'Pain & Gain' and 'Big Wedding' inject comedy into the marketplace

Last week’s release of Oblivion signaled that the box office
was thawing out from winter. This week brings two more releases, the R-rated
comedies Pain & Gain and The Big Wedding. Pain & Gain should open above $20
million, and Big Wedding should scoop up half that amount.

Michael Bay directs Pain & Gain (3,277 theatres), the tale of two ‘roided
bodybuilders who turn to a life of crime. Bay usually helms overmuscled movies, not stars,
so the story is a bit of a change of pace for him. Still, that didn’t stop
critic Daniel Eagan from observing that although the “movie does have less
helicopter footage than a typical Transformers
entry…Bay stills turn a simple shot of a detective's house into a mini-tribute
to Sergio Leone's crane work.” He praises the performances of Mark Wahlberg and
Dwayne Johnson, but notes that what  “could
have been a breakout hit… devolves into a chase story with low ambitions.”

After multiple delays, The Big Wedding (2,633 theatres) comes to
theatres, but it has almost nothing to offer besides its all-star cast. Critic Frank Lovece faulted the barely-believable premise: divorced parents of the groom pretend they’re
still married in order to appease the conservative parents of the bride. Despite a great cast that includes Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Robert De Niro, and Susan Sarandon, the comedy "fails across the board from farce to
comedy-of-manners." The well-known stars may draw some eyes to the feature, but even $10 million will be generous for this less-than-deserving comedy.

Matthew McConaughey stars (along with Reese Witherspoon, recently photographed not on the red carp but in a police station) in Mud (363 theatres). The drama centers on two boys who discover an outlaw (McConaughey) on the banks of the Mississippi River and help him get food and find his sweetheart (Witherspoon). It's a solid feature, and hopefully one that will attract the attention of cinephiles.

"Colin Firth and Emily Blunt play dress-up" in Arthur Newman (250 theatres), a "sweet, semi-romantic road trip" according to THR's John DeFore. A rather odd plot that involves the characters taking on the identities of others seems a bit hard to market, which makes me feel this movie may end up like Blunt's well-regarded Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, which made just a ripple at the box office despite a decent smattering of applause from critics. The release will also be a test of marketing chops for Cinedigm, a newbie distributor.

On Monday, we'll see if Pain & Gain and The Big Wedding made solid debuts. Then it's less than a week until Iron Man 3 kicks off the prime summer movie season.