‘Divergent’ justifies franchise plans

Young-adult adaptation Divergent hit the mark this weekend with its $56 million bow. Although less than that which the first Twilight or either of the Hunger Games films earned over their opening weekends, Divergent’s debut is nonetheless strong enough to justify Summit Entertainment’s plans to move ahead with sequels Insurgent (booked for March 2015) and Allegiant (March 2016). And a good thing, too – shooting on Insurgent has already begun.

Muppets Most Wanted landed in second place but failed to measure up to its predecessor. The family film stumbled out of the gate, grossing $16.5 million. Although no one expected Most Wanted to perform as well as 2011’s The Muppets, which enjoyed a $29.2 million debut, most pundits were predicting returns in the low $20 millions. Audiences awarded the film a “B+” CinemaScore grade, which means generally positive word-of-mouth should help it reach a total of around $50 million by the end of its theatrical run.

The number three and four slots went to holdovers Mr. Peabody & Sherman ($11.7 million) and 300: Rise of an Empire ($8.7 million), respectively. The weekend’s great success story, however, belongs to No. 4, or God’s Not Dead. The film about a young Christian college student who challenges his atheist professor raked in a great $8.56 million, the best debut ever for a faith-based movie opening in fewer than 1,000 theatres. The surprise hit could earn as much as $30 million in total, further testament (no pun intended) to the fact the Christian faithful is a demographic to be reckoned with.

Need for Speed continued to sputter, dipping 56 percent to earn the weekend’s No. 5 spot with its $7.78 million tally.

In the specialty realm, Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel keeps on chugging merrily along,  adding an additional $6.75 million to its cume that now stands at just under $13 million. After a successful platform release, it will finally expand wide, to 800+ theatres, next weekend.

How over-the-top can a movie trailer be? Check out the one for 'Alex Cross'

Actor/writer/director/producer Tyler Perry is best known for his funny grandma character, Madea, but has opted for something more serious by taking on the titular role in Alex Cross, an adaptation of James Patterson's crime novel series about an FBI profiler who tracks down serial and other demented killers. Morgan Freeman played Alex Cross in 1997's Kiss the Girls and 2001's Along Came a Spider. A decade later, Perry has stepped into the role, acting in a project he neither wrote nor directed--something he hasn't done outside of a small role in 2009's Star Trek.

The trailer for the October release from Summit Entertainment just hit the Internet. To say the movie is pulpy is an understatement. The often over-the-top dialogue sounds ripped from the pages of the source material, Patterson's Cross (the twelfth book in the series). Perry's character tries to parse a serial killer's motives, leading to ominously-delivered gems such as "He's ex-military. Special forces judging by his tactics. Trying to make someone hurt. Wants somebody to pay, wants the world to suffer." This is "Law & Order" kicked up several notches.

 

 

A nice pulpy crime thriller can be exactly what people need, especially during an off month like October. It's possible Alex Cross could have the success of Taken. In that film, Liam Neeson's daughter was kidnapped. In this film, Cross' wife becomes a target for the serial killer. The Lincoln Lawyer, a legal thriller starring Matthew McConaughey, crossed the $50 million mark last year with a similarly pulpy tête-à-tête between the good guy and the bad guy. These movies are generally in that "dead zone" of budgeting, $25-75 million. They need some effects, but no monsters destroying bridges or epic car chases. They're the kind of movies that some people save for an evening in rather than an evening out. As the trailer makes perfectly clear, by giving up twists that have to be in the third act (wife may be a target! killer uses scuba gear to get into building through pipes!), you'll know exactly what you're getting when you buy your ticket to Alex Cross. For a lot of people, that's a good thing.

 

'Twilight' a romance of meaningful glances

By Sarah Sluis

Like a teenage daydream ignited by the examination of each possible meaning of that look your lab
partner gave you in biology, Twilight imbues meaningful glances with more smoldering romance than one would think possible in this millennium.  Caught in a romance that transcends time, Edward and Bella just have to search each other's pale, slender-chinned, slow-motion, extreme close-up faces, and make eye contact.  The audience shrieks, sighs, and they know, we know, that it doesn't matter that Edward is a vampire and Bella is a human.  They will be together, forever.  Repeat this moment every couple scenes (in a tree, in a house, in a parking lot, in biology class!) like a fugue, and you have the thrill and electricity of Twilight.

Overwrought emotion is frequently dismissed as melodrama, but with Twilight the sustained palpablity of emotion is a compliment.  Some moments of dialogue may inspire a too-good-to-be-true laughter among more jaded audience members, but that doesn't mean they're not enjoying it.  What kind of person would throw away a love note just because it's too earnest in some points?  For fangirls in the throes of a relationship with Edward and Bella (Stephenie Meyer's series now numbers four) there are private jokes.  A scene in which Edward calls himself a lion and Bella a lamb inspired gasping shrieks among the fangirls seated below me, melting over the enunciation of the pet name they had only ever read.

Like arty vampire picture Let the Right One In, Twilight
takes time to show us the "rules" and the

day-to-day life of vampires.  We get to visit Edward's house, the residence of several vampires.  The modern space has a large, framed, modern color block painting.  Upon closer examination, we see dozens of graduation caps acquired by the perpetually high school-age Cullen family.  "Yeah, it's kind of a family joke," notes Edward wryly.  Bella remarks on the lack of a bed in Edward's room (he doesn't sleep), in an exchange remarkably devoid of innuendo.  We learn the powerful vampires love to play baseball, but only in a
thunderstorm, when the cracks of their bats blend in with the thunder.  The rendering of the game is no Quidditch, and I bet producer Summit Entertainment wished they had spent a little more on special effects, which could have been more robust and drawn out.  But because we are so emotionally invested in Edward and Bella, the thrilling escape scene in a Jeep that follows surpasses, for a brief moment, the emotional impact of Quantum of Solace.  Ouch.

Twilight will undoubtedly do well at the box office, so the question everyone is asking now is HOW well.  Over 2,000 screenings are sold out, more than many of the previous Harry Potter movies.  The word-of mouth among the series' devotees is effusive:  as soon as the girls at the advance screening could rip their embargoed cell phones out of the manila envelopes (I screened the film on Tuesday, and Summit required we relinquish all cell phones during the film, even wanding audience members to check), their fingers started sending gushing texts.  Forget word-of-mouth, Twlight will succeed based on Facebook statuses and Twitters. 

As far as numbers, I'll enter my "superstar" prediction here: $100 million in four weeks.  This summer's Sex and the City, with its older, but still devoted, fan base, passed the $100 million mark in its third week (it made $99 million through its second week).  Most of this year's animated pictures have passed $100 million in two weeks.  The cautionary comparison is live-action HSM3: Senior Year, an aging franchise, but still one with a devoted legion of Zac Efron fans.  That film has earned $84 million through its fourth week--I see that as Twilight's worst-case scenario, which would still vastly exceed the film's sub-$40 million production budget.  Summit Entertainment still claims they  only expect $40 million in returns, but the numbers $50 and $60 million have also been floated around.  If Twilight can earn $50 million in its first week, and drop less than 50% each subsequent week (exponential decay, the subject of Twilight girls' math homework!), it will make $100 million in four weeks.  However, as much as I would like to see this film succeed, vaulting the stars, the series, and Summit into a big deal, I don't see girls successfully dragging their relatives to Twilight over next week's Thanksgiving weekend.  Time will tell.