Paramount announces two more fourquels and one sequel

By Sarah Sluis

It's no secret that Hollywood has been pursuing more sequels in recent years. Despite all the complaining from those that want more original content, sequels continue to do well. Audiences already have an idea of what they're getting, and with rising ticket prices many people would prefer to bet on a sure thing.

What's surprising is that so many sequels are now reaching the "fourquel" stage. This year, two such movies reached that stage: Shrek Forever After and Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. It's not necessarily because studios expected huge grosses domestically, but rather predictable ones: both achieved their greatest success in their second incarnation, with sliding grosses since. Now Paramount has announced three more sequels, including two fourquels: Paranormal Activity 4 and Transformers 4.

Horror movies have more of a precedent for spawning multiple sequels. Scream had its fourquel just this year, and Saw yielded an astonishing seven movies. Final Destination just reached its fifth movie this year. Back in the 1980s, series such as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th, and Halloween yielded numerous sequels.

More unusual is that expensive action movies like Transformers can do well enough in their subsequent outings to warrant a fourth movie. Transformers 3 only did 88% of the business of Transformers 2--domestically. Internationally, the franchise earns more and more with each outing: $390 million to $434 million to an astonishing $770 million. Turns out the same holds true for the Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean series. Even as domestic grosses flounder, the international box office surges. The proliferation of sequels may be less about Hollywood failing to find original product and more about the siren call of the international box office.

Will 'Haywire' make Gina Carano the next female action hero?

By Sarah Sluis

Who is Gina Carano? That was the question on my mind after watching the trailer for director Steven Soderbergh's Haywire. She has a cool, commanding presence, managing to look like she's an accomplished marine. The spy-action flick premiered at the AFI Fest this week, and THR critic Todd McCarthy has already weighed in and given the movie an enthusiastic thumbs-up. He praises Carano by way of Soderbergh, saying:

"In the end the show belongs to Soderbergh, who took a risk with a largely untested leading lady, and Carano, whose shoulders, and everything else, prove plenty strong enough to carry the film. The director shrewdly determined what she could and perhaps couldn't do, and she delivered with a turn that makes other actresses who have attempted such roles, no matter how toned and buff they became, look like pretenders.

After sampling the footage in the trailer, I agree with his statement. Carano looks so real. She's also not saddled with some of the ridiculous, objectifying costume choices that often accompany female action heroes. There's a reason Carano looks so good fighting. She's a ranked mixed martial arts fighter who has also appeared on shows like "American Gladiators."

The Relativity release will open Jan. 20, that post-holiday doldrums period. Yet the movie looks so much better than it needs to be. It's stripped down, with not a lot of expensive explosions--I bet this was a fairly inexpensive movie to make. Plus, there's no better justification for lots of high-powered, skilled fighting than a double-crossed spy dealing with her employers-turned-enemies, so forget having to suspend disbelief in order to enjoy the sparring.

With the exception of relative newcomer Carano, Soderbergh assembled a well-known cast: Bill Paxton, whose underrated voice is up there with his co-star's, Michael Douglas. Rising star Michael Fassbender (Shame), Channing Tatum, Ewan McGregor, and Antonio Banderas round out the cast. Wow.

Look out, Angelina Jolie. Carano looks like the new female action hero in town.

'Puss in Boots' enjoys back-to-back $30+ million weekends

By Sarah Sluis

Paramount's decision to release Puss in Boots one week early paid off. Last week, the CG-animated picture had a lower debut of $33 million thanks to Halloween celebrations and bad weather in the Northeast. This week, the Shrek spinoff dipped just 3%, the lowest drop for a non-holiday saturated release. Now Puss in Boots has over $75 million in the bank, and one more wide-open weekend before animated competitor Happy Feet 2 opens on Nov. 15.

In second place, Tower Heist came in with $25.1 million. Many in the industry expected more, and certainly the action comedy's $75 million budget hints at larger expectations. However, the comedy earned raves in exit polls, which puts the heist film in a strong place in coming weeks.

When your Christmas release opens well before most malls have decked out their stores in red-and-green cheer, it might be a problem. A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas debuted on the low side of expectations, to $13 million, and I suspect its eight-week lead time on the holiday contributed to the lower take. The stoner comedy reportedly cost less than $20 million to make, so steady weekends through the holiday will definitely put the movie in the black.

In sixth place, Footloose showed a surprisingly strong hold, dipping just 17% from last week for a $4.5 million total. The dance remake has played strongly among heartland audiences. Moneyball, in the tenth spot, showed resilience in its seventh week, boasting just a 20% drop as it added another $1.9 million to its $70 million total.

On the specialty front, the documentary about punk rock dads, The Other F Word, opened to a respectable $7,000 per-screen average on two screens. Like Crazy went up 120% from its opening weekend to $270,000. The indie romance averaged $16,800 per screen in quadruple the locations (16 from 4). That puts the indie romance ahead of Martha Marcy May Marlene, which only earned $248,000 its second week, even as it played on double the number of screens. Still, the cult drama starring Elizabeth Olsen is also performing well for a specialty film, passing the $1 million mark as it earned another $471,000 on a run that now numbers 98 screens.

This Friday, the fantasy action drama Immortal will make a splash with a wide release opposite Adam Sandler cross-dressing comedy Jack & Jill. Director Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar will jump the gun, opening small on Wednesday and big on Friday.

'Tower Heist' and 'Harold & Kumar Christmas' bring comedy front-and-center

By Sarah Sluis

A comedy about huckstered ninety-nine percenters taking revenge on the one-percenter in their building? With Occupy Wall Street bringing income inequality back into the headlines, Tower Heist (3,367 theatres) appears perfectly poised to take advantage of its topicality. Some estimate the movie could pull in $30 million this weekend. Reviews have not been entirely unkind. Critic Daniel Eagan echoes the sentiments of many other critics when he calls it a "broad" comedy with "crowd-pleasing" elements. It's ultimately "undemanding," but that's the definition of escapist entertainment. The unlikely group of cast members includes Eddie Murphy, Ben Stiller, Matthew Broderick, and "Precious" star Gabourey Sidibe. However, they don't gel together: "No one character truly takes control," Eagan complains, making the comedy a "downscale Ocean's Eleven."

Ring the sleigh bells! A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas (2,875 theatres) has found a positive perch with many critics, who as a rule are unlikely to root for a stoner comedy directed at teen boys. Critic Doris Toumarkine sparked to the comedy's liberal politics, which she says will appeal to anti-tea partiers. The 3D, too, features "clouds of pot smoke billowing towards audiences," which may be enough to fill the 2,943 3D screens and ensure the 1,000 midnight showings are packed. Toumarkine predicts this "comedy gift...assures more life for the franchise."

The Son of No One (10 theatres) is one of those movies with an all-star cast that ended up being not very good. Anchor Bay will give it just a blip release theatrically, then thousands of people will assume the "policier" with the cast list of "Al Pacino, Katie Holmes, Channing Tatum..." is a big-name movie they just haven't heard about when they hit "play" on Netflix. How wrong they will be, especially given critic David Noh's negative review, which calls the movie "obvious and wholly unconvincing" as well as "an unintentional spoof of Reservoir Dogs."

Aging punk rockers discuss the difficulties of explaining their R-rated tattoos to their kids in The Other F Word (NYC), which Noh calls a "hilarious investigation" into punk dads. Another documentary, Charlotte Rampling: The Look (2 theatres), offers an "admiring" peek into the life of the legendary actress with plenty of "movie talk" for cinephiles, according to Noh.

On Monday, we'll see if Tower Heist enticed the ninety-nine percenters to the box office and if young male viewers were enticed to leave their couches and have some early Christmas cheer for Harold & Kumar.

Indie distributors discuss 'State of Theatrical' at DOC NYC

By Sarah Sluis

One thing quickly became clear at yesterday's "State of Theatrical" panel at DOC NYC. It's impossible to talk about theatrical releases today without also talking about digital. Even with a digital panel occurring directly after the theatrical discussion, talk of VOD, Netflix, Hulu, and upstarts like Constellation were used as reference and comparison points.

No one seemed ready to give up on theatrical in the panel, which included Mark Boxer from IFC, Emily Russo from Zeitgeist, Matt Cowal from Magnolia and Ryan Krivoshey from Cinema Guild. Russo noted several times throughout the discussion that Zeitgeist does not view theatrical as a loss leader for later television or DVD sales, as many in the industry do. Their small company, which releases just 5-6 titles a year, has to try to make money on each movie. It's about "managing expectations," she says, doing "what we feel we can spend to support" a release. Boxer also noted that spends can always be expanded later in the game, citing Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work as an example. IFC expected the documentary to do $1 million. It ended up brining in $3 million, and more support was given to the film as it exceeded expectations.

Documentaries just don't earn as much as feature films, so what constitutes success in the documentary market? It turns out, more are successful than you think. Russo stated that half-million is a great number for a documentary to receive on the theatrical market, and everyone else on the panel agreed. Zeitgeist's third-highest grossing movie ever, Bill Cunningham New York is still playing at the IFC Center where the discussion was held. It's been out 33 weeks. Russo attributed the movie's $1.5 million take to date to the "humanism" of Cunningham's character, and the fact that it showcased New York, New Yorkers, and lovers of fashion--the last a particularly easy-to-reach group online.

Bad reviews are the Achilles' heel for small docs that rely on positive critical response, but even worse is no review. The group talked about how they "die a little inside" every time a small town's film critic is laid off. When that happens, the paper will often reprint a review from another paper--most often The New York Times. For Magnolia's release Page One: Inside the New York Times, which was trashed by both that paper and the Los Angeles Times, that proved to be damaging. Cowal said they were able to get many other papers to run reprints of reviews besides the Times' for Page One, but a good review from the Times could have turned so-so business in the Big Apple into a blockbuster release.

Concurrent VOD/theatrical releaes are becoming more common. IFC does simultaneous VOD and theatrical releases for certain titles. Magnolia selects some releases to be available on VOD and iTunes one month before their theatrical release. When a documentary is only available in New York City anyway, this allows more viewers easy access to the title. It also provides lots of free advertising from cable companies and iTunes. The IFC and Magnolia reps talked about how titles that are "currently in theatres" or doing "pre-theatrical runs" get favorable placement and often free ads on the cable company's barker channel simply because they are using such a window. On the flip side, Boxer noted that they did not do simultaneous VOD for Cave of Forgotten Dreams and Buck because big theatre chains will not touch those movies if they're already on-demand. In general, Boxer felt that the big chains were more than willing to work with IFC. Since Cave of Forgotten Dreams was in 3D, Boxer's team had to ask a lot of theatres to give up a screen reserved for Justin Bieber: Never Say Never.

When it comes to simultaneous VOD/theatrical releases, these small distributors are the vanguard. Boxer cited the recent, failed attempt to release Tower Heist on VOD shortly after its release as an example of studios unable to do what these tiny distributors are already doing regularly. Though that failed due to pushback from major exhibitors, "in the future, they'll be in that space," Boxer said confidently. For many exhibitors, though, that reality is their worst fear.

DOC NYC continues through Nov. 10. Check the schedule of events here.

Director Terrence Malick suddenly prolific, with three movies in queue

By Sarah Sluis

After waiting years for writer/director Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life, I was a bit underwhelmed when it came out this May. What's wrong with a little narrative? Even so, Malick remains my favorite working director. No one else captures (or even cares about!) natural imagery the way he does. His films are like watching a "Planet Earth" that's subsumed to the narrative of the humans around the creatures and vistas.

Malick is famously private and refuses to give interviews to the press. Until The Tree of Life, he also had a perfect track record (at least in my book). Given how few films he's created, I suspect he's a perfectionist. I wonder if mixed opinions about his latest work somehow freed him from a fear of failure, because he now has three projects in the works.

The first has already filmed and supposedly will be edited by 2012 (though Malick is a notoriously slow editor, often using the cutting room to transform the work).Today, the Los Angeles Times was able to scrounge up details about the plot. Ben Affleck stars as a philanderer who goes to Paris, encounters a European woman (Olga Kurylenko) and brings her home, marrying her for visa reasons. With the romance fizzling, he takes up with a hometown girl (Rachel McAdams) with whom he has a history. Javier Bardem plays a priest Affleck's character consults about his raffish ways.

Malick's other two projects will shoot back-to-back in 2012. Lawless stars Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara and Haley Bennett, who may be Malick's latest ingnue (he has cast unknowns such as Sissy Spacek and Jessica Chastain in the past). Knight of Cups, the second project, will also star Bale and Blanchett, though the movies reportedly do not relate to each other. That picture would also star Isabel Lucas, another young, relatively unknown actress.

None of the pictures has a U.S. distributor, though FilmNation has been serving as a sales rep and production company. Malick has reportedly already received offers for the first movie, though he has turned them down--an enviable position to be in. Let's hope his first movie squeezes into the end-of-year 2012 releases, but knowing Malick, such an optimistic timeline will be a longshot.

'Left Behind' series in pursuit of a second big-screen treatment

By Sarah Sluis

The current success of Courageous, which was made for just a couple million dollars and has reaped fifteen times that at the box office, has all eyes on the faith-based movie market. Not every project is a success (see the recent The Mighty Macs), but movies such as 2008's Fireproof, last year's The Blind Side, which successfully marketed to Christians, and, of course, The Passion of the Christ show that movies that resonate with the faith-based market can tap millions of moviegoers who most likely select the movies they see in theatres very, very carefully. The Left Behind series, which read like a pulp thriller but dramatize the end-of-times beliefs that are very real to many evangelists, has already been adapted for the screen. Kirk Cameron (of Fireproof) starred in the original, which made just $4 million during its brief 2001 run at the box office. Two more movies followed, Tribulation Force and Left Behind: World at War, though neither released theatrically. According to IMDB, the final film released in churches instead of in theatres.

Now there are plans to redo the series with a $15 million budget. (The trailer for the original suggests a lower budget than $15 million). The number is low given the amount of action involved, but THR labels it an "ambitious" project for the small, faith-based production company, Cloud Ten Pictures. A new screenplay was written by original writer/producer Paul Lalonde and John Patus, who consulted on or wrote the scripts for the three movies. The fact that the original players are involved doesn't suggest that the movie will have an entirely fresh take.

Left Behind is a disaster-fueled apocalypse that has very compelling moments. The book starts with a pilot's startling development that half the people on his flight have disappeared (they've been raptured). The pilot and his daughter, who were both left behind because they weren't true believers, become believers. They join up with others and go on a quest to defeat the Antichrist, who scripture says will rise to power after the Rapture.

As I wrote last week, apocalypse projects are all the rage now, so a redo could tap into a larger trend. If done right, the movie could expand beyond its Christian base, even if some viewers read the Rapture explanation as science fiction rather than religious probability.