Latest 'Jackass' looks to unseat 'Gravity'

Jackass spinoff Bad Grandpa may finally have the popular heft to unseat Gravity this weekend, bringing the latter’s nearly month-long reign over the box office to a worthy end. It’s been quite a run for Alfonso Cuaron and co.: Gravity has earned $177 million domestically and close to $300 million worldwide. Business this weekend is expected to remain steady, if no longer stellar. Pundits predict a haul in the mid $20 million range, which would amount to a 25% downturn in sales.

Bad Grandpa, on the other hand, is reportedly on track to double its production value. The Borat-style comedy, in which Johnny Knoxville plays the titular geriatric pervert on an eventful roadtrip with his chip-off-the-ole’-block troublemaker grandson, was produced for approximately $15 million. Odds are the Jackass faithful will help carry the film to a $30 million opening weekend. As respectable a figure as that may sound, however, it nonetheless pales in comparison with the franchise’s last debut. Jackass: 3D , released in 2010, was buoyed by expensive 3D sales to earn a whopping $50 million its first weekend out of the gate (or should we say pen?).

Ridley Scott/Cormac McCarthy collaboration The Counselor, also bowing tonight, certainly has a fancier pedigree to its name, but the critical drubbing it’s received will most likely undercut its ability to perform, and certainly compete with wide-appeal Grandpa. Our Rex Roberts didn’t completely pan the film that attracted the likes of megawatt stars Brad Pitt, Michael Fassbender, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz, and Cameron Diaz, but neither did he place himself in the minority of lauders. “The Counselor isn’t a bad movie,” he wrote, “just a bombastic one.” Audiences aren’t expected to bang down the doors in their haste to view this exhibition of hubris (on multiple levels). Fox believes the movie will earn between $8 and $10 million.

On the other end of the critical spectrum, French film and Cannes Palme d’Or winner Blue Is the Warmest Color may reap the benefits of universal praise and a healthy dose of salacious controversy. Not only does the three-hour drama about a young woman and her intense relationship with a female artist carry with it an NC-17 rating, but the film’s two leading ladies and their director have been engaged in a very public media battle over who was or was not exploited during the movie’s graphic lesbian sex scenes. The most recent installment of the he-said she-said argument/publicity gambit took the form of an open letter by director Abdellatif Kechiche, in which he charged actress Lea Seydoux with making “opportunistic calculations.” It all seems a bit juvenile for such high-brow fare, but let’s see if the nonsense helps move tickets. Blue Is the Warmest Color opens in just four theaters tonight.

12 Years A Slave expands considerably this weekend, playing in 123 theaters. After it over-performed at 19 locations last weekend the historical drama is expected to only gain momentum. Its recent Gotham Award nominations probably won’t hurt its earning potential, either.

Universal finds 'Where's Waldo?' and Javier Bardem joins 'Wall Street II'

By Sarah Sluis

As a kid, I could never find Waldo in the Where's Waldo? books, but it looks like I'll have a much easier time seeing him on the big screen. Universal and Illumination Entertainment won the bidding war to turn the books series into a movie. There's no plot or characterization in the books, which usually feature Waldo hiding among a chaotic mass of people, many of them misbehaving, but I imagine him as a wide-eyed observer, lost in his own world. In my mind, there's a bit of Mr. Magoo, Buster Keaton, or Inspector Clouseau (The Pink Panther) in Waldo--that certain kind of charming obliviousness. The other appealing part of this project would be the possibility for elaborate visuals: sight gags, crowd scenes, and humor only visible to the audience. Because Where's Waldo? is more of a game than a book, the acquisition bears the most resemblance to the Hasbro properties that have been picked up--like Monopoly, Transformers, and Clue. With a fairly blank slate, it will be up to the (as-yet-unnamed) team of screenwriters to come up with a suitable character and adventure for the striped, bespectacled chameleon.

Oliver Stone's Wall Street II added Javier Bardem to its cast in the role of an evil hedge funder. I couldn't take my eyes off Bardem in No Country for Old Men (the role for which he won an Oscar), so I'm excited to see him reprise the role of a villain. Nikki Finke also fleshed out additional details of the plot: Bardem will play an unscrupulous manager of a hedge fund who has been shorting stocks. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) will be wrapped up in his attempts to patch up his relationship with his estranged daughter, when his daughter's fiance, LaBeouf, approaches him for help after his mentor commits a mysterious suicide. Douglas agrees to offer his input, since he sees Wall Street's impending crisis, but only if LaBeouf can help him reunite with his daughter. This sequel seems to tie in family and romantic relationships much more heavily than the original, but these could, of course, be de-emphasized in the film. As someone who loved Wall Street, I'm thrilled to see Gekko on the big screen again, in what seems to be a promising launch of the sequel, fast-tracked for an August production start date.