MLK weekend rewards 'The Book of Eli,' 'Avatar'

By Sarah Sluis

On Friday night, audiences turned out to see new release The Book of Eli, but by the end of the Martin Luther King holiday weekend, Avatar prevailed once again, earning an estimated $54.6 million over the four-day period.

Avatar enjoyed its fifth week at number one and picked up a couple of significant awards at the Golden Globes on Sunday: Best Picture (Drama) and Best Director for James Cameron. Not so shabby. My own parents tried to catch a matinee of the movie on Monday, but they, like dozens of other people in the lobby, were turned away by a sold-out show--with no more screenings for two and a half hours. They went to the beach rather than catch It's Complicated. Zing.

The Book of Eli, which opened second with an estimated $38 million over the four-day weekend, had a solid $11.6 million opening on Friday and rose to $11.7 million on Saturday before dropping off the next two days to $9 million and $5 million. By comparison, that exceptional beast Avatar did just $10.4 million on Friday, followed by $17, 15, and 11 million the next three days. That kind of rise over a weekend, which can also be seen in its second and fourth weekend, reveals some of the quirks of this long-running (in more than one way) movie. Word-of-mouth usually explains a rise over a movie's opening weekend, but length is a bigger factor here. The 2 hour, 40 minute running time appears to occupy theatres for 3 hours and 30 minutes (once trailers and clean-up is factored in). A 10 o'clock show on a Friday night isn't so appealing when you realize you'll get out at 1 a.m. (past many teenage curfews). The long running time, I suspect, accounts for Avatar's spike on Saturdays and Sundays, when more people attend matinees.

At number three, The Lovely Bones brought in $20 million when it expanded to 2,500 theatres. The showing was much better than I expected, given my disappointment in the literary adaptation, but a quick look reveals that the movie was able to keep its per-screen averages in the five digits during its five-week run in limited release. People, it appears, can be convinced to see the movie, especially given the heavy TV promos I saw (targeted, apparently, to younger women).

Lower down in the top ten, The Spy Next Door debuted at $13 million. The Jackie Chan movie seems like a Karate Kid permutation. I'll hold out for something closer to the real thing. The remake, which stars Jackie Chan and Will Smith's son, Jaden Smith, comes out on June 11th.

Of the films in the rest of the top ten, Up in the Air fell the least, just 7% to $6.6 million. The most-nominated movie at the Golden Globes came away with just one, for screenplay, but continues to charm audiences.

This Friday, horror film Legion will open along with Extraordinary Measures, a heartwarming true story in the tradition of The Blind Side, and The Tooth Fairy, a big-man-in-a-little-fairy-suit comedy.

'Princess and the Frog' reigns over the box office

By Sarah Sluis

Opening precisely in line with expectations, The Princess and the Frog earned $25 million in its first week in wide release. The movie skewed towards females and those under 25. Although this is Disney's first movie with a black princess, the studio said they didn't track ethnicity in its polls, perhaps because they didn't want this film's performance to be gauged according to its appeal among black audiences.

The Blind Side had another stellar weekend, dropping a slim 22% to earn another $15.4 million. The modestly budgeted movie has brought in over $150 million, making it an end-of-year success story.

The other movie trying to marry sports to a more weighty subject, Invictus, opened to just $9 million. Two of Clint Eastwood's recent directorial projects, Gran Torino and Million Dollar Baby, used long platform releases, making comparison difficult. Changeling, however, opened in a small number of theatres before expanding to a $9 million weekend. Its cumulative gross? $35 million. A similar fate may be in store for Invictus, but its superior reviews to Changeling (77% on Rotten Tomatoes to Changeling's 61%) could push it above the 2008 film's total.

Weinstein Co.'s A Single Man debuted in 9 theatres to a per-screen average of $24,000. The Lovely Bones, on four screens, had a per-screen average of $38,600, but its cumulative gross was $116,000 to A Single Man's $216,000. Each came from a different corner of the film marketplace. A Single Man is a recent festival acquisition that went straight from its September premiere in Toronto to theatres this December. It's a quiet film that has generated substantial praise from critics. The Lovely Bones was a big-budget adaptation, but the movie's most expensive parts--the CGI sequences--have been greeted with noses wrinkled in disgust. Rolling Stone compared Jackson's heaven to a Claritin commercial. This movie ranks among my biggest disappointments this year, but its solid opening bodes well for its box office.

Up in the Air nudged closer to the top ten this weekend, adding 57 theatres for a 72-theatre run. It earned $2.4 million and an impressive $34,000 per screen. The layoff-centered comedy has been accruing a sizable amount of nominations and awards. From my perspective, it's a shoo-in for one of the ten Best Picture nods.

This Friday, all eyes will be on Avatar's premiere, with romantic comedy Did You Hear About the Morgans? providing some counter-programming. Nine and Crazy Heart will also make their debut on select screens.

'The Princess and the Frog' to charm its way to box-office crown

By Sarah Sluis

South Africa and the Bayou will take center stage this weekend, as Invictus and The Princess and the Frog roll out in wide release.

The Princess and the Frog (3,434 theatres) is the Disney machine at its nostalgic finest--which includes incredible attention to detail, especially when it comes to possible revenue streams. For the past two and a half weeks, the movie has racked up $2.7 million by creating a full-fledged event involving character meet-and-greets, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and the opportunity to stock up on Princess-related merchandising--all for $50 per head. Only Disney could pull together its filmmaking, theme park, and merchandising experience so well. The movie itself should make a killing, especially since many of those who grew up on Beauty and the Beast are now parents themselves. It's expected to open around $25 million, but the strength of its reviews, including an 82% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, could give families that extra push to see it in theatres.

Invictus (2,125 theatres) is expected to open modestly but keep up its pace for many weeks ahead. Positive reviews, along with a 76% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, should reward the historical drama at the box office as well as the Oscars, though the first category, in this case, is a little more tricky. Our critic Daniel Eagan praised the film as "one of the most mature and satisfying releases of the year," but cautioned that its "challenging subject matter and a crowded holiday marketplace" could see it end up more like Million Dollar Baby than Gran Torino.

The Lovely Bones will roll out in three theatres before expanding over Christmas and then again in mid-January. I posted my scathing assessment of the film yesterday, joining the critical chorus of dissent. According to executive editor Kevin Lally, director Peter Jackson's "expensive production and dazzling visual effects aren't the ideal fit for [author Alice] Sebold's delicate, poignant tale," and the "admittedly impressive but overdone fantasy panoramas" take away the "heart and soul" of the novel. While many of those who read the book will turn out for the movie, they will rank among the most disappointed. By delaying a wide open until early January, however, the movie may be able to take advantage of being a film of its relative quality amidst the January slush.

Fashion designer-turned-director Tom Ford makes his debut with A Single Man, a quiet, expressive film about mourning. Colin Firth plays a closeted gay professor left alone when his partner dies in a car accident. With no one to mourn with, and few understanding the depth of his despair, he goes through a defining day of odd encounters and personal evaluation. Ford's presence is seen in the attentive costuming, changing color palette, and set design, which manages to add something new to the way most movies portray the 1960s (a glimpse of some black-wearing 60s college-age Goths, for example). The movie opens in nine theatres and should set audiences abuzz.

On Monday, The Princess and the Frog will know the expanse of her reign, Invictus will battle for opening weekend dollars, and holdovers The Blind Side and New Moon will prepare for a dip after three weeks at the top.

Weighing in on 'The Lovely Bones'

By Sarah Sluis

Many of the people turning out to see The Lovely Bones on Friday will have read Alice Sebold's haunting book. Told from the perspective of a dead girl, Susie Salmon, after she is raped and murdered, the book brought insight into the aftereffects of such a misunderstood and shrouded crime. Profoundly nuanced, its shaded morality gave its characters emotionally complex reactions to the tragedy.

After reading Alice Sebold's memoir of her own brutal rape, Lucky, I felt I understood The Lovely Bones even more: being a victim of such a terrible crime leads you to experience events as though they are outside yourself. You can easily lose a sense of agency. Instead, you often feel as though you are watching things happen from above. Susie narrating the events going on in her family from heaven is not much different than how she might have experienced life had she been raped but not murdered.

Sadly, much of this is lost in Peter Jackson's interpretation of The Lovely Bones, which completely misses the tone of the book. Most grating is his vision of heaven. He seems more interested in giving his special-effects company a lot of work than motivating the move to fantasy. The surroundings, rich and lush and detailed, stick out from the rest of the movie.

Many people have praised the performances in the movie (and I agree with the assessment that Stanley Tucci has a standout role), but some lines sounded really, really bad and misdelivered to my ears. I saw the actor instead of the character. I suspected part of this was related to the tone. When you're trying to make something wispy and ephemeral, and fail, it can lead to dialogue that feels quite odd.

Finally, there's the rape and murder scene. Given that a child is involved, and the movie's PG-13 rating, it's not surprising that this vicious act is omitted. But instead, Jackson moves quickly from the terror of anticipation to a confusing scene where at first she's actually fleeing, and then she's fleeing in her mind, before finally pausing for a brief moment when she realizes what's happened to her. It missed the mark for me, to the point where I was sitting in the movie theatre in disbelief about how the movie was skipping over one of the most painful, but necessary, moments of the story. What I really wanted was a still moment where the audience was forced to dwell on what was happening. Though I already thought the tone was messed up by then, this really sealed it for me.

This omission will be a comfort to some, and for others it may be all they need to conjure up enough horror. Hollywood Elsewhere, for example was happy with the decision, explaining "I really, really didn't want to go there, even glancingly," and liked Jackson's "decision to show her escaping from her own death, running away from something that has happened but is so horrible that she instantly imagines or wills herself into a fantasy-escape mode." For me, it was not enough to carry through the rest of the movie. In the book, the rape and murder is always on your mind, and it's always on the characters' minds. I didn't feel that way watching the movie.

Given the subject matter, this is the kind of movie that people will see only if motivated by must-see reviews touting its artistic merit. Not many people want to be subjected to a Schindler's List if critics are coming out calling it "so-so." By comparison, Precious has garnered glowing reviews. It, too, shows the rape of a child (much more graphically) and her escaping to a fantasy world. Compared to the elaborate world created by Jackson, her escapist moments are downright spare, but the movie works by keeping us grounded in Precious' dismal reality. Translating Alice Sebold's prose to film, which requires depicting these events on-screen instead of in one's head, is a tall order, so it's not a huge surprise that Jackson didn't succeed. Those that have read the book should skip it or go in with managed expectations.

First peek at Peter Jackson's 'The Lovely Bones'

By Sarah Sluis

Alice Sebold's 2002 novel The Lovely Bones was the kind of book you could never imagine being adapted for the big screen: its main character is a young girl who has been raped and murdered. From her perch in heaven, she observes her family and the killer in the aftermath, narrating both her story and theirs. It's told in a non-sequential structure, with plenty of digressions, flashbacks, and flashforwards that tightly control the reading experience. Despite these challenges, the novel was acquired before it even became a bestseller.

Paramount, it seems, feels it has a winner, and moved up its release from March to awards season, December 11th. After a preview on "Entertainment Tonight," the trailer was just released online, and will be shown before screenings of Julie & Julia, to a suitably female, literary-oriented audience.

My initial reaction to the trailer was mixed. They start with the first line from the book, "My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie," giving readers an assurance of the film's literary authenticity. But the images of Susie's heaven are surprising, much different from what you'd imagine from reading the book. Still, I trust Peter Jackson to interweave fantasy with the narrative. Elijah Wood's intermittent visions of himself with the ring in Lord of the Rings worked quite well, often contrasting a high-energy sequence with the more dreamlike vision, and I anticipate Jackson will be able to accomplish a similar feat in Bones.

One of the most compelling aspects of the book is the disconnect between the horrible tragedies in the book (the murder, grieving family, etc.) and the distant, ethereal, wise tone with which Susie narrates. While the trailer abandons the voice-over halfway though, instead showing us images of the family making passionate but amateur attempts to track down Susie's killer, I hope that Jackson makes a point to include Susie's voice throughout the movie, despite the tonal difficulties that may cause.

The cast includes two Oscar winners and two nominees. Mark Wahlberg (nominee) and Rachel Weisz (winner) star as the Salmon parents, Susan Sarandon (winner) plays the Grandma, and Saoirse Ronan (nominee, Atonement) plays fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon. If the movie plays like the book, it will be strongly female-oriented. However, Wahlberg's character has the same protectionist instinct that appealed to viewers of Taken, the surprise kidnapping hit that starred Liam Neeson, which I think improves the movie's commercial prospects. While The Lovely Bones doesn't scream "Oscar" the way an old-fashioned costume drama does, if it delivers on its trailer I expect it will be among the ten nominees for Best Picture at the Oscars, along with a healthy smattering of nominations for its cast and crew.