By Sarah Sluis
This weekend will be an exciting one at the box office with three well-promoted films enticing audiences, some with mixed critical reception.
Opening on the most screens, The Expendables (3,720 theatres) is the man movie of all man movies. Starring Sylvester Stallone, Jet Li, and a half-dozen other hulking heroes, the film centers mercenaries, this time assigned to overthrow a third-world dictator. They realize they're pawns of the CIA, a woman gets left behind, and of course they've got to go and save her. Stallone's latest has inspired quite a bit of word-of-mouth, including this boy's YouTube rave (how did he see the movie already?), in which he calls The Expendables "the best action movie I've ever seen." If horror films raise your adrenaline, it sounds like this movie will raise your testosterone--get ready to leave the theatre feeling pumped.
The book Eat Pray Love has already passed the Oprah test. Now the movie will take on the box office,
opening in 2,800 theatres. This inspiring, self-development tale will get middle-aged women and book-readers into the theatres, and will probably draw in many infrequent moviegoers. For that reason, opening weekend isn't as big of a deal. If its opening weekend box-office take approaches The Expendables, Sony will have reason to cheer, since I expect this Julia Roberts starrer will do more business in subsequent weekends. Sony's had real success marketing these kinds of films (e.g. Julie & Julia), and there's already a large built-in audience for this movie, so all signs are pointing to a hit.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (2,600 theatres) is a movie that's so new it can make even a twenty-something feel old, with its groundbreaking use of
video-game visuals. It's expected to open in the teen millions, though I'm not entirely sure how audiences will respond. After all, Kick-Ass was also a weird, different comic book movie and it finished under $50 million. At least this movie has a PG-13 rating and no "ass" in the title, which will make it more palatable to conservative audiences. I think word-of-mouth on the film's style will make or break the movie. Director Edgar Wright's innovative presentation may just be to today's audiences what Ferris Bueller talking to the camera was to '80s audiences.
Coming in under the radar, the well-reviewed Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom will open in a handful of theatres. According to critic Maitland McDonagh, director David Michod "managed to shrink The Godfather to nuclear-family dimensions without losing any of its epic intensity," which is enough for me to add the movie to my must-see list. Disney will drop off Tales from Earthsea in several markets, a long-delayed Japanese animated film directed by Goro Miyazaki, the son of the well-regarded Hayao Miyazaki.
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