'Dear John,' 'From Paris with Love' provide alternatives to the Super Bowl

By Sarah Sluis

Take out your seven-layer dip, it's Super Bowl weekend, when people forgo popcorn for hot wings around a 60-inch screen. On Sunday, movie ticket sales drop precipitously as TV ratings go sky-high. Replicating a formula from last year, studios are releasing both a female-oriented romance expected to play through the weekend, as well as an action movie to catch males Friday and Saturday before most settle in for the big game.

Dear John (2,969 theatres) "falls in the upper middle range" of Nicolas Sparks adaptations, according to New York Times critic A.O. Scott. Amanda Seyfried plays a goody-two-shoes who falls for a rough solider (Channing Tatum). They correspond for his year-long deployment, but then 9/11 happens, he re-enlists, and the romance suffers. Slate critic Dana Stevens, who wrote her review in the form of a Dear John letter, voices one of Seyfried's Little Ms. Perfect dilemnas: "Would I be able to organize enough fundraisers to keep him alive and one day realize my dream of opening a horseback-riding camp for autistic children?" With a built-in fan base of Nicolas Sparks readers, Dear John should make a sizeable sum at the box office this weekend.

From Paris with Love (2,722 theatres) releases exactly a year after director Pierre Morel's smash hit Taken. Though the movie tries to replicate the successful elements of the first movie, it doesn't quite work, according to FJI critic Daniel Eagan. Using that familiar veteran/rookie pair-up (played by John Travolta and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, respectively), "the Travolta part...is played for laughs, while the rest pretends to deal seriously with matters of love and trust," leading to an inconsistent tone.

Not to be confused with District 9, District 13: Ultimatum, the sequel to District B13, will open in nine theatres. Director Luc Besson's action thriller "aims to please and nails its targets with more speed and style than most of its higher-priced competition," according to Eagan.

Taking advantage of the buzz generated at its Sundance debut, Frozen will open in 106 theatres. The Open Water-esque premise has three skiers stranded on a ski lift for a weekend. Unfortunately, the thriller is unable to "create a self-enclosed world that allows the audience to suspend disbelief," according to critic James Greenberg. Horror movies really need to solve that cell phone problem.

With the Oscar nominations released this Tuesday, four of the nominated films will expand their runs. The Hurt Locker, which is already out on DVD, will move onto 110 screens. Precious will go from 222 to 669 theatres. Crazy Heart will ramp up its release, going from 239 theatres to 819. An Education, which had dwindled to just a four-theatre run from 200 screens, will expand to 760 theatres this weekend. Adding something new to the mix, Oscar-nominated documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers will debut on two screens.

Of course, despite all these new offerings and Oscar-related expansions, Avatar is expected to win the box office for the eighth week in a row, with added interest due to its nine Oscar nominations.

You got rights to that? Hollywood taps unlikely sources for movie material

By Sarah Sluis

It used to be that movies were based on original ideas or adapted from a book or play. When a movie drew inspiration from actual events, they were usually concerning historical figures or events known to the general public--Gandhi, true crime, or that thinly veiled portrait of Hearst in Citizen Kane. Moreover, Hollywood didn't have a problem fictionalizing the objects and places in everyday life. People used detergent and ate cereal with made-up brand names. In National Lampoon's Vacation, they went to Walley World, even though everyone knew they were talking about Disneyland.

But times have changed. Nowadays, Hollywood frequently picks up the rights to story fragments, objects, games, action figures, and newspaper articles, and then creates a story around them. Sometimes they are well-known (Monopoly), and other times they are relatively obscure (the pickup of a newspaper article about a family that had architects build puzzles into their house).

The latest such project is the pickup of a WEBSITE. You heard me, a U-R-L. DreamWorks has acquired the rights to website Musunahi (www.musunahi.com/), the Museum of Supernatural History. The studio plans to create a story that will "center on the curator of a covert organization known as the Museum of SuperNatural History who must seek out and protect the world's best-kept secrets."

Why not just bypass acquiring the rights to the website but create a fictional version of the same thing? One answer lies in the proliferation of reality television. People love "based on actual events," and teasing out what's real from what's not in reality shows, a challenge that's increased as the shows have become more and more scripted. Having a connection to the real world in a fictional story can ramp up an audience's level of interest if it's done right. Plus, for a movie about aliens and Loch Ness monsters, blurring the line between reality and fiction makes even more sense.

Then there's the marketing consideration. It will be much easier for DreamWorks to mobilize the Musunahi community if they don't have to convince fans the movie is relevant to them: they will already know that the movie is directly based on the museum's material.

But back to the acquisition of a website. What does it say about our culture that movies now hook us because of their things instead of people? A biography of a glamourous songstress may inspire those who want to be like her, those who want to learn about her, or those fascinated with the time period. An object can have the same effect. In the age of user-generated content, people may be more interested in seeing depictions of objects, things, sites they consume rather than a remote historical or celebrity figure.

Clash of the Tentpoles: 'Avatar,' �Alice,' �Titans' and �Dragon' compete for 3D screens

By Sarah Sluis

Three Oscar-nominated movies this year released in 3D: Best Picture nominees Avatar and Up, and Best Animated Feature nominee Coraline (Up also received a nomination in that category). 3D has arrived not only at the multiplex but the most prestigious awards ceremony in film.

Too bad there aren't enough screens to show these movies in 3D.

Just when distributors and exhibitors finally ironed out an agreement that would allow them to share the cost of digital upgrades, the recession hit. Though the film industry remains in good shape, in part because of the conversions to the higher-priced screens that did happen, production of 3D films exceeds theatrical capacity. Wide releases need thousands of screens, and right now there's only room for one film at a time.

Last year, Coraline had to compete with My Bloody Valentine 3D for early 2009 spots in 3D screens. This year, behemoth Avatar will have to cede to Tim Burton's 3D fantasy Alice in Wonderland. With Avatar still selling out 3D theatres, especially in IMAX, there's talk of extending Avatar's run. According to a New York Times article on the subject, there have been talks to allow Avatar to continue playing for midnight screenings (which presumably would be less popular for the PG-rated Alice) as a compromise.

The crowding doesn't end there. Just this week, Warner Bros. announced it has converted Clash of the Titans, a Greek mythology-inspired action movie, to 3D. That means the movie will step on the toes of How to Train Your Dragon, a (charming!) DreamWorks animation tale. Though the studio changed Clash of the Titans' release date from March 26th to April 2nd, Titatns will now grab some screens from Dragon just a week after the movie releases.

But, wait, there's more! Because of the low cost of converting a 2D film to 3D ($5 million or so), tons of big-budget films have jumped on the bandwagon. The last two Harry Potter movies will definitely be in 3D, as will Cats and Dogs 2. Despite Transformers 3's looming deadline, there are talks of converting the movie to 3D in post-production. What started out with animation studios like Pixar and DreamWorks Animation, who committed to produce all their upcoming films in 3D, has turned into a format almost every genre is rushing to embrace. Get ready to make 3D glasses standard eyewear at the movies.

Academy's expanded Best Picture category rewards 'top 10' films

By Sarah Sluis

When the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced that it was expanding the number of Best Picture nominees from five to ten, most people speculated two things would happen: 1) crowd-pleasing, high-grossing movies would receive nominations. 2) smaller, independent movies would receive nominations. Well, the answers are in: the first thing happened, and the second not so much.

Three of the ten Oscar nominees for Best Picture were in the 2009 box-office top ten. Avatar is currently #1 for 2009, Up is #4, and The Blind Side is #8. If any movie was a long shot for Best Picture, The Blind Side was it. Many critics would have preferred to see Bright Star, a tiny but well-reviewed film, in that spot.

The last time a top ten film was even nominated was at the 76th Academy Awards, when Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (the #1 film of the year) swept the awards in Titanic-like fashion. That means that before this year, five years passed where no movie in the top ten received a Best Picture nomination. If the goal of expanding the number of nominees is to boost ratings and make more average, non-eclectic moviegoers feel the Academy Awards reflect their own "Best Films," it appears the Academy has succeeded.

That's not to say these movies are bad or don't deserve to be nominated. Last year seemed to be a particularly strong one for blockbusters. I'm right there with Avatar and Up. District 9 (#27) was good, but it didn't make my top ten and I don't think it's quite original enough (beyond its opening sequence) to deserve the nomination. But with a heavy-handed look at racism a la Crash, I guess I shouldn't be surprised it was nominated.

On the other hand, movies at the other end of the spectrum haven't entirely been neglected. The Hurt Locker (#130), A Serious Man (#142) and An Education (#144) all received nominations. Last year, the lowest-ranked film was #120 (Frost/Nixon), so not only are these films a bit lower on the list, there are also three of them instead of the expected two you would get when you double the amount of nominees.

Overall, I think the inclusion of ten nominees better reflects the amount of quality movies out there, and does allow for more commercial (to a greater extent) or more specialized (to a lesser extent) films to receive nominations. At least when a so-so movie squeezes in, there are nine, instead of four, other movies there to balance it out.

'Edge of Darkness' no match for 'Avatar'

By Sarah Sluis

Avatar continued its reign over the box office with its seventh week at

number one. The sci-fi crowd-pleaser coasted through the weekend with a mere 14% drop to rack up another $30 million. Just $5 million away from the

domestic all-time record of $600.4 million set by Titanic, Avatar will roll past the

milestone sometime this week. While Titanic is still the winner once the numbers are adjusted for inflation, both movies had remarkably similar trajectories, rising above initial bad press ("those blue creatures look funny, "there's no way it can make back its money") and then breaking record after record.

In second place, with about half the audience of Avatar, Mel Gibson-starring Edge of Darkness opened at $17.1 million, in line with industry expectations. The solid genre film (57% on Rotten Tomatoes) will draw in action and thrill-seeking moviegoers but won't expand much beyond its genre base.

Romantic comedy When in Rome opened on the high side of expectations, with $12 million of coins to count in its fountain. Its romcom cousin, Leap Year, opened a month ago to $9 million. Since both movies ended up with a 20% Rotten Tomatoes rating, When in Rome benefited from stronger marketing and a younger star to draw in young women to the sketched out, immature storyline.

After a so-so opening weekend, Tooth Fairy flexed some staying power with a small 26% drop, adding another $10 million to its under-the-pillow stash. At the opposite end of the spectrum, horror movie Legion fell a hard 61% to $6.8 million.

This Friday, Edge of Darkness and When in Rome will have to tough it out as they deal with fresh competition. From Paris with Love, an action film starring another older male star, John Travolta, will hit theatres to snatch away Edge of Darkness viewers. When in Rome will have to contend with Dear John, a romantic weepie starring Channing Tatum and Amanda Seyfried.

'Edge of Darkness' challenges 'Avatar'

By Sarah Sluis

This week's new releases have set up shop in diagonal demographic quadrants: older men (Edge of Darkness) and younger women (When in Rome). Edge of Darkness has the best chance of unseating Avatar, which is still bringing in its millions at an impressive clip. A 20% drop for Avatar will still put the movie at $28 million for the weekend. Unless Edge of Darkness can divert a significant portion of the audience, Avatar will remain on top, though it's likely that Darkness will win Friday before dropping through the rest of the weekend, just like The Book of Eli two weeks ago.

A "well-made genre-blender by professionals who know how to coax tears, deliver thrills," according to our critic Rex Roberts, Edge of Darkness (3,066 theatres) offers a familiar filmgoing experience that will appeal to Mel Gibson fans in particular. The theme of a kidnapped daughter worked particularly well with Liam Neeson's Taken, which released exactly a year ago. Will Darkness be able to beat Taken's $24 million opening weekend?

Romantic comedy When in Rome (2,456) falls on the low end of the struggling genre. It will probably appeal most those teenage girls who haven't fully grasped the genre's conventions yet. In my review, I noted that its brisk pace keeps the audience from dwelling on the movie's considerable faults, "[whisking] us through the conventions of romantic comedies so quickly there's barely time to groan." The movie will probably open in the single digits or low teens and drop quickly out of the top ten (e.g. Leap Year).

On the specialty front, Saint John of Las Vegas will release in one theatre as part of a new strategy by distributor IndieVest. Wealthy people invest in the film with the side benefit of parties and Hollywood glamour. The movie raised over $10 million, more than it needed, so at least the investors will get some of their money back, given its 5% Rotten Tomatoes rating. That seems to nix its chance at being a cult favorite.

On Monday we'll see if Edge of Darkness was able to pull a coup on reigning champion Avatar, and if When in Rome and Saint John of Las Vegas were able to draw in audiences for their opening wekened.

Yet another self-help book turned movie: 'Eat, Sleep, Poop'

By Sarah Sluis

Okay, okay, the fictionalization of self-help book He's Just Not That Into You wasn't that bad. And Mean Girls was the best high school comedy to come out in a long time (based on nonfiction tale Queen Bees and Wannabes: Helping Your Daughter Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends...). But under no circumstances do I support a fictionalization of a self-help book with the word "poop" in the title. Yes, a well-connected doctor in Beverly Hills wrote a book about parenting babies called Eat, Sleep, Poop, and it's just a matter of time before it turns up in theatres, courtesy of DreamWorks.

Interestingly, this comes on the heels of another pickup, of the decades-old guide What to Expect When You're Expecting, which was acquired by Lionsgate just weeks ago. Are both companies going to develop them at the same time, to beat each other to the market? Or will one of them wait it out and see how the first mommy film does before beginning production? While parents of young children are better known as television watchers than moviegoers (those annoying people who bring their kids to R-rated movies with the hope that "they will fall asleep" notwithstanding), these two acquisitions show an interest in attracting a demographic neglected by Hollywood. Exhibitors have taken advantage of this market for years now by offering special services to young parents: midday showings of films with the sound turned down, lights dimmed, and babies welcomed. If there's a film specifically targeted at parenting, wouldn't young parents find a way to watch it? On a final note, the pickup of all these nesting titles seems tied to the emphasis on the home that has emerged in the recession. Better hope the focus on the home continues well after the recession recedes.