Weekend box office to host battle of the remakes

As VH1 would say: I love the ‘80s. Or rather, Hollywood does, rolling out three remakes of films that were popular 30-odd years ago. Even with RoboCop, About Last Night, and Endless Love stacking the bill, however, general consensus has last weekend’s champion, The Lego Movie, once again taking first place.

About Last Night will likely land just behind Lego, with Sony predicting returns somewhere in the mid-20 millions. It’s a romance flick opening on Valentine’s Day, and one that boasts a marquee actor who has already proven his box-office worth with films like Think Like a Man and the recent hit Ride Along, Kevin Hart. Both of which factors have led some pundits to believe Sony’s expectations are a little low. Think Like A Man, for example, opened to $33.6 million in 2012. Chances are good About Last Night will meet, if not exceed, that bar.

RoboCop opened a few days ahead of the weekend this past Wednesday night. Sony had predicted a debut of roughly $35 million for the Wednesday-Monday spread, but RoboCop got off to a rough start on Wednesday night, raking in just $2.8 million. Granted, much of the country was battling poor weather conditions, but underwhelming reviews and diehard RoboCop fan skepticism (the new color of the hero’s suit and the soft PG-13 rating are two points of contention) do not bode well for a considerable uptick through the weekend. It’s more likely RoboCop will earn between $20 and $25 million.

The final 1980s remake, Endless Love, will surely benefit from opening on Hallmark’s National Date Night, or Valentine’s Day, today. Similar titles The Vow and Safe Haven fared pretty well over this same weekend the past two years, and their demographic, teenage girls, will likely help Love earn solid figures. Even given the film’s lack of headlining stars (The Vow had Rachel McAdams and Channing Tatum going for it) or recognizable name brand (Safe Haven was a Nicholas Sparks adaptation), eye-candy Alex Pettyfer and a tried-and-true star-crossed lovers storyline should nonetheless help Endless Love gross around $10 million.

Given Winter’s Tale cast – Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly – period setting, and heavily romantic plot, one would think the novel adaptation would be primed to easily beat Endless Love, if not the weekend’s other two new releases. Unfortunately, those stars about which Jessica Brown Findlay spoke so dreamily within the film have not aligned for its likely success. Director-writer-producer Akiva Goldsman’s labor of love has been almost universally panned, and there are many who believe the movie’s marketing has done a poor job explaining just what exactly the time-traveling tale is about. Returns should tally out to less than $10 million, which means Winter’s Tale will probably not crack the long weekend’s Top 5. Monuments Men should earn the No. 5 spot, dropping some 40 percent or so from last weekend to rake in $12 or $13 million.

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

'Safe House' secures the top spot in its second weekend

This Presidents' Day weekend was a boon for studios and exhibitors. Box office was up 10% during the four-day weekend that brings in kids and adults alike taking advantage of a day or week-long break. What's more, the top five films earned over $20 million over the four-day period, an unusually equal split of audiences.

Safe House rose to the top spot by shedding just 40% of its audience for a $23.8 million three-day weekend ($28.4 million including Monday). The pair-up of Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds is something of a demographic boon: young, old, white, black. Washington's a legacy action hero and Reynolds has a bit of a heartthrob thing going for him. No wonder the actioner is generating such high returns.

The Vow, which was timed to precede Valentine's Day, dipped 43% from last week with a $23.1 million three-day/$26.2 million four-day total. The Rachel McAdams-Channing Tatum romance has already logged an $88 million cumulative total thanks to strong weekday showings. This appears to be one romance that will endure beyond the holiday for which it was intended.

Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance debuted with $22.1 million ($25.7 million including Monday). The Nicolas Cage action sequel did not get good reviews, but performed fairly evenly throughout the weekend. Even the commercials for this movie could not hide its cheesiness, but hey--some people just can't not see something with flaming motorcycles.

When you count Monday, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island rose from fourth ($19.9 million) to third place ($26.6 million). The boost came from the many kids on holiday this week.

Spy-action-romance flick This Means War debuted in fifth place with a $17.3 million three-day/$20.4 million four-day total. Given the worries and last-minute switcheroos done by its studio, Fox, which pulled it from a Valentine's Day opening because it didn't want to compete with The Vow, it actually performed well. Though I'm not sure "well" will cover the paychecks of Reese Witherspoon and her co-stars Tom Hardy, and Chris Pine.

The Japanese animated film The Secret World of Arrietty, redubbed for English-speaking audiences, also rose a spot when you count in Monday's totals--$6.4 million three-day versus a $8.2 million four-day total.

The Oscars are this Sunday, and The Artist noted a nice 7.8% uptick to $2.4 million this weekend, one of the few films below the top ten to register an increase. The Oscar-nominated documentary Undefeated opened to a $33,000 per-screen average in five locations, a powerful opening that demonstrates the football doc could reach a broad audience.

On Friday, the action movie Act of Valor, filmed using real Navy SEALS, will open. Rounding out the mix will be comedy Wanderlust, Tyler Perry's Good Deeds, and the Amanda Seyfried thriller Gone.

 

'The Vow' promises to woo the weekend's biggest audience

In advance of Valentine's Day this Tuesday, The Vow will make its debut in 2,958 theatres. Both Rachel McAdams (The Notebook) and Channing Tatum (Dear John) have anchored a dramatic romance before, and it appears they'll lead the movie to a $30 million finish. Although certainly many couples will see the romance together, it will be equally attractive to groups of girlfriends, who were the main demographic at the advance screening I attended. McAdams stars as a woman who loses all memory of her husband (Tatum) after her car accident. She turns back to her previous life, and he tries to woo her all over again. Unlike McAdams's previous memory-loss tale, The Notebook, The Vow is nothing special, "a mash-up of hoary clichés, "as our critic David Noh says. Still, he couldn't help but be drawn in by the chemistry between the two stars and the "nigh-irresistible emotional drive."

One of the least-liked movies in the franchise, Star Wars: Episode I-- The Phantom Menace (2,655 theatres) will release in 3D, Jar-Jar Binks and all. Fox is putting a $20 million estimate on its weekend total, predicting that the sci-fi (spawn of a) classic will attract fathers and sons. That would put the 3D re-release in the "strong" category, though it would still fall short of The Lion King 3D's $30 million opening last September.

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (3,470 theatres) dumped star Brendan Fraser for Dwayne Johnson. Didn't a similar thing happen with the Mummy franchise?  "Even kids will be shaking their heads" at the "daffy update of the Jules Verne novel," critic Daniel Eagan reports. Though the filmmakers try to "quickly and slyly...skim over mere logic," he thinks most viewers will eventually realize all the fantastical setups "make no sense." With competition from family audiences seeing The Phantom Menace, Journey 2 will have an uphill battle. A number in the teen millions will be likely.

Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds band together for Safe House (3,118 theatres), which our critic Chris Barsanti felt was a Tony Scott knockoff. It centers on a CIA agent (Reynolds) tasked with keeping a maybe-rogue agent (Washington) safe, until they both come under assault. The 'two unlikely people banding together' thing has been done dozens of times, and Barsanti also felt that the (maybe spoiler alert) idea of moles at the top of an organization was something he could see coming miles away. Universal has been targeting males for the thriller, which could earn over $20 million if everything pulls together.

For those trying to catch up on all the Oscar-nominated films, Sony Pictures Classics is releasing In Darkness (1 theatre), the Polish film that is one of the five nominees for Best Foreign Language Film. The Holocaust-set drama centers on Polish Jews who hide in a sewer, helped by a man whose financial motivations threaten to imperil the people he's hiding. In this story, neither the Jews nor the people who are hiding them are saints. "The characters are...wisely presented with all their flaws, passions and virtues, not idealized as victims," critic Wendy R. Weinstein praises. Like many films showing dark chapters of history, "It is not easy to watch, but it is impossible to turn away."

The films that end up on top this weekend will be well-poised to reap the benefits next weekend, which has the Monday President's Day Holiday and the prospect of weekday ticket sales among select groups of schoolchildren lucky enough to have a mid-winter break.