Trailer for 'White House Down' drops in the wake of 'Olympus Has Fallen''s success

Everyone was surprised when Olympus Has Fallen debuted to over $30 million last weekend. It was considered the "lesser" Die Hard-in-the-White House movie. White House Down, which will release in three months, was supposed to be the one everyone would see of the two lookalike films. Now the trailer has dropped for White House Down, so I compared the two. At least when it comes to the trailer, White House Down has the upper hand.

 

Olympus Has Fallen is more about the man: the trailer lets us know that the First Lady died under leading man Gerard Butler's watch, because the Secret Service agent pulled the President out of a car wreck first. He's then trapped in the White House, John McClane-style, as North Koreans take over the Presidential residence.

White House Down expands the scope beyond the White House. We see crowds of people running around the lawns of various monuments, and the dome of the White House in flames. There are helicopters, planes, and missiles. Every effort is made to expand the scope outside the building, although the few scenes with star Channing Tatum give me a sneaking suspicion that more of the movie takes place inside the White House than the trailer lets on. It also heralds the credentials of the director, Roland Emmerich, who has destroyed the White House (and the rest of the world) multiple times, most memorably in Independence Day.

Moviegoers might even have a sneaking suspicion that if White House Down weren't good, there's no way the studio behind it would release it three months after a similar film. THR does a rundown of similar movies that released close together, and it appears that the second film often takes the cake. Meteor disaster pic Armageddon bested Deep Impact, despite releasing second, and Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached ended up in a draw back in 2011. Last year, Snow White-themed Mirror, Mirror floundered despite being first to the theatres, while Snow White and the Huntsman took the bulk of the box office. White House Down should be in good shape come June, and it wins the trailer contest by besting Olympus' explosions, having a broader scope, a more popular leading man and recognizable director.

Trailer Roundup: 'Love and Other Drugs' and 'How Do You Know'

By Sarah Sluis

As the summer winds down, I take a look at the two recently released trailers for the fall/winter movie season.

'Love and Other Drugs'

Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal (who were briefly paired together in Brokeback Mountain) star in Love and Other Drugs, which I had pegged as a romance with some dark comedy thrown in. Based on a memoir by a Viagra pharmaceutical rep, it led me to expect something with a little bit of The Insider in it. After all, pharma salespeople are rather morally ambiguous characters, since their job is to persuade doctors to prescribe more of their drug, regardless of what is the best medical decision for the patient

Enter the trailer:

Do I like Love and Other Drugs more or less after seeing the trailer? Less. Why? The trailer makes the movie sound too much like a typical romantic comedy. Worse, it gives away moments that must take place towards the end of the movie, including crying (presumably after a break-up) and Gyllenhaal's character trying to catch up with the Hathaway character on a bus (which is usually the scene right before they kiss and go to closing credits). It's possible that the movie's premise has just been sanitized for a public that's presumably skittish about anything out of the ordinary, and the strongest sign that this is true is one striking omission. Hathaway's character has Parkinson's Disease, a plot point that never makes its way into the trailer. Maybe audiences would find that too depressing? This movie is still on my to-see list when it comes out November 24th, but now it needs to redeem itself to fall in line with my initial expectations. Another good sign? It's releasing over Thanksgiving, a prime slot that implies the studio thinks it's got a good movie on its hands.

'How Do You Know'

The latest from James L. Brooks (who last directed Spanglish and As Good As It Gets), How Do You Know places Reese Witherspoon, Owen Wilson and Paul Rudd in a love triangle, and also features Jack Nicholson--a cast full of great actors. It centers on a female softball player (Witherspoon) torn between her baseball pitcher boyfriend (Wilson) and a down-on-his luck corporate guy (Rudd).

Enter the trailer:

Do I like How Do You Know more of less after seeing the trailer? More. Most of all, this trailer seems thoughtful, not gimmicky. The trailer brings to mind a Cameron Crowe movie (perhaps Jerry Maguire?) but that's not a bad thing as far as I'm concerned. We learn less about plot points, which are for the most part elided, and more about the characters' states of mind. In As Good As It Gets, so much of the movie was about Jack Nicholson's character, which enriched the relationship he had with Helen Hunt. I really feel that Brooks will be able to pull off a similarly meaningful character transformation here. I also can't decide if this line of Witherspoon's dialogue is interesting or trite: "Most girls' plan is to meet a guy, fall in love, have a baby. But I don't know if I have what it takes for everybody's regular plan." It's pretty common in romantic comedies for women to say they don't want the standard package only to end up with all of the above in the end. However, if Brooks and Witherspoon can make us believe this about Witherspoon's character, I'll be right on board for this movie. It's also eyeing a high-traffic release date on December 17th, where I'm sure it will attract large audiences.

Movies to look forward to: 'Never Let Me Go' & 'Somewhere'

By Sarah Sluis

Focus and Fox Searchlight, those dependable distributors of specialty fare, recently released trailers for Somewhere (trailer) and Never Let Me Go (trailer). Both of the trailers are moody and exciting and fabulous, and I can only hope the movies match up to the previews.

Never Let Me Go (Fox Searchlight) stars Keira Knightley, Carey Mulligan, and Andrew Garfield (The

Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus) as '70s boarding school students with an unusual purpose. In a kind of parallel Britain, they are clones that are educated and then donate four organs before "completing." The movie is based on an acclaimed book (that I couldn't get through) by Kazuo Ishiguro, who was born in Nagasaki a decade after the A-bomb went off (read a great review of the book here).

What sets this world apart from other dystopias is the characters' belief in the system. They don't question what they've been instructed to do, even though they want to live longer than they've been told they will. In the trailer, they seem to be under the impression that if they find true love, they will be given a few more years to live. It's been said that the British love to form a queue, and this adherence to the rules even when the audience clearly sees evidence to the contrary is maddening, creepy, and sad. The director, Mark Romanek, last directed the dark movie One Hour Photo. The trailer offers a first look at the cinematography and costuming in the film. It's odd to see a futuristic movie set in '70s Britian, and the hairstyles sported by Knightley and Mulligan are priceless--who knows, maybe they'll even inspire a trend. The movie will be out October 1st.

The trailer for director Sofia Coppola's Somewhere (Focus) follows the formula of her trailer for Marie

Antoinette--great indie music, decadent locales, and people walking down halls while crazy things are happening. Coppola's movies make really good trailers, but they don't always match

up to the preview highlights. I still remember the excited feeling I got watching

the trailer for her Marie Antoinette (with the great New Order

song "Blue Monday"), but the movie didn't have the same effect on me.

This trailer starts out with music by Phoenix before shifting to the lower-key song "I'll Try Anything Once" by The Strokes. Elle Fanning looks great in the role of a movie star's abandoned daughter, enough to quiet my thoughts of sibling nepotism (she's the younger sister of Dakota). The movie star is played by Stephen Dorff, who has two decades of movie credits without a role that I remember him in. It's great casting--a suitable blank face with movie star looks, and not someone that the audience would have any recollection of from the tabloids. Coppola has been criticized for her lonely-people-in-glamorous-locales theme, but who cares? Audiences like seeing what it's like from a higher perch. The trailer also reveals her fantastic eye for details and looks. She can tell so much by showing father and daughter getting into a car together wearing matching sunglasses, or playing the swimming pool game tea party. Likely pursuing an awards campaign, Fox Searchlight has the movie aimed for a December 22nd release.