Could 'This is 40' suffer the same fate as 'Five-Year Engagement'?

The Five-Year Engagement was about as entertaining as the average romantic comedy, but it had marked differences in the treatment of its subject matter. Love was dull sometimes, complicated by the mundane, and the difficulty of balancing one's own career with the future of a relationship. Audiences, apparently, weren't so into the latter part, and the film had a disappointing debut last weekend, earning just $10.6 million when it was expected to take in 50% more.

Judd Apatow produced The Five-Year Engagement, and he returns to the director's chair with Christmas release This is 40, which he also wrote and produced. The "sort-of" sequel to Knocked Up focuses on Pete (Paul Rudd) and Debbie (Leslie Mann, Apatow's wife), who are dealing with a crisis: middle age. The just-released trailer has plenty of funny moments sure to appeal to parents everywhere, with a couple of potential gross-out moments for which Apatow is famous. However, part of me wondered if the humdrum sources of comedy will be a turn-off to audiences. After all, Knocked Up had a real crisis, an unplanned pregnancy, while This is 40 appears (at least in the trailer) to be about the couple's self-improvement kick.

Ultimately, though, The Five-Year Engagement just wasn't that good of a movie. This is 40, with its prime end-of-year placement, at least has the time-slot endorsement of its studio. Universal has reaped the benefits of Apatow's productions, including last year's megahit Bridesmaids, and stood by when Funny People, Apatow's previous directorial effort, didn't quite catch on. Growing older and raising children isn't the kind of whacky premise that sold tickets to Knocked Up and Bridesmaids, but it could be a nice halfway point between those films and the didn't-quite-work identity crisis in Funny People.

 

'I'm with Cancer' casts Anna Kendrick and lands a new director

By Sarah Sluis

If you go to a film entitled I'm with Cancer, you have some idea of what to expect. Cancer = sad. The pun on "I'm with child" = funny. It also implies a kind of child/pet relationship, as if cancer is just this novel thing that pops out of you and starts going goo-goo-ga-ga.

The project also brings to mind a cautionary tale, Funny People. The rather generically titled Judd Apatow movie, which also involved serious illness, didn't live up to expectations this summer. It might have mixed up its tone too much, switching from comedy to drama and back, a strategy that left viewers with an odd, instead of cathartic, emotional experience.

Anna Kendrick just signed on to I'm with Cancer today, joining James McAvoy (the guy with cancer) and Seth Rogen (the guy's friend). Kendrick will play a psychologist who is supposed to help the cancer patient, but is a bit naive about the process. Jonathan Levine will now direct after the original director dropped out due to location difference--an odd-sounding, unusually neutral reason if I ever heard one.

But given the tricky subject of the comedy, how will people react? I found the best response in this script review, which was done by a woman with cancer. She ends up liking the script, though she notes that:

"I'm with Cancer approaches a serious disease with humor and light-heartedness. But to those who know people who have died from cancer, I fear the tone of the story may be off-putting and come across as flippant and disrespectful. It's not, but cancer evokes a lot of emotion in people and personal experiences will most definitely play into one's interpretation of this story."

Point taken. At this point, I'm thinking the tone is a touch more irreverent than Patch Adams, another story about finding humor in the face of death. What this project ultimately has in its favor is its real-life connection. The screenwriter, Will Reiser, based the story on his own experiences, and Rogen is a good friend both in real life and in the movie. While Funny People was purely fictional, Patch Adams (which, if I remember correctly, made me both laugh and cry) was also based on a true story. When you're dealing with a tonally complex story, real-life experiences may be the best way to anchor a film and prevent it from going all over the place.

Three comedies vie for top spot

By Sarah Sluis

From the gate, The Proposal and Year One look as though they'll both hit $20 million this weekend. If The Hangover can handle the competition, and hold on to its below-average drop, it will also hit $20 million, making this week a close race between three comedies.

Judging by reviews, The Proposal (3,056 theatres) appears to be a typical romantic comedy, slick and well-acted, but hampered by its predictable format. Our executive editor Kevin Lally praised the chemistry between Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds, saying, "The situations may be formulaic, but the teamwork of the two leads brings them to sparkling life." Manohla Dargis at the NY Times was not so kind, lamenting the repetition of stereotypical rom-com setups. However, even she noted that Bullock and Reynolds pulled off good performances, adding that Bullock's "no shrew in need of taming. She's just another female movie star in need of a vehicle that won't throw her overboard for sexist giggles and laughs."

Year One (3,022 theatres), which comes from writer/director Harold Ramis (read an interview with him here), has also been received with shrugs. Despite Ramis' pedigree (he's responsible for Groundhog Day, Caddyshack, and Analyze This), our Frank Scheck found that "the script�co-written by Ramis and the team of Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg (NBC's "The Office")�is strictly bargain-basement, offering a plethora of poop, sex and fart jokes and vulgarity without a smidgen of wit." EW's Owen Gleiberman found the comedy provoked only a "handful of chuckles," and pronounced it "silliness run mildly wild."

With these so-so reviews, I wouldn't be surprised if audiences again choose The Hangover, whose humor is neither stale nor ancient, but shocking to the point that at least some viewers will come away repulsed, not indifferent.

On the specialty side, another comedy opens this weekend: Whatever Works, the latest from Woody Allen. Dana Stevens from Slate opened her review of the film this way: "Imagine if Annie Hall had been forgotten in a Ziploc bag under your couch cushions and left there for 30 years." Needless to say, it did not play well for her. Whatever Works will compete with quirky comedy Away We Go, which will move into 134 theatres with hopes to cross the $1 million mark.

Next week, the machines are back with Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, which will be joined by weepie My Sister's Keeper.

Party's still on for 'The Hangover'

By Sarah Sluis

The Hangover has hit the jackpot. Last week it was the surprise #1. The day after Up was declared the winner, higher-than-estimated Sunday grosses pushed The Hangover to the top spot. This week, the Las Vegas comedy dropped a mere 25% to earn $33.4 million. Thanks to high weekday grosses, its cumulative box office has already passed the nine-figure mark: $105,000,000. With a $9,960 per-screen average, plenty of people were turned away from Friday and Saturday night screenings, ensuring high grosses in weeks to come.

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 opened lower on the list, taking in $25 million and the #3 spot. It's a solid opening for an actioner that didn't receive much buzz. Lower on the list, the lightly marketed Imagine That came up with just $5.7 million at #6. Family audiences likely chose the much higher regarded Up over the Eddie Murphy film. In its third week, Up soared to $187 million cumulative, bringing in $30.5 million while losing just 30% of its gross.

Of the rest of the films in the top ten, Land of the Lost dropped the most (51%), followed by Drag Me to Hell (45%) and Terminator Salvation (43%). Of the three, Drag Me to Hell was the best reviewed, so it may actually be defying the precipitous drops (of 50-70%) often seen with horror titles.

Dropping between 32-35%, generally considered a better-than-average performance, were Star Trek, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, and Angels & Demons. All these films have crossed the $100 million mark (and Trek the $200 million mark), so their mid-30's drops will help boost the ends of their runs.

On the specialty side, Food, Inc. was the clear winner, earning $21,000 on each of its three screens. Moon followed with $18,000 on eight screens, and Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro came in with $15,000 on two screens. All are stellar performances, and bode well for the films' expansion.

This week, ancient-times comedy Year One will try to perform more like The Hangover and less like Land of the Lost. Sandra Bullock rom-com The Proposal, the first of the genre since Ghosts of Girlfriends Past released on May 1st, also stands to do exceptional business for romance-starved audiences.