'Sweet Valley High' will get the Diablo Cody treatment

By Sarah Sluis

Today's film news brings a project that is almost too good to be true for nostalgic twenty and thirty-something women. Diablo Cody has announced that her next project will be an adaptation of the

"Sweet Valley High" novels. In response to a skeptical Twitter, Cody responded, "You have no idea how many bitches I took down to do this project. I went 'full Jessica.' Believe it."

Indeed, Diablo Cody and the "Sweet Valley High" books could be a match made in heaven--a female version of a comic book film. Read by late elementary and middle schoolers, an audience now in their twenties and thirties, these novels were The Babysitter's Club older, cooler cousin, with characters that were less sheltered and more independent, and focused on romance and getting out of trouble. The series, which spawned over a hundred titles, centers on two "size six, blonde, 5'6'', tan, dimpled" twins who live in a "split-level" home--attributes repeated, in detail, at the opening of every book. Elizabeth is the practical, brainy twin who works at the school newspaper, whereas Jessica is more concerned with makeup, boys, and emulating the lifestyle of her wealthy friend Enid, whose clothes and car she covets. The novels are genuine, but I think many of the people who read them acknowledged their cheesiness, yet liked them anyway. Cody's take, according to her Twitter, will be "Sharp comedy/satire, plenty of 'sincere' SVH moments too. No werewolves. Plenty of Todd." Todd is the basketball player Elizabeth pines for, who I assume will be the major love interest in the book.

I think adapting this book will be tonally tricky. Jennifer's Body took the horror film genre and made it original and a feminist statement, but in the process alienated horror fans as well as those who would have seen it had critics agreed that it was "something more." Could the Sweet Valley High movie alienate fans of teen comedies, while failing to be something more for twenty and thirty-something fans of the book, who have now outgrown them and need satire?

Jennifer's Body, however, might not be the best comparison. It could be considered more of a marketing failure, since the movie, arguably, should have been handled by Fox Searchlight after Fox

Atomic shuttered, but instead was passed to 20th Century Fox to fill a hole in their schedule. Also, the "Women in Hollywood" blog noted that female critics gave the movie higher ratings than male critics, which she suspects hurt its overall critical reception.

Diablo Cody's choice to make an adaptation, as opposed to an original screenplay, reminds me of director Wes Anderson's choice to make an adaptation of Fantastic Mr. Fox. Many felt Anderson needed to break away from his overly familiar style, and applying it to stop-motion animation did just the trick. In fact, his next project, a screenplay (which he could direct), is also an adaptation of the French movie My Best Friend. Sure, Cody's only two films in, but her screenplays are so distinctive that their best use as this point may be punching up an existing, tired but beloved, series.

'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs' enchants family audiences

By Sarah Sluis

Earning three times as much as the second-place movie, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs whipped up $30.1 million over the weekend. It also earned $2.5 million from its 127 IMAX locations, a

per-location average that was double the non-IMAX total. It doesn't face any competition until two weekends from now, when Disney releases Toy Story and Toy Story 2 as a 3D double feature, so it should perform strongly through its second weekend. People at Sony Pictures Animation also have reason to be happy: it's the highest-grossing opening weekend of any of their movies, including Surf's Up or Open Season.

The other three wide releases earned in the $6-10 million range, though their low production costs should mitigate their lower opening weekend grosses. The Informant! earned $10.5 million, with Matt Damon considered the biggest draw to moviegoers. Its adult-heavy audience could stem its losses in following weeks, since many adults aren't set on seeing a film opening weekend.

The audience for teen draw Jennifer's Body should have turned out in force for opening weekend, but didn't . It scared up $6.8 million, dropping 50% from Friday to Sunday. The reviews didn't match the hype, diminishing the chances of expanding its audience beyond 18-25's, as screenwriter Diablo Cody's Juno was able to do. Many also suspect that younger teens were shut out of the movie since it was rated R.

Jennifer's Body was beat by the soundly unoriginal Love Happens, which sold $8.4 million worth of tickets to an audience of primarily older females.

Bright Star, which is specialty distributor Apparition's first release, did an auspicious $10,000 per

location for a weekend cumulative of $190,000, making good on critic Ray Bennett's prediction that "art-house audiences will swoon." Its rave reviews should help grow that number in coming weeks. Since PG romances are all too rare, Bright Star could also draw in older and more conservative audiences when it expands next week to 120 theatres.

This Friday, Fame will open widest, followed by sci-fi thriller Surrogates and sci-fi horror Pandorum. Other films opening small that we'll be watching include Capitalism: A Love Story (which opens Wednesday), Coco Before Chanel, and I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell.

Box office forecast is 'Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs'

By Sarah Sluis

Releasing in 3D and IMAX, to a welcoming audience that's settled into school and ready for some entertainment, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs is considered the likely winner of the weekend box office. It's clever and fast-paced, with "breakneck humor and sparkling wordplay," according to our critic Frank Lovece. While the plot is much more embellished than Ron and Judi Barrett's illustrated classic, it stays true to its wish-fulfillment premise. It rains ice cream, cheeseburgers, spaghetti and more--every kid's dream. Its 3,119 screen release includes 1,828 3D screens and 127 IMAX screens, a new high that should significantly pad the returns of the animated movie.

A "campy pastiche of horror and high-school movie clichs" appealing to the 18-25 crowd, Jennifer's Body (2,701 screens) should woo male and female audiences alike. The critical consensus appears to be that Juno screenwriter Diablo Cody's hipster-quip dialogue isn't quite as charming the second time around, but moviegoers may be much more forgiving of the slick horror film. Plus, there's Megan Fox, whose candid interviews and sultry on-screen personality will sell more than a few tickets.

Love Happens, which is billed as a Jennifer Aniston-Aaron Eckhart romantic comedy but is actually more about Eckhart coming to term's with his wife's death in a car accident, opens on 1,898 screens. It's a genre picture straight down to its green-screen shots of Seattle, but executed just well enough to make your hour and forty minutes more diverting than plodding.

Steven Soderbergh's The Informant! (2,505 screens) also debuts. Soderbergh is another one of those prolific directors who cranks out film after film--I got a hint of why in the comedy/thriller, which has a few shots with sloppy cinematography (Soderbergh does it himself under the pseudonym Peter Andrews). Our Executive Editor Kevin Lally hated the "relentlessly jaunty music score." While that film device fails, there's also a clever voice-over narration that illustrates the "cognitive dissonance" of Matt Damon's character. The "manic stream filled with non-sequiturs" about corn and polar bears was one of my favorite parts of the film.

This week is a crowded one at the box office. We'll recap Monday to see how the weekend played out.