Audiences fall for 'Despicable Me'

By Sarah Sluis

Coming in much higher than expected, Despicable Me racked up $60.1 million over the weekend. That puts the Illumination Entertainment production right behind the opening weekend figure for Kung Fu Panda, which holds the title for the highest opening for an original, non-Pixar animated movie. Family audiences turned out

in force for the picture, which only recently gained high awareness among the general public. New York Magazine attributedits enviable debut weekend to a trailer placed before Toy Story 3, as well as a marketing campaign that decided to re-focus on the cute minions at the last minute.

In second place, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse fell 48% to $33.4 million, putting it roughly in line with the performance of New Moon. Since the fan-driven movie had already started to drop by Friday of last weekend (it opened on Wednesday), its decline weekend-to-weekend wasn't as significant. The movie will likely earn more than $250 million over the course of its run but fall short of the $300 million mark.

After picking up some good reviews (and a 64% average on Rotten Tomatoes), Predators opened to $25.3

million, a robust debut for the reboot of the humans-as-hunting-bait franchise.

Toy Story 3 dipped just 27%, despite the competition from animated Despicable Me, and added another $22 million to its toy box. With its $340 million total, it also became the highest-grossing Pixar movie ever. A caveat: Higher ticket prices, not higher attendance, brought the movie to the record-breaking position.

Featuring an unconventional love triangle, Cyrus rose 77% from last week and remained in the top ten with a $1.3 million weekend. Fox Searchlight has successfully ramped up this movie from week to week. However, its indie success story is poised to be eclipsed by another unconventional movie family in The Kids Are All Right.

The Kids Are All Right debuted to the highest per-screen

average of the year, $72,000 per screen at seven locations, for a

half-million haul. Shining reviews, as well as its strong appeal to

niche audiences, gave this movie an edge. Pronouncements like that of Dana Stevens

from Slate, who called it "the movie we've been waiting for all year,"

should help this comedy-drama attract a wide range of indie-seeking audiences.

Even as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first movie in the series, continues to play in 81 theatres, The Girl Who Played with Fire earned $965,000 its opening weekend, with 110 theatres averaging a solid $8,700 per screen. Music Box is releasing the trilogy in quick succession, and the strategy appears to be working. Though the per-screen average of the sequel, $8,700, was slightly lower than that of the original ($9,800), the sequel played in three times as many theatres, which tends to bring down per-screen averages.

The sing-a-long version of Grease opened to $6,500 per screen at twelve locations, for a total of $113,000. Lyrics were cleaned up (I wonder the Pink Ladies still call Sandra "lousy with virginity?") and audience participation was encouraged. Though the opening weekend performance wasn't stellar, if the theatrical release is used to sell new sing-a-long versions of the DVD, it could turn another generation of people into Grease lovers.

This Wednesday, The Sorcerer's Apprentice will enter theatres, followed by the hotly anticipated and well-reviewed Inception.

'Despicable Me' and 'Predators' seek opposite audiences

By Sarah Sluis

Despicable Me, the first animated movie released by the new kid on the

animation block, Illumination Entertainment, will open in 3,474

theatres, including 1,551 3D theatres. Releasing a tight three weeks

afterToy Story 3, Despicable Me will have the advantage of being the

fresh offering. Among infrequent moviegoers, however, the

highly-lauded Pixar sequel may hold more sway than an unknown offering

(though those minion characters are pretty big draw). Despicable Me is expected to bow similarly to How to Train Your Dragon, a similarly unknown property that opened at $43 million but eventually accrued an outsize $216 million over its run. Critic Rex Roberts praised the minions, calling the movie a "cleverly formulaic cartoon that is, by turns, caustic and charming, gross and poignant, silly and sophisticated."

Believe it or not, Predators, the latest movie in the long-running Predator franchise, offers the "creatures

their best showcase since the original Predator," enthuses critic Ethan Alter. Not only that, the "meat-and-potatoes action movie" is "solidly entertaining" and the action set-pieces "are crisply shot and genuinely fun." That is, if you get your kicks out of "a Predator ripping out the spine of his unfortunate victim Mortal Kombat-style." Opening in 2,669 theatres, its man-creature combat is expected to offer particular allure to males under twenty-five.

On the specialty front, Sundance favorite The Kids Are All Right opens in seven theatres. The comedy centers on a lesbian couple (Annette Bening, Julianne Moore) whose children decide to seek out their sperm donor (Mark Ruffalo). His presence ends up ruffling up the family feathers,

resulting in a "smart, humane, hilarious and poignant tale," according to critic Kevin Lally. While the movie has a thoroughly modern American plotline, "the laughs arise from recognizable, truthful human behavior."

The second installment in author Stieg Larson's trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire, opens in 85 theatres. According to critic Doris Toumarkine, the Swedish-language movie is "every bit as entertaining as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo," which earned $11 million this March. However, could the movies be released too close together? Even the second and thirdTwilight movies were eight months apart, and some have called Eclipse's first-week performance disappointing. Conversely, the books' popularity, as well as holdover awareness from The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, could boost the second movie even higher. The final movie, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, will open in late November, so hopefully distributor Music Box's tight release strategy works...or they figure it out before the third movie hits.

On Monday, we'll reconvene for the outcome of Despicable Me vs. Predators, and weigh in on the second week of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, which could drop heavily. We'll also take a look at the holding power of The Last Airbender and Toy Story 3, both of which will be threatened by the competing family release,Despicable Me.