'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.

'Green Lantern' prepares to light up box office

By Sarah Sluis

This summer appears to be the season of comic book films. Thor, X-Men: First Class, and now Green Lantern (3,816 theatres) are deluging audiences with superheroes, and Captain America: The First Avenger hasn't even come out yet. Thor skewed young, X-Men aimed for sophisticates, and 3D Green Lantern is best described as "trippy," according to our kind editor Kevin Lally. The consensus is that the movie is plain bad, "assembled with off-the-shelf narrative components and no authentic soul or emotion," according to critic Frank Lovece. The New York Times' Manohla Dargis added that tone is another of the film's issues, with the comic book film unable to "[hit] the sweet spot between sincerity and self-awareness." These worries aside, Green Lantern will probably open in the $50 millions, below Thor and above the highest-rated of the bunch, X-Men: First Class. Figures.

An uptight, workaholic Dad finally relaxes and embraces his family after something crazy and magical happens. This plotline has been used again and again (including in Jim Carrey film Liar Liar), and it's been resurrected for Carrey-starring Mr. Popper's Penguins (3,388 theatres), which centers on him signing for an unexpected shipment of penguins. I feel rather cool towards this premise, and apparently audiences do too. Fox is estimating a low $10 million for the movie, considerably less than Carrey's last kid-oriented studio effort, A Christmas Carol (also an underperformer). The low projections reflect Carrey's waning star power. There seems to be a caste of Hollywood A-List comedian/movie stars who made their big bucks doing PG-13 and R films, only to slowly work their way down the ladder into kid and family offerings. Eddie Murphy's just another example of the Carrey trajectory, and his "uptight Dad saved by kid magic" 2009 film Imagine That did not do well either.

Sundance darling Homework, now titled The Art of Getting By (610 theatres) has received a much cooler reception now that it's about to hit the big screen. THR's David Rooney dismissed the high school tales as a "vapid coming-of-age story" featuring "bland and pretty" couple Emma Roberts and Freddie Highmore going through that eye-rolling juvenile depression in which "standard-issue dissatisfactions are monument." The Times was more kind and clever, with A.O. Scott conceding that "if you grade on a curve you may find yourself touch, tickled, and occasionally surprised." With such a limited release, a number in the low millions will be lucky.

The specialty films to catch will be Page One: Inside the New York Times (2 theatres), a documentary about the Times' Media Desk that I praised yesterday. The real-life horse whisperer gets his own documentary in Buck (4 theatres). The "quietly captivating portrait" of Buck Brannaman shows off his "modesty" and wins over viewers.

On Monday, we'll see if Green Lantern was able to best expectations and beat Thor, if audiences flocked for Mr. Popper's Penguins, and if Fox Searchlight was able to capture the indie teen crowd for The Art of Getting By.