'Now You See Me' pulls off magic trick, beats 'After Earth'

Going into the weekend, most predictions had After Earth opening above $30 million, and Now You See Me languishing in the teen-million range. But the predictions were wrong. Now You See Me exceeded expectations, landing in second place with a $28 million opening. After Earth underperformed with just $27 million over the weekend. The fact that Now You See Me wasn't a tentpole worked in its favor, as the feature drew younger audiences (52% under 30) who liked the idea of a light, magic-driven heist movie. The casting of popular star Morgan Freeman also contributed to the bottom line. In contrast, After Earth suffered from poor reviews and a tepid "B" CinemaScore. The original sci-fi concept also didn't entice audiences the way other pre-sold Will Smith and Jaden Smith properties, like MIB 3 and The Karate Kid, did.

Bollywood movies often debut in the top twenty, but it's rare for a feature to open in the top ten. But that was the case for Yei Jawaani Hai Deewani, which landed in ninth place with $1.6 million, posting a $10,000 per-screen average. The romantic coming-of-age story stars Ranbir Kapoor, the fourth generation of an action family who have been dubbed "Bollywood royalty."

Eco-thriller The East debuted with the highest per-screen average of the week, earning $18,900 in each of its four locations. Fellow indie The Kings of Summer was right behind, averaging $14,500 per screen in its four-screen opening weekend. Before Midnight had an excellent second weekend as it expanded from five to 31 locations. The travelogue romance averaged $13,000 per screen and earned $431,000. With $800,000 in total, the Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy starrer should pass $1 million by week three.

This Friday, Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson sign up for The Internship with Google, and those in search of scares can check out the speculative thriller The Purge.

'After Earth' and 'Now You See Me' unlikely to overtake 'Fast & Furious 6'

Jaden Smith is a rising star. He played opposite his dad, Will Smith, in The Pursuit of Happyness, and then led The Karate Kid to a $55 million opening. The prospects for his latest, After Earth (3,401 theatres), are not quite as bright. Projections have the movie opening in the $35-$40 million range, which would put it behind the second weekend of Fast & Furious 6. But then again, I think there is a chance that the movie could overperform, even with the terrible reviews coming in. Our Daniel Eagan, for one, dismissed the feature as a "somber, soapy, only occasionally effective sci-fi adventure." That said, although the father-son tale is intense, meriting its PG-13 rating, it could still appeal to families with kids who are a bit past the sweet spot for animated features. Marketing has completely left out the fact that M. Night Shyamalan directed, a sign of how this once brand-name director has fallen in audiences' estimation.

A group of magicians pull off a heist in Now You See Me (2,925 theatres), which our critic Harry Haun calls a "fun ride if you don’t look where you have been or where you are headed." In other words, just sit back and enjoy the magic, and don't worry too much about the "big leaps from
logic" or unbelievable plot twists. The estimates for this sleight-of-hand feature are modest, with an expected opening in the teen millions.

There are already a few great indies out right now--Frances Ha and Before Midnight are on track to be the biggest successes, but there's also Fill the Void, Stories We Tell, What Maisie Knew, Kon-Tiki, and Mud, which is still going strong. This week, two more indies with strong prospects release. The eco-thriller The East (4 theatres), which stars Another Earth's Brit Marling, was a movie I loved, and so did our critic David Noh, who dubs it a "gripping, intelligent and deeply socially conscious thriller" that is the "best feature
inspired by the Occupy movement," with an "all-around technical smoothness and visual certitude that is a real
yet unstressed joy to anyone interested in truly good
moviemaking." A strong per-screen average in its debut will set this movie up well for the rest of the summer.

A kind of Stand By Me on stylistic steroids, The Kings of Summer (4 theatres) charmed Noh, leading him to call it the "perfect summer movie for 2013." Centering on three boys who escape to the woods, build a house, and live (somewhat successfully) off the land, the coming-of-age tale has "verve, freshness, laughs and effective moments of rue." The very accessible movie should resonate with young indie-seeking crowds.

On Monday, we'll see if After Earth manages to overperform expectations, if Now You See Me can pull off some box-office magic, and weigh in on the performance of the new and returning specialty releases.

Miley Cyrus eyes a 'Twilight'-like role in 'Wake'

By Sarah Sluis

Miley Cyrus has already gone from being a tween superstar to a household name among all ages. Now she's doing something harder: aging up and into more mature roles. Cyrus may star in Wake, the first in a series of young adult novels about a girl who gets caught up in other people's dreams. It sounds like her character

has a similar talent to Leonardo DiCaprio in this summer's Inception, but her gift is more supernatural and less sci-fi. Because the book has horror and suspense elements, the tone will be edgier without being sexier. She's gotten a lot of heat lately for provocative performances at recent concerts, but the seventeen-year-old's first non-Hannah Montana feature was comparatively tame. She played the lead in The Last Song, a Nicholas Sparks adaptation that was written especially for her and thus certified to be Cyrus family-friendly.

Wake is the first in a series that now encompasses three books, the latter two entitled Fade and Gone. The girl, Janie, has the ability to go inside other people's dreams if they are physically near her. She also discovers that she can direct their dreams, turning the fears expressed in nightmares into something more manageable. She can give people closure. She drops in on the dream of a burnout named Cabel, and discovers that there's a lot more there than meets the eye--he becomes her boyfriend and later her sidekick as she tries to figure out who dreamed one horrible dream she cannot forget. The movie will be distributed by Paramount and MTV Films (which passed on Twilight) is developing the project. Christopher Landon (Disturbia) will write the script, and whether or not Cyrus gets on board will depend on the quality of the script.

So kudos to Miley. The project's supernatural overtones put it in the trendy Twilight territory without being directly vampire-related.Also, although the heroine has a boyfriend, it's not a romance, so Cyrus isn't going the rom-com route--thank goodness. She's still stuck in a hard game, and there's plenty of popular young actresses popular in the tabloids but unable to make the switch to adult roles. Lindsay Lohan crashed and burned her way out of Disney movies, and Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen have more success now with fashion than they do on movie sets. Cyrus has never appealed to me--she has a kind of awkward demeanor that's inconsistent with being a movie star without being charming in its own way. While she has hordes of young fans, it's possible that her grown-up fans may want to cast her off instead of growing up with her. Just one more note to Miley about her image: stop slouching!