'Date Night' unseats 'Clash of the Titans'

By Sarah Sluis

Date Night triumphed this weekend over action epic Clash of the Titans, which many assumed would take the top spot for the second week in a row. A strong performance from Date Night, coupled with a steeper- than-average drop for Clash, clinched the close 1-2 finish ($27.1 million for Date Night, $26.8 million for Clash).

I think the steep drop of Clash is a good thing for the industry. 3D has proved to be hugely profitable, but most critics (and some audiences) seemed to think that the last-minute 2D to 3D conversion of Clash looked poor. While a 56% drop is consistent with male-driven action movies, it also indicates that 3D doesn't guarantee long, profitable runs.

[Update: Clash ended up in first place when the final numbers came in, with $26.6 million to Date Night's $25.2 million]

How to Train Your Dragon did even better in its third week. Ticket sales for the 3D animated movie tapered off just 12%, giving the movie a $25.3 million weekend. Strong weekday sales from Spring Breakers have brought the cumulative gross to $133.8 million in three weeks.

Tyler Perry's How Did I Get Married Too dropped a heavy 62% to $11 million. Perry's movies typically draw strong opening weekend crowds and have high drop-off rates.

Another movie with a Spring Break audience, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, fell just 22% to $4.1 million. Miley Cyrus-starring The Last Song dipped a manageable 37% to $10 million, and Alice in Wonderland steadied its fall this week with a 31% drop to $5.6 million.

Vivendi's Letters to God cracked the top ten with a $1.2 million. Though David Nixon, the producer of the inspirational Fireproof, produced and directed the movie, it was not nearly as successful. Its $1,300 per-screen gross was far less than the $8,000 per-screen Fireproof boasted, a true apples-to-apples comparison since both movies opened on around 800 screens.

Specialty release Everyone Else, a strongly-reviewed German-language movie about a couple's unraveling after they meet another couple just like them...only better, had the highest per-screen average, $11,400, of any film released this week.

This Friday, the superhero action-comedy with a bite, Kick-Ass, opens alongside Death at a Funeral, a remake of a British film that is cast primarily with black actors, including Chris Rock.

Audiences set for 'Date Night'

By Sarah Sluis

The Tina Fey-Steve Carell action comedy Date Night has an enviable position this weekend. It will command 3,374 screens without any fresh competition. Though the movie should draw audiences with the star power of its leads, the story itself is "an irrelevant and mostly unconvincing clothesline on which Fey and Carell can hang improvised riffs," according to FJI critic Frank Lovece. New York Times critic A.O. Scott found the movie's quality to be "superior to most recent movies of its kind, the marital action comedy...[but] better than The Bounty Hunter or Did You Hear About the Morgans? is not quite the same as 'good.'"

Date Night must open strong to beat the second weekend of Clash of the Titans, which will have 500 more screens, many of them 3D. Even with a 50% dropoff, Clash would still earn $30 million, so Carell and Fey have to hope that their talk-show promotions will drive the movie over that mark to give it the top spot.

Without much of a publicity campaign, the faith-based movie Letters to God (trailer here) will open in 897 theatres. The movie follows a young boy who writes letters to God, the postman who intercepts them, and the relationship he develops with the kid's single mom. If the movie posts a high per-screen average, it will follow in the footsteps of other niche Christian movies like Fireproof, 2009's surprise success (Letters to God and Fireproof share the same producer).

On the specialty front, "an honest attempt to portray the destructiveness of violence in the Latino community" starring Benjamin Bratt, La Mission, will debut on 15 screens. The Square, "a tale of an adulterous couple in the sunny Sydney suburbs," offers an "entertaining descent into a black-comic hell" in two locations.

On Monday, we'll see if Clash was able to keep ahead of Date Night or if charm of Fey and Carell's charm managed to woo audiences to the action comedy.

Three more sign up for 'Couples Retreat'

By Sarah Sluis

Ensemble comedy Couples Retreat found three additional mates in  Kristin Bell ("Veronica Mars"), Kristin Davis (Sex and the City), and Malin Akerman (upcoming Watchmen).  The character-packed premise has four couples (one with real relationship problems) roped into a tropical vacation with a side helping of couples therapy.  Jason Bateman ("Arrested Development") plays Bell's love interest, Jon Favreau will pair with Davis, and Vince Vaughn will couple with Akerman.  Faizon Love is currently mateless.

Jon Favreau has existed below my radar until now, but he has an impressive bio on IMDb, including directorial credits for Iron Man and Elf, and an diverse array of acting, writing, and production credits.  He wrote Couples Retreat based on an idea of Vaughn's.  The two are currently starring in another quad-coupled pic, this winter's Four Christmases, so I wonder if they drew any inspiration from that project.

Steve Carrell, another one of comedy's it-boys, has attached himself to yet another project, Brigadier Gerard, about a French soldier convinced of his swashbuckling status despite an utter lack of skill or bravery.  With the ability to shoot just one film on his spring hiatus from "The Office," he now must choose between Brigadier Gerard, Get Smart 2, or Date Night, which has Tina Fey attached.  Personally, I am rooting Carrell to choose Date Night--in-demand Tina Fey has no other live action deals on the table, and has never done a romantic comedy before, and the two of them together would be dynamic.  Sure, Brigadier Gerard will be set in France, a long time ago, which is somewhat of a twist of Carrell's star image, but with "King of the Hill" writers adapting a work by Arthur Conan Doyle, I see the well-trod territory of horse-riding and Monty Python jokes.

Already being floated as an Oscar contender, Weinstein Company's The Road, set to release this November, may be pushed back to December--or later.  The executives and producers plan to meet tomorrow to discuss the fate of the film.  The switcheroo comes in light of Weinstein Company's decision to push The Reader this winter.  Also, for what seems like the hundredth story in a row, Weinstein Company takes on questions about the company's financial situation--and yes, they say they are doing fine.