Audiences dazzled by 'Madagascar 3,' 'Prometheus'

The first animated release in three months, Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted took advantage of pent-up demand to earn $60.3 million. The other two Madagascar films opened just above $60 million, meaning the third film held on to 96% of its audience. Many other animated sequels (Kung Fu Panda 2, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, Happy Feet 2) suffered huge drops from the previous installment, so this shows Madagascar 3 has something special the rest of the films don't. That just might be the great reviews, marketing, and positive audience response ("A" CinemaScore in exit polls). However, the zoo-themed picture will have just one more wide-open weekend before Disney's Brave opens on June 22.

Prometheus performed comfortably above its cautious $40 million expectations, earning $50 million. The adult-minded picture offers more questions than answers, and that's created huge post-film buzz on social networks. The sci-fi prequel to Alien also enticed a sub-audience of superfans. People looking for the ultimate movie experience turned out for IMAX (18% of ticket sales) and 3D (54%, which includes all 3D-equipped IMAX screens). I think the power of social networking will add to the film's momentum in coming weeks. I've seen more chatter about this film on Facebook and Twitter than any other release in recent memory. Its equally mature, much-hyped competition, The Dark Knight Rises, won't hit theatres until July 17.

Moonrise Kingdom made its way into the top ten with $1.5 million and a high $16,000 per-screen average. That puts the Wes Anderson film slightly behind last summer's hit, Midnight in Paris. However, Moonrise outperformed the Woody Allen film in its first two weeks, so it's still too soon to tell. Since each platform picture has expanded their release at a slightly different rate, it will be difficult to compare the two indies until they expand nationally.

Last week was a busy one for specialty releases. In a crowded field, our best-reviewed film triumphed. The "inspired original" Safety Not Guaranteed, as described by FJI's Michael Sauter, averaged $11,000 per screen at nine locations. That's not great, but it's better than the performance of other indies with similar assets, like the Greta Gerwig-starring Lola Versus ($8,500 per screen on four screens) or the Jane Fonda-led Peace, Love & Misunderstanding ($3,400 per screen on thirty screens).

This Friday, Adam Sandler does his man-child thing in That's My Boy and Tom Cruise plays an aging sex symbol guitarist in Broadway adaptation Rock of Ages.

'Prometheus' and 'Madagascar 3': Aliens and zoo animals take over the box office

Adults and children alike will have great options this weekend. Prometheus and Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted are tracking at 74% and 74% positive, respectively, on Rotten Tomatoes. This is popcorn fare that will leave you feeling satisfied.

A companion/prequel to the Alien franchise, Prometheus (3,394 theatres) provides tantalizing clues connecting the film to the world of Ellen Ripley while leaving a lot up to the audience's speculation. Scary and thought-provoking, the "dazzling" sci-fi film "delivers all the visual spectacle and visceral shocks that fans of the original could want," according to critic Kevin Lally. Though R-rated movies can have a tough time at the box office, the Ridley Scott-directed feature will be in the clear if it opens above $40 million. With its tantalizing combination of ancient artifacts and alien encounters, (along with a current audience approval rating of 87%), I predict Prometheus will play well through the heat of the summer.

In Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted (4,258 theatres), the zoo animals join a circus in their quest to return to their zoo in New York City. Critic Doris Toumarkine offers a familiar adjective in her endorsement of the animated feature, which she dubs "jaw-droppingly dazzling." She predicts the "deluxe 3D journey" will satisfy both kids and their parents. Although the last sequel experienced a slight drop-off in returns, the third should open somewhere above $50 million.

This is a big week for high-profile specialty pictures, but most have mixed (or outright bad) reviews. Robert Pattinson stars as a young man who ensnares wealthy French women for his benefit in the period picture Bel Ami (15 theatres). The presence of the Twilight star will certainly draw a crowd of dedicated fans, but critic David Noh thought his casting was a "major misstep." Noh also decries the "derivative, white-bread rom-com" Lola Versus (4 theatres). Greta Gerwig stars as a dumped woman starting fresh, but the NYC-centric feature misses an opportunity to do something new in favor of "been there-done that." A mom brings her kids to see their hippie grandma in Peace, Love & Misunderstanding (28 theatres). A lovely cast that includes Jane Fonda and Catherine Keener does nothing to fix the "banality" of the feature, which employs some time-worn plotting. The only positive review in the bunch? Safety Not Guaranteed (9 theatres), a time-travel comedy that offers a "quirkily offbeat, consistently funny love story," according to critic Michael Sauter.

On Monday, we'll see if audiences turned out for Prometheus and if families decided to come back for more Madagascar in its third outing. With both films releasing in 3D, this will be yet another test to see if audiences think it's worth shelling out for 3D glasses.

Disney does 'Toy Story' with video games in 'Wreck-it Ralph'

Wreck-it Ralph is a Disney film, but it isn't a Pixar film. However, the mark of Pixar is all over the November 2, 2012, release, which has its sights set on being an early holiday hit. The trailer for the family feature just hit the Internet, offering us a glimpse into what Pixar movies the film is borrowing from.

Toy Story. John C. Reilly plays Wreck-It Ralph, a villain in a video game. He's just one of many video game characters that live an alternate life when they're not being played, true to Toy Story form.

Monsters, Inc. Ralph gets sick of playing the bad guy and goes on the run, "game jumping" into other character's video games. This feels quite familiar to the "closet" concept in Monsters Inc. The monster duo in that film were able to access closets in a central, factory-like area. Here, "Game Central Station" is modeled after Grand Central Station.

The Incredibles. Ralph isn't just normal, he's super-strong, easily able to wreck entire buildings. He also takes to first-person shooter games the way a superhero does. The Incredibles also continues the Toy Story and Monsters, Inc. idea of creating everyday lives for figures the public knows as superheroes, toys, scary monsters--or video game characters.

The Pixar "all-ages" appeal.  The trailer opens with a monologue from Ralph that sounds like a ploy to reel in working parents everywhere. Ralph is framed as a corporate slave who just wants to escape and find himself. The use of the Talking Heads song "Once in a Lifetime" clinches the trailer's dad appeal. Also, as the participants in the "bad-anon" section suggest, Wreck-It Ralph includes characters from '70s arcade games onwards. Older gamers will get a nostalgia kick out of seeing their favorites in the movie.

2012 just keeps getting more interesting. Here's the trailer for Wreck-It Ralph:

 

'Justice League' to answer 'The Avengers'

Comic book naïf that I am, I thought that The Avengers was the only time superheroes from separate comic universes joined together to fight evil. I was wrong. Turns out Batman, Wonder Woman, Superman, the Green Lantern, the Flash (and the lesser-known Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl) have their own crime-fighting gang, dubbed the Justice League. The comic book was turned into an animated series that ran on the Cartoon Network in the early aughts. Now Warner Bros., the studio behind the The Dark Knight Rises, is working on a film treatment of the Justice League. Will Beall (upcoming The Gangster Squad) will write a script that will team together the DC Comics superheroes.

Just as Disney owns Marvel Studios, Warner Bros. owns DC Comics. Both studios have been aggressively working on giving the comic book heroes their own movies. Iron Man, Iron Man 2, and The Avengers have been Disney's biggest hits, while The Dark Knight was a huge success for Warner Bros. The latter studio has also had some bad misses--like Jonah Hex (which grossed just $10 million) or the lackluster Green Lantern (a "mere" $117 million).

This isn't the first time Warner Bros. has tried to put together a Justice League film. Back in 2008, a version that was already cast fell apart due to a lack of tax breaks and the WGA strike. A couple of years ago, ScreenRant catalogued the various stages of Warner Bros.' DC Comics projects. A lot of them still aren't off the ground. Besides Justice League, it seems that audiences will be most likely to see a version of Wonder Woman or The Flash in the near future. This summer holds both The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises. Through 2014, Disney has Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 lined up, but Warner Bros. doesn't have any DC Comics productions--they're putting their muscle behind a little project known as The Hobbit. Given the long production cycle and extensive special effects that go into a superhero movie, along with Warner Bros. many other big-budget films, it may be a while before Batman joins forces with his DC Comics companions.

 

'Harry Potter's' Emma Watson breaks out with 'Perks of Being a Wallflower'

The actors who played Harry, Ron, and Hermione in the eight Harry Potter films have a difficult road ahead of them. Their faces instantly recall the characters they embodied over the course of their childhoods. Everyone remembers the curse of Mark Hamill, who played Luke Skywalker and then faded away. Daniel Radcliffe has focused on stage work ("Equus," "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying") and the brooding stage-to-screen adaptation of The Woman in Black. Rupert Grint has starred in a few small (daring) films about British youth. Emma Watson made a small appearance as a romantically spurned costume designer in My Week with Marilyn. She'll have her first post-Potter leading role in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, which is set for a release this fall.

Watson will play a cool outcast senior who, along with her friend, takes in a "wallflower" underclassman. The modern, occasionally daring role (at least if they stay true to the book) will help her carve a different path from her role as the uptight, book-smart Hermione, but it still shares some similarities to Potter. The coming-of-age tale will be targeted towards young adults, it's set in a school, and it does have a bit of a underdog kids vs. the world feel to it.

Whereas Radcliffe and Grint have dived into projects with nudity, drug use, a hitman, and sex, Watson's next film choice feels tamer. She may delve further into risque subject matter with Sofia Coppola's The Bling Ring, which centers on a few high students who rob celebrities for their designer clothes, but she'll still be playing a student. The 22-year-old actress won't be able to play high schoolers forever, but her recent attempt to do something different fell through. She was set to play a suicidal young writer in Your Voice in My Head, but the project went on hold once Harry Potter director David Yates dropped out.

Get More: Nina Dobrev, Logan Lerman, Emma Watson, 2012 Movie Awards, New Movies

 

Even in the Perks of Being a Wallflower trailer, some of the jokes fall flat for me, but it also communicates a genuine and spirited tone--not too downer, raunchy, or superficial. The 1999 book by Stephen Chbosky has proven consistently popular since its publication, and it's had time to grab  a decade's worth of young adults who fell hard for the book's take on high school. That, along with Watson, may be the key to the film's box-office appeal.

'Snow White and the Huntsman' the fairest film in the kingdom

Universal, chastened by its underperforming Battleship, said it only expected Snow White and the Huntsman to end up in the mid-$30 millions. Now the studio can be overjoyed, because the Kristen Stewart starrer earned $56.2 million over the weekend, more than Men in Black 3's debut. Since the special effects-heavy film reportedly cost $170 million, that number will also help recoup costs. Though Stewart has strong appeal among Twilight fans, the much-needed male demographic turned up too, comprising 43% of the audience.  Overseas, Snow White didn't do nearly as well, taking in just under $40 million. Most tentpoles perform better overseas than at home, so some are citing the lack of 3D as the cause, since the format has caught on particularly well abroad.

For Greater Glory, which is set during Mexico's Cristero War, earned $1.8 million while in around 750 theatres. The per-screen average of $2,400 per screen isn't awful, but it's not a sign of great weeks to come either.

Piranha 3DD managed to sink even lower than For Greater Glory's dismal per-screen average, clocking in with just $2,000 per screen in even fewer locations, for a lackluster total of $179,000. The horror comedy, which was aiming for the "so bad it's good" crowd, released day-and-date on Facebook and various on-demand outlets. Perhaps it had better luck there.

Two more indies with some mainstream appeal are doing particularly well. By dropping just 28%, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel rose two spots to sixth place, coming in with $4.8 million. Moonrise Kingdom, which had a record-breaking per-screen average last weekend, rose 62% to $849,000 as it went from four to sixteen locations.

This Friday will have two big movies. Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted will entertain children and families, and Ridley Scott's Prometheus is aiming for the adult thrill-seeking crowd.

'Snow White and the Huntsman' targets the top spot

It's the first weekend in June, and it's crowded with a month-long buildup of blockbuster releases. Snow White and the Huntsman (3,772 theatres) will have to compete against last week's Men in Black 3 and the behemoth The Avengers, which is still drawing in plenty of people thanks to its great word-of-mouth. Universal is giving a cautious low-to-mid $30 millions prediction for opening weekend, an estimate the Kristen Stewart-Chris Hemsworth-Charlize Theron picture will likely hit. Thankfully, Snow White and the Huntsman is clear of at least one liability. Mirror Mirror, the comedic Snow White picture that released this spring, took a completely different angle and was also not much of a success. The studio won't be battling fairy tale princess fatigue. As for the movie itself? FJI critic Daniel Eagan was not impressed, called it "both bloated and empty," and "grim, mostly humorless, and exhausting." I found myself wishing I were watching an episode of "Game of Thrones," and was less awed by the special effects than distracted by their encroaching ubiquity.

Aiming at Hispanic audiences, who are frequent moviegoers, For Greater Glory (757 theatres) is a sweeping Mexican historical war epic that will strongly appeal to this niche audience. Critic Shirley Sealy deems it "admirable but flawed," and sheepishly revealed she found the Wikipedia entry about the Cristeros War more interesting than the movie itself.

A tribute to B-movie horror, Piranha 3DD (86 theatres), will open in theatres and on-demand this weekend. The small theatrical release indicates this movie is eyeing the home market more than the theatre crowd, but the small release could yield a high per-screen average.

A few smaller movies will join the indie circuit this weekend. Pink Ribbons Inc. (3 theatres) explores the dark side and commercialization of breast cancer fundraising. Paul Williams Still Alive documents a filmmaker's search for his favorite minor celebrity, and Wish Me Away (2 theatres) follows country star Chely Wright as she comes out as gay.

On Monday, we'll see if Snow White intrigued both female and male audiences, and if Hispanic audiences turned out for For Greater Glory.