Could 'Prometheus' be this summer's biggest adult popcorn movie?

I'm not going to discount The Dark Knight Rises, but Prometheus looks like it could be this summer's best adult-oriented popcorn movie. Directed by Ridley Scott, the June 8th release is a kind of prequel to Alien, sharing some of the DNA from the series while not alluding directly to anything in Alien. As I understand it, the originality and strength of the script made those involved decide not to taint the project by giving it an Alien title, given the poor quality of some of the franchise's sequels.

In a superb bit of marketing, 20th Century Fox released a three-minute video of Guy Pearce hamming it up as overconfident businessman Peter Weyland. His character gives a TED (technology, entertainment, design) talk in 2023 (thirty years before the film itself is set). Weyland appears to rule over a Terminator-esque Skynet corporation that's creating artificial life forms. I'm a big proponent of studios using materials like this to develop awareness and knowledge without giving away more and more of the footage. After seeing The Hunger Games last night, which had no footage of the actual games in the promotional material, I can vouch for the success of this method. When you have fans who are going to obsessively pore over all the advance media released, it's nice to save them a few surprises for the actual feature.

 

The trailer for Prometheus itself is adrenaline-filled and looks like a nice mix of sci-fi, action, and horror. In the vein of Stargate or Jurassic Park, it pairs up old knowledge, via an archaeologist, with cutting-edge scientific advancements. Noomi Rapace (the original Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) plays an archaeologist who discovers multiple civilizations share the same "map," which she and others use to explore another planet. There they discover alien life forms. Surprise surprise, they aren't so friendly and welcoming after all. Idris Elba of "The Wire," Michael Fassbender (Shame) and Oscar winner Charlize Theron add considerable talent to the cast.

The "ancient text leads to modern quest" backstory that underpins the whole project has been used dozens of times before. In fact, using an ancient, mystical object for futuristic, sci-fi purposes is an iteration itself of adventure serials that focused more on discovering and battling for special objects rather than putting them to use. If what I've seen so far is half as good as the actual movie, I'm betting that Prometheus will be the strongest film in the franchise since Alien and Aliens.

Top Ten Summer Movies by the numbers

By Sarah Sluis

Sure, it's not Labor Day yet, but all the movie moneymakers of the summer have already been released. So far, the top ten grossing movies of the summer (from May 1st on) are as follows:

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
3. Up
4. The Hangover
5. Star Trek
6. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
8. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
9. The Proposal
10. Angels & Demons

By the numbers:

• 7 of the 10 are sequels or franchise relaunches



• 2 are animated



• 1 comedy and 1 romantic comedy made the list



• 9 have a rating of PG-13 or lower



• the #1 movie made 3 times as much as the #10 movie ($400 million vs. $133 million)



• 4 of the 10 have colons in the title



• 7 of the 10 involve creatures with human properties (talking animals, machines, aliens...)



• The average score on Rotten Tomatoes was 57.6%; 4 of the 10 had approval ratings above this number

I love this information. From one perspective, you could look at the statistics and decide that if you want to make the next blockbuster, you need to find a franchise with human-like creatures, include a lot of action but not enough that it reads as a comedy, make it PG-13 or under, and use a colon in the title if necessary. And don't really worry too much about the critics. Just your audience.

The other way involves looking at all the ways these titles don't fit into the mold. The Hangover is the biggest outcast of the bunch, an R-rated comedy that came out of nowhere, with no franchise, pre-sold title, or even A-list stars.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was the #1 movie, but an absolute bomb (19% on Rotten Tomatoes) among critics. I know I still haven't fully figured that one out. Pixar's Up is an incredibly original movie, but it actually fits into the mold of a "top ten" film: it's rated PG, involves (ingeniously) talking creatures, and is an animated kid-to-adult movie. It's also part of a franchise, not one defined by repeating characters or plotlines, but by its studio, Pixar, which has cultivated a must-see reputation among its films.

There's still a chance for movies to rise into the ranks of the summer top ten, but right now the mix seems about right: a few CGI/animated movies that appeal to kids, action and action franchises, and at least one dark horse (in 2008, it was Mamma Mia!). The past few years, six of the movies in the top ten were released in the summer, three or so in the November-December holiday season, and a fourth in March, during the Spring Break holidays. At least six of these movies are going to hang around with Monsters vs. Aliens in the 2009 top ten. With summer movie season coming to a close, my eyes are on the three or so movies that will make their way into the top ten: New Moon? Avatar?

Glorious opening for 'Basterds'

By Sarah Sluis

Brad Pitt, the Nazis, and Quentin Tarantino? The combination proved to be a box-office success, as Inglourious Basterds racked up $37.5 million over the weekend. The movie played steadily throughout the time period, dropping just 10% on Saturday and an additional 20% on Sunday. Some attributed the performance to strong word-of-mouth, as documented by Twitter.

Live action/CGI hybrid Shorts debuted at number six, earning $6.6 million. Coming in at the tail end of a summer filled with the usual CGI sequels and an exemplary Pixar film, the movie drew in a tiny audience, a fraction of those who saw director Robert Rodriguez's Spy Kids franchise.

Post Grad also attracted a small, niche audience, and suffered from being a Fox Atomic release that was moved to Fox Searchlight after Atomic shuttered. It squeaked into the top ten with a $2.6 million gross. With a target audience of girls under the age of star Alexis Bledel, it just couldn't attract enough attention at the box office.

Julie & Julia leveled its fall, dropping the least out of the movies in the top ten. Its take went down by 25% (compared to 38% in its second week), allowing it to cook up another $9 million. Fending off competition from Inglourious Basterds, District 9 dropped 49% to come in at number two with $18.9 million. Even as it dropped screens, Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince brought in another $3.5 million, with a total of $290 million over six weeks.

Among specialty releases, X Games 3D: The Movie wiped out, badly. It brought in $572 per theatre at 1,399 locations. Reviews were lackluster, and the adrenaline-seeking fan base either didn't know about the movie, or didn't find it worthy of the big-screen treatment.

Next week will be particularly light on movie offerings, with just two horror movies coming out. The casual moviegoer will have the chance to catch up on movies they missed--and kids will start heading back to school and away from weekday matinees.

'District 9' takes over box office

By Sarah Sluis

Surpassing industry expectations, District 9 earned a stellar $37 million this weekend, thanks to strong showings from men and an intriguing viral campaign that deemed spaces "humans only" and drew attention to the movie's documentary feel. With only $30 million in production costs, and an international setting of South Africa, this movie appears poised to make a tidy profit in the U.S. and abroad.

In its second week, G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra dropped 59% to $22.5 million, but its profitable summer weekdays (it earned $21.5 million from Monday through Thursday) have already brought its cumulative gross to $98.7 million. The toy movie's success, the second this summer after Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, will ensure that plenty more toy and game-based movies receive the greenlight.

Opening at number three, The Time Traveler's Wife netted $19.2 million. With two female-oriented competitors in the top ten, its performance was solid and in line with expectations. Butter-heavy Julie & Julia dropped a light 38% to bring in $12.4 million. At number eight, The Ugly Truth eked out another $4.5 million, a 33% drop, in its fourth week at the box office.

Of the remaining three movies opening wide during the weekend, The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard brought in the most business, $5.3 million, enough to warrant a number six spot in the rankings. Ponyo opened even smaller, at number nine, earning $3.5 million. Since the animated feature only debuted on 927 screens, it boasted a higher per-screen average than The Goods and other movies higher up in the rankings. Bandslam, well-reviewed but little-seen, opened outside of the top ten, at number thirteen, with a paltry $2.2 million gross.

The other musical opener of the week, documentary It Might Get Loud, drummed up $14,400 per screen at seven locations. Featuring Jimmy Page, Jack White, and The Edge jamming together and talking about their music, this is an auspicious start for a film that already has a planned expansion across the U.S. from now up through October.

This Friday, all eyes will be on Weinstein Co.'s Inglourious Basterds, which has been tweaked since its so-so reception at the Cannes Film Festival, and whose success is critical to the company's future. It will be joined by Fox Searchlight's Post-Grad and kid-oriented Shorts, a fantastical mix of CGI and live-action.

'District 9' and 'Time Traveler's Wife' challenge 'G.I. Joe'

By Sarah Sluis

This week, five films are opening wide, offering audiences a diverse variety to choose from. District 9 and The Time Traveler's Wife are expected to be the two top earners this weekend, with Ponyo, Bandslam, and The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard coming in somewhere behind. With no film expected to pull in more than $20-25 million, G.I. Joe could grab the top spot if it falls roughly 50%, which would put it at $27 million. However, its middling reviews could easily send it plunging to number three, behind District 9 and The Time Traveler's Wife.

District 9 (3,049 screens) frames its tale of aliens through the lens of South African apartheid. Years ago, an alien ship stopped over Johannesburg, filled with sick, weak extraterrestrials. They were set up in refugee camps, which quickly turned into shantytowns, and acquired the status of second-class citizens, complete with their own derogatory slur, "prawn." District 9 "flirts with greatness," but it never quite gets there. Still, it's worth seeing for the first half alone, which combines documentary footage and interviews with people alluding to "the event" that makes you insatiably curious for what is to come.

People who managed not only to get through Audrey Niffenegger's book, but to list it as one of their favorites on Facebook will undoubtedly enjoy The Time Traveler's Wife (2,988 screens). Everyone else, steer clear. The movie suffers from the same faults of the book, and fails to deliver anything beyond its novel premise. Manohla Dargis from the NY Times points out what everyone else is afraid to say--the movie is "creepy" and the scenes with a six-year-old Claire and a forty-something man don't quite work on-screen. The movie is too heavy on fate and light on characterization: the characters just fall in love without any real courtship of explanation, assuming that perhaps you, too, would instantly fall in love with a naked time traveler from the future if he arrived in your backyard. While audience members sniffled at the end of my screening, I think it's a problem when the biggest emotional scenes in the movie--like the wedding--elicit laughs, instead of the longing or fulfillment experienced by the characters.

Releasing on a tight 927 screens, Ponyo should charm audiences who are fans of director Hayao Miyazaki, as well as those interested in a change from the U.S. style of feature-length animation. With the amount of kid's television programming out there featuring dubbed anime, it may be parents who are more surprised by the "gorgeous 2D animation" and Miyazaki's use of the unexpected, like "rising waves sprouting ominous eyes" Overall, our Executive Editor Kevin Lally deems this "artist's unceasing sense of wonder...something every parent should encourage their children to experience."

Reviews for Bandslam (2,121 screens) came out shortly after John Hughes' death, leading reviewer Michael Rechtshaffen to speculate that if "Cameron Crowe and the late John Hughes collaborated on a movie populated by Disney Channel superstars, the result might have looked and sounded a lot like Todd Graff's Bandslam." The movie sounds a little like the "let's put on a show" movies so popular in the earlier days of Hollywood, but with a believable modern update. It's expected to open low, perhaps due to not enough marketing, but "there's plenty to keep post-tween audiences amused."

Jeremy Piven makes "Entourage," but it appears he can't rescue The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard (1,838 screens) from its wacky jokes that go all over the place but fail to cohere into a story or consistent comedy. Instead, they end up "pounding the viewer into submission but not in a particularly amused way." This comedy will likely appeal to fans of Piven or Will Ferrell, who executive produced the film and appears in a cameo.

Monday, we'll see how these five new movies fared this weekend, and which films they knocked down or out of the top ten.

Party's still on for 'The Hangover'

By Sarah Sluis

The Hangover has hit the jackpot. Last week it was the surprise #1. The day after Up was declared the winner, higher-than-estimated Sunday grosses pushed The Hangover to the top spot. This week, the Las Vegas comedy dropped a mere 25% to earn $33.4 million. Thanks to high weekday grosses, its cumulative box office has already passed the nine-figure mark: $105,000,000. With a $9,960 per-screen average, plenty of people were turned away from Friday and Saturday night screenings, ensuring high grosses in weeks to come.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 opened lower on the list, taking in $25 million and the #3 spot. It's a solid opening for an actioner that didn't receive much buzz. Lower on the list, the lightly marketed Imagine That came up with just $5.7 million at #6. Family audiences likely chose the much higher regarded Up over the Eddie Murphy film. In its third week, Up soared to $187 million cumulative, bringing in $30.5 million while losing just 30% of its gross.

Of the rest of the films in the top ten, Land of the Lost dropped the most (51%), followed by Drag Me to Hell (45%) and Terminator Salvation (43%). Of the three, Drag Me to Hell was the best reviewed, so it may actually be defying the precipitous drops (of 50-70%) often seen with horror titles.

Dropping between 32-35%, generally considered a better-than-average performance, were Star Trek, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and Angels & Demons. All these films have crossed the $100 million mark (and Trek the $200 million mark), so their mid-30's drops will help boost the ends of their runs.

On the specialty side, Food, Inc. was the clear winner, earning $21,000 on each of its three screens. Moon followed with $18,000 on eight screens, and Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro came in with $15,000 on two screens. All are stellar performances, and bode well for the films' expansion.

This week, ancient-times comedy Year One will try to perform more like The Hangover and less like Land of the Lost. Sandra Bullock rom-com The Proposal, the first of the genre since Ghosts of Girlfriends Past released on May 1st, also stands to do exceptional business for romance-starved audiences.

$87 million for 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine'

By Sarah Sluis

Coming in right in the middle of the $70-$100 million estimates that were floating around in Hollywood, X-Men Origins: Wolverine earned $87 million this weekend, six times the amount of the second-runner-up, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past ($15.3 million). The latter film earned the same amount as last year's Made of Honor, which seems fitting since both received similar thumbs-down reviews.

The success of X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a pleasant kick-off to the summer movie season. Despite the recession, movie grosses are up, and the turnout for Wolverine suggests that other big titles this summer--including next week's origin re-do, Star Trek, and the time-traveling Terminator Salvation two weeks from now, can bring in at least the same audiences.

Among the rest of the top ten, titles competing for the Wolverine audience, like Fighting ($4.1 million), dropped heavily, while kid-oriented titles 17 Again ($6.3 million), Hannah Montana: The Movie ($4 million), and Monsters vs. Aliens continued to hold strong. However, proving counterprogramming doesn't always work, kid-oriented, animated opener Battle for Terra debuted outside of the top ten at number twelve, earning $1 million, and only $916 per (3D) theatre. Compare that take with the six-week-old Monsters vs. Aliens, which dropped only 31% even as it shed 732 theatres, some of them 3D screens that made the mistake of screening Battle for Terra. The Paramount/DreamWorks film still earned twice as much per theatre, $2,200, totaling $5.8 million. While surely the marketing budget wasn't there for Terra, I think the quality of the animation, as well as the fact that it wasn't from an "animation-focused" studio like Disney or even DreamWorks, impacted its tiny gross.

This Friday Star Trek, helmed by "Lost's" J.J. Abrams, opens. I had the chance to see the film last week, and despite my unfamiliarity with the Star Trek mythology, I found the film compelling, humorous, and appealing to demographics beyond just the "Trekkies." It's truly a mild PG-13 film, so I imagine it doing extremely well with younger crowds. With Wolverine exceeding expectations this weekend, will some of the moviegoers who saw the film take a break and not see Trek on opening weekend? May is a tight month, with Star Trek being followed by Angels & Demons, then Terminator Salvation, then Pixar's Up the last week of May, so viewers will have to prioritize, even with tentpoles.