, as well as an expansion of The Lovely Bones.

'Leap Year' and 'Youth in Revolt' add laughs to the box-office lineup

By Sarah Sluis

This weekend gives us the first wide releases of 2010. Falling into the fairly recognizable genres of romantic comedy, teen comedy, and vampire (I'm counting that as a genre now), these films should open in the middle of the top ten. Christmastime releases like Avatar, Sherlock Holmes, and Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel still have enough steam to finish ahead of the new offerings.

"As fresh as a hunk of week-old

soda bread," Leap Year (2,511 theatres) is one of those predictable romantic comedies usually released during an off time of the year. Watching the trailer pretty much gives away the whole plot, including a twist that happens at least an hour in, so it would be a good choice for those who...well...like to talk during a movie? Like knowing that all of the fighting between Amy Adams and Matthew Goode is just an hour-long procrastination before their inevitable union? The romcom is predicted to finish below Daybreakers but above Youth in Revolt.

Daybreakers (2,523 theatres) brings viewers to a futuristic world where vampires feed off an ever-diminishing group of human survivors. While our critic Maitland McDonagh praises the movie for details like "coffee bars where cups of

java come with blood instead of milk, she finds "the story under this rich surface is simplistic and derivative." The most likely candidates to buy tickets for this vampire dystopia will be young, male frequent moviegoers who have already seen Avatar and Sherlock Holmes.

A fresh installment in the teen comedy genre, Youth in Revolt (1,873 theatres) will have particular hold among teens and twentysomethings. With plenty of laughs and an unrealistically adult level of dialogue, Michael Cera does what he does best: acting like a nerdy, preternaturally aware teen. Cera has been doing extensive web and viral promos, including one with the cast of breakout hit "Jersey Shore," which may give the movie an edge at the box office. It's currently tracking to finish the lowest out these new releases, so an upset could indicate an underestimation of these viral efforts.

On Monday we'll circle back to see Avatar inching toward Titanic's all-time record, the top returnees adding even more coin to their flush pockets, and if Daybreakers, Leap Year, and Youth in Revolt finish in their expected order.

New projects: love triangles, interfering parents, and high school reunions

By Sarah Sluis

The love triangle is complete: Adam Scott has been cast as Amy Adam's boyfriend in the upcoming romantic comedy Leap Year. Intent on taking advantage of an Irish legend that says a person cannot

turn down a marriage proposal on a leap year, Adams travels to Ireland to propose to her commitment-phobe boyfriend (Scott). She enlists an Irish innkeeper (Matthew Goode, from Watchmen and Brideshead Revisited) to help her track down her boyfriend when bad weather interferes with her plans. Presumably, rain, fog, and close quarters lead Adams and Goode to fall for each other. As I mentioned a few months ago, this film rips off the Powell & Pressburger film I Know Where I'm Going, a delightful romantic comedy that has one of the best first ten minutes of all time, economically setting up the characters and plot at a frenetic pace. Apparently, the similarity has only been noticed by two commenters (according to Google), but I hope the screenwriters give a nod to their inspiration, if only to draw attention to the work of the two talented filmmakers. Powell & Pressburger's films were embraced by many of the Hollywood film brats, like Martin Scorsese and Francis Ford Coppola, but many fans of Scorsese and Coppola haven't taken a close look at P&P's work, and how much these directors have borrowed from them.

Also on the romance-comedy front, Jeremy Garelick, writer of The Break-Up, successfully pitched a story about two best friends whose children fall for each other and are soon expecting a baby. The story will focus on how the romance (and baby) affects the two fathers' friendship. I like this concept, which seems very I Love You, Man (conveniently releasing this week), in that it focuses on male friendship, and doesn't shy away from a certain form of sentimentality. I imagine there will be a little Father of the Bride thrown into the screenplay as well. Because the story is based on Garelick's own life (he married the daughter of his parents' best friends), I'm sure there will be some of those gratifying tidbits that are so weird they could only be true.

Lastly, Adam Sandler's untitled high school reunion comedy has added more A(ish)-listers to its cast: Salma Hayek will play Sandler's wife, and Maya Rudolph will play Chris Rock's wife. Kevin James, David Spade and Rob Schneider are already on board. Colin Quinn was also cast, but his role was not specified. Given that the film revolves around five best friends who reunite after thirty years, my guess is that Quinn will play their mutual enemy, or a partner to one of the five men. The Fourth of July-set pic starts shooting this summer and is set to release March 2010. Not a moment too soon, in my opinion, as the rise of Facebook and other social networking sites throws a curveball into the "long-lost-friend" trope. At the very least, screenwriters should already be incorporating some lines that make oblique references to Googling people.