'Green Lantern' flickers to $52 million

By Sarah Sluis

Superhero fatigue is setting in. Green Lantern debuted to $52.7 million, lower than both Thor and X-Men: First Class. People turned out on Friday, but Saturday showed a 20% drop-off in business, much more than either Thor or X-Men: First Class. Even for superhero movie fans, three in two months feels like too much. This reporter is not a fan of the superhero genre, save for early 1990s after-school cartoon Captain Planet (He's our hero/Going to take pollution down to ze-ro). Sadly, he is not to be confused with patriotic superhero Captain America, this summer's final, august superhero. Norse comic book demigod Thor fell out of the top ten heavens for the first time this week, adding $1.1 million to its $176 million total. X-Men: First Class dropped by half in its third week, depositing $11.5 million to its current $119 million domestic gross. These superhero movies are expensive to make, and the U.S. box office barely covers their production costs without marketing. The reality is that films make their money overseas and through merchandising.

Super 8 fell 40% to $21.2 million its second weekend. This Spielberg-influenced sci-fi tale is one of the few action-y tentpoles not to come from a comic book or other pre-sold property, so it didn't open as high. Its redemption was supposed to occur in its second week, but a 40% fall isn't word-of-mouth gold. In comparison, surprise smash Bridesmaids dipped just 20% in its second week, but most other tentpoles this summer having been diving further: 56% (X-Men: First Class), 63% (Hangover II), 56% (Pirates 4)

Mr. Popper's Penguins did better than Fox expected, tallying up $18.2 million from family audiences. Most broad family pictures this summer have been animated, and I think the CG/live-action mix drew families interested in mixing it up.

Fox Searchlight's Sundance pickup The Art of Getting By bombed. With just a $1,100 per-screen average at 610 locations, the high school romantic comedy ended up with just $700,000. The timing of the release seems a little off, too. The core audience, high schoolers, is busy with end-of-year activities and graduation right now, leaving them with less time to see a movie.

The Irish dancing documentary Jig had a foot-tapping debut of $13,000 per screen on five screens. The horse whisperer documentary Buck also opened to a cantor, averaging $16,100 on four screens. The real winners, though, are the rock star specialty releases Midnight in Paris and The Tree of Life. Woody Allen's Midnight fell just 10% in its second weekend deployed at around 1,000 locations, adding another $5.2 million to its over $20 million total. The Tree of Life went up 34% to $1.1 million. The poetic film is taking it slow, doubling the number of locations for a still-tiny grand total of 114 screens.

This Friday, Pixar will unveil Cars 2, and the R-rated shock comedy Bad Teacher makes its debut.

'Super 8' exceeds modest expectations with $37 million

By Sarah Sluis

Super 8, with its throwback, Spielberg-influenced sci-fi, kept audiences in the dark about the premise. That's a good thing for preserving the surprise in the viewing experience but a bad thing for opening weekend. Despite a $37 million weekend, which exceeded expectations, Super 8's mission is not over. The real gauge of the J.J. Abrams film's success will be in coming weeks. Will the movie fade quietly or become this summer's popcorn movie of choice? Having seen the film, I feel firmly that it's destined to be the latter. Unlike last week's X-Men: First Class and other tentpoles, Super 8 performed better on Saturday than Friday. The audience members, largely over 25 and slightly skewing male, weren't driven to the theatre by a barrage of television ads giving away the plot, but mysterious ones. The hope is that they'll share their positive experience with friends and family, especially on social networking websites.

Bridesmaids had its lowest drop yet, 15%, keeping it in the eight digits with $10.1 million. Male buddy comedy The Hangover Part II tapered its fall with a 40% dip to $18.5 million. X-Men: First Class halved its gross, but the 53% drop is actually the best experienced by an X-Men film. Following the standard for animated movies, Kung Fu Panda 2 lost just 30% of its audience, finishing the weekend with $16.6 million.

The other new release of the week, Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, contributed a quiet $6.2 million. That's slightly less than last year's Ramona and Beezus, which also targeted tween girls. With a reported budget of $20 million, this movie will have to hope for a long life on DVD to make up its high cost.

Directly below Judy Moody, Woody Allen had his highest-grossing single weekend ever with Midnight in Paris. The light, comic film tallied up $6.1 million on less than a thousand screens. I've heard nothing but positive word-of-mouth for this film, which seems poised to surpass Allen's last big hit, Vicky Cristina Barcelona. The Tree of Life also improved from its previous weekend, adding $875,000 to its coffers while playing on 47 screens.

No more specialty darlings will join Allen and Malick, at least this weekend. British comedy The Trip averaged a mediocre $14,100 per screen playing in six locations. Congo production Viva Riva! earned a low $3,400 per-screen. Dutch romance Bride Flight, casting a wide net with 18 locations, had a light catch of just $3,000 per screen.

This Friday, another comic book hero gets a movie in Green Lantern. Jim Carrey plays opposite Arctic birds in Mr. Popper's Penguins, and emo teens can get release in The Art of Getting By.

Will audiences discover 'Super 8'?

By Sarah Sluis

Paramount has been secretive about its new film Super 8 (3,379 theatres). The question this weekend will answer is: Have they been too secretive? According to Alterian's social media monitoring software, both last week's release X-Men: First Class and next week's Green Lantern are grabbing a larger portion of the online chatter. Super 8 was barely even on the radar until Memorial Day weekend. Both Super 8 and last week's well-reviewed X-Men: First Class have 64% positive sentiment ratings, which bodes well for Super 8. Industry insiders are predicting the film will debut to around $25-$30 million, not that bad considering the movie was made for just $50 million.

Critics have called out J.J. Abrams' style for what it is: an imitation of a master. A. O. Scott of The New York Times put it this way: "The visual and emotional poetry of those films, however, never quite blossoms, despite having been copied out carefully, line by line." That doesn't mean the movie still isn't enjoyable in its own right. The story centers on a group of kids making a Super 8 movie. They witness a train crash that unleashes something that wreaks havoc (but often sentimental havoc, like lost dogs) on their town. I think the fact that the trailer didn't give away the movie will provide audiences a better experience and in turn drive positive word-of-mouth. Paramount held sneak peeks last night that they hope will give them a head start on building positive buzz.

Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer (2,524 theatres) will do lesser business, primarily attracting pre-teen girls and a parent guardian. The PG-rated film did not find a fan with David Noh, who called the movie "shrilly bright, noisome" and filled with "charmless rambunctiousness." However, the bright production design and silly humor seem guaranteed to hit the sweet spot of its target audience, who probably won't have qualms about its "loud special effects" and "animated sequences...which contribute...chaos."

The British comedy duo of Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon team up for The Trip (6 theatres). Critic Rex Roberts praised this "exercise in comic improvisation," which really only has a plot as an excuse to pack comedy into it. His warning? "You should have a high tolerance for drollery and affectionate raillery."

A rare gem in the comedy-horror mockumentary niche, Troll Hunter pairs up beautiful views of Norwegian fjords with man-eating trolls who must be dispensed with by government-hired troll hunters.

On Monday, we'll see if audiences were curious enough to catch Super 8 and if enough pre-teen girls were able to convince their parents to take them to Judy Moody.

'Super 8' may actually live up to the hype

By Sarah Sluis

Since its teaser trailer first hit in May of last year, Super 8 has been high on the anticipation list for movie bloggers like myself. Last night, Paramount hosted a preview of twenty-odd minutes of Super 8 footage at the Walter Reade Theater in New York City. Paramount CEO Brad Grey gave an enthusiastic introduction for J.J. Abrams, the writer/director, identifying him as an important member of the talent stable the studio has assembled.

Set in 1979, Super 8 has a pleasant, nostalgic feel. Hallmarks of Steven Spielberg (who teamed with Abrams as a producer and collaborator) abound, but when I spoke to Abrams afterwards he said he wasn't trying to create a homage or imitation, but a "recreation" of how he felt as a kid and the movies that were important to him. In fact, Abrams was thirteen in 1979, right around the age of the group of kids in his film. What I liked most about the preview footage was how Abrams creates a world that feels very familiar, from a cinematic perspective, without being derivative. His characters feel real and sweet, and Elle Fanning (who I took a liking to in Somewhere) is a standout.

The footage fills in some of the gaps created by the trailer. (Spoiler alert). The first scene we saw, about twelve minutes into the movie, sets up the night of the film's momentous train crash. Fanning steals her Dad's car and agrees to star in the kids' amateur monster movie. First-time actor Joel Courtney is the son of the sheriff whose mother just died in a mill accident. He's the group's makeup artist and harbors a huge crush on Fanning. As they're filming a scene at the train station, Joel witnesses a pickup truck drive into an oncoming freight train, derailing it and unleashing the unseen monster. The kids escape with nothing more than sooty faces and scratches. White Rubik's cube-like things spill out from the wreckage, and Joel leaves with one. The crashing part of the scene went on a little too long, and Abrams confirmed that the scene will be cut shorter.

The second scene, later on in the movie, confirms Abrams as a master movie-maker. When it comes to monster encounters, this man knows what he's doing. The concealment and suspense come not from cutting away (though there's some of that), but some really satisfying auditory wizardry. A sheriff drives into a gas station to fill up, but has trouble getting the attention of the zit-faced gas station attendant, who has the volume up on his new-fangled Walkman. When he goes back outside, his lights and radio turn on and start flashing. The gas meter, which has been steadily clicking out the dollars and cents, goes progressively faster and faster, turning into one long tone by the climax. The Walkman boy can't hear any of it, so his eventual realization has a satisfying punch to it. Without the use of the Walkman and the gas station meter, this scene would be completely run-of-the-mill. This kind of sleight-of-hand suspense replaces the usual: gory play-by-plays or exhausting flagellation of a character by a monster. We even get a peek at the monster in a reflection from pooling gas, but I won't say what I see.

I'll make a reckless, premature guess: Super 8 will be the Inception of summer 2011. The June 10th release will probably have a PG-13 rating, making it a teen and family-friendly outing. There are also (gasp) characters. This monster feels like a means for a small town to band together and a group of friends to grow closer and grow up. There's also a strong undercurrent of innocence. The trailer shows more cars flashing their headlights, and one of the first signs that something is amiss are the town's missing pets. Missing pets! You can't get more small town than that. The tinkling, chiming score brings to mind vintage John Williams scores for Spielberg. There's also an interesting theme running through the movie that will feel familiar to fans of Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.: That of a small town and its authority being overrun by outsiders (be they media or military) after something terrible is unleashed there. Super 8 may be the nostalgic, just-scary-enough monster movie that takes place in the small town we all wish we lived in and could protect.

Spotlight: J.J. Abrams, the guy who can make 'nerd' films everyone sees

By Sarah Sluis

Last weekend the Comic-Con darling Scott Pilgrim vs. the World opened to a disappointing $10 million. The cult movie Kick-Ass also opened soft, to $19.8 million, though I can vouch for both films: they deserved more. This has led to writers sounding the alarm about so-called nerd films that fail to cross over to the rest of the marketplace.

Which made me think of someone who has managed to inspire both cult followings and crossover audiences with his work: J.J. Abrams. "Lost" drew in diehard fans as well as mainstream audiences (although some of the less devoted, such as myself, dropped out before the final season). Last year, he managed to attract wide audiences for that apex of nerdom, Star Trek. Never did I think I would go to a Star Trek movie and not think of all the Trekkie nerds I knew in school, but he did a great job making the story accessible and somehow appealing to the kind of people who wouldn't be caught dead at a sci-fi convention, or who had never even seen a single episode.

What stronger sign that someone has "made it" than when Steven Spielberg collaborates with you? The two are working on a sci-fi/aliens/teen-oriented project called Super 8, which is coming out next summer. Both directors have a populist sensibility that also works well with critics, and I bet they'll be able to come up with something incredible together. Let's not forget that both Jaws (Spielberg) and Cloverfield (Abrams, producer) were both the types of action/horror movies that usually receive a much more low-brow treatment.

This week, Abrams announced that he's also working on the nostalgically inspired 7 Minutes in Heaven, which will focus on two teens who disappear in a closet for their seven minutes in kissing heaven, only to return to find their friends dead. It's a clever pairing that juxtaposes the innocence of youth with murder--isn't that what all teen slasher movies are about? Of course, there could be other forces at work, but a slasher is the first that comes to mind, unless Abrams wants to go The Happening route and create toxic trees.

On a lighter note, Abrams appears to have a thing for numbers, and it's only a matter of time before he can count to ten with his films: There's Super 8, 7 Minutes in Heaven, Mission Impossible III and the planned MI:IV, Star Trek the first and the upcoming Star Trek sequel. Now he just needs to make a film with a five or six.