'Battleship' takes a hit from 'The Avengers'

Releasing in the wake of The Avengers, Battleship earned just $25.3 million this weekend, half as much as the superhero movie. Projections had the movie earning somewhere over $30 million, so it appears that The Avengers remains the first-choice pick for most audiences. I've heard that people are still showing up only to find sold-out screenings, no surprise given the movie's $55 million third weekend, which is second only to Avatar. With Memorial Day weekend coming up, The Avengers can only stand to benefit from its blockbuster status. If you're looking for an action movie to see, why settle for Battleship when you can watch the movie your friends have been raving about?

The Dictator opened to $17.4 million. Sacha Baron Cohen's portrayal of a corrupt ruler split open the U.S. cultural divide. Paramount reported that the comedy did well in the Northeast and West but performed noticeably worse in the Midwest and South. Young males were the biggest fans of the Cohen starrer. The polarizing humor was undoubtedly responsible for its terrible "C" CinemaScore in exit polls.

The pregnancy comedy What to Expect When You're Expecting earned $10.5 million playing to a mostly female crowd (70%). Women with children often show high "intent to see" numbers but low numbers when it comes to actual attendance. I predict this life-stage movie will do much better in the ancillary markets, and could be the kind of film women pick up when they're actually pregnant themselves.

The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel went up another 21% from last week to finish with $3.2 million. Bernie has also been having a successful theatrical run, rising 132% in its fourth week to finish with $511,000.

Hysteria had trouble attracting audiences, finishing with an $8,000 per-screen average in five locations. The French-language Polisse averaged $17,000 per screen in three locations, a much more auspicious debut.

During the coming Memorial Day weekend, Men in Black 3 will revive a long-dormant franchise, and the first horror offering in weeks, Chernobyl Diaries, will target younger audiences. Specialty seekers will have Wes Anderson's latest, Moonrise Kingdom, along with the release of the French hit The Intouchables.

FJI contributor Jon Frosch is blogging from the rainy Cannes Film Festival for France 24. Check out his latest post here.

'Battleship' challenges 'The Avengers'

Like The Avengers, Battleship (3,690 theatres) has already released overseas. With $200 million already in the bank, the action extravaganza won't be a failure by any means, but it won't enjoy the combination of critical and box-office success enjoyed by The Avengers. "Those looking for big, loud sci-fi action will find plenty to like here," THR's Megan Lehmann reports, "as director Peter Berg pumps up the volume on clashing military hardware and flag-waving heroics." That doesn't mean the action-packed, warships vs. aliens premise has much of a narrative thrust. Critics agree, giving the Taylor Kitsch starrer just a 36% positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. A weekend total of around $35-40 million is in the cards, which would put the Hasbro adaptation short of The Avengers. Even if the superhero picture drops by half, it will end up with over $50 million. Globally, the billion-dollar success is now the sixth-most profitable movie of all time.

For audiences who prefer the screams of a baby to explosions, What to Expect When You're Expecting (3,021 theatres) offers a humorous take on pregnancy and child-rearing, with a diverse cast (young, old, black, white) that covers the gamut of experiences (planned, unplanned, adoption). FJI critic Marsha McCreadie reports that the "sitcom structure of much of the film supersedes credibility," but "you won't need an epidural" to get through with the comedy, which has a "light touch." An opening just north of $20 million would undoubtedly make Lionsgate very proud of its creation.

The Dictator (3,008 theatres) opened on Wednesday to $4.1 million, and its five-day total could end up close to $25 million. Unlike star Sacha Baron Cohen's previous titles Borat and Bruno, which documented his characters' interactions with unwitting participants, this one is 100% fictional. I laughed from start to finish, which made me more forgiving of the comedy's narrative flaws and occasional joke that didn't quite hit the mark. There's also a dash of social commentary in the mix, with a late-in-the-game speech that references the 1% rhetoric of Occupy Wall Street.

On the specialty scene, Maggie Gyllenhaal leads the cast in Hysteria, a "gimmicky but handsome period rom-com" about the invention of the vibrator to treat Victorian women's so-called hysteria. The film "amounts to a superficial cinematic massage," according to Doris Toumarkine. Francophiles should swoon for Polisse (3 theatres), which dramatizes the work of officers in Paris' child protection unit.

On Monday, we'll see if the wild success of The Avengers dampened the releases of Battleship and The Dictator, or if the great kickoff to the summer movie season has encouraged more repeat business.

'The Dictator' casts Anna Faris opposite Sacha Baron Cohen

By Sarah Sluis

The idea of turning Saddam Hussein's memoir into a comedy, a mainstream studio comedy, is a risky choice in the vein of director Ernst Lubitsch's awesome Nazi comedy To Be or Not to Be (which coincidentally did terribly since it was released right after the U.S. entered WWII. But I digress). As previously announced, Sacha Baron Cohen will adopt another foreign accent for The Dictator. He will play a Saddam Hussein-ish character who goes to New York for a United Nations meeting, only to be usurped by a look-alike sheepherder (also played by Baron Cohen). Anna Faris, a funny girl who was recently the subject of a flattering profile in The New Yorker, will play his love interest, the owner of an organic food store.

Deadline has some of the backstory around the project, which has a relatively high budget of $58-65 million, including $20 million for Baron Cohen. In a move that seems more suited to "Entourage" than real life, Paramount sent goats wearing Paramount t-shirts to Baron Cohen and his agency's executives, encouraging them to sign on instead of choosing three other interested studios. And sign on they did, reportedly in a cushy contract that will give Cohen the near-extinct perk of first-dollar gross.

I thought Baron Cohen's Borat and Bruno were both hilarious, though Bruno fell short at the box office. Baron Cohen's characters have always felt and read like impersonations and used the mockumentary style. The Dictator preserves Baron Cohen as an impersonator, and perhaps it will even be shot in a mockumentary style. But it's more grounded in reality: The story and character are riffs on Saddam Hussein. Like To Be or Not to Be, however, this project will be incredibly vulnerable to current events. News like the death of Osama bin Laden could change the national mood and make people less receptive to seeing something so fresh skewered. Still, I applaud Paramount for taking on a comedy that feels truly risky and exciting.