'Insidious: Chapter 2' creeps into the fall lineup

A little bit of a fall chill is in the air, and there's no better way to get in a cozy mood than with a spine-tingling movie like Insidious: Chapter 2 (3,049 theatres), which comes from prolific horror director James Wan. The Saw helmer is coming off his surprise hit this summer, The Conjuring, which was also advertised as "from the director of Insidious." Our critic Maitland McDonagh worries that similarity in marketing campaigns could end up hurting the sequel. The

content itself isn't as fresh as the original. The focus on exploring the original film's backstory makes it "more than a little dull and [verging] on incoherence." Still, the recognizable name could make this movie have one of the best horror openings in September. In 2005, The Exorcism of Emily Rose opened to $30 million during the same month, so a figure at or above $30 million would be excellent. That number would also be nearly three times the opening of the original, which debuted to $13 million and slow-burned for weeks afterward.

Even weeks ago, it was fairly clear that The Family (3,091 theatres) wasn't going to do so well. Now, forecasters have zoned in on its likely opening figure: somewhere around $10 million. The Luc Besson-directed movie about a family of American gangsters who hide out in France has the right ingredients, but they don't add up. "Despite a dream cast [which includes Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Tommy Lee Jones],  The Family is an only intermittently
funny gangster comedy," FJI's Daniel Eagan laments.

The specialty slate this weekend is slight, but IFC Films is using the slot to release Blue Caprice, a festival pickup about the Beltway sniper. Comparing the story to other true-life tales like Fruitvale Station and Elephant (a stylistic cousin), critic Ethan Alter feels the movie succeeds in creating emotion, but fails in a cerebral sense. The drama "comes armed with answers, but misses the chance to pose bigger questions."

On Monday, we'll see if Insidious: Chapter 2 is able to break any September records, and if The Family is able to rally past its so-so opening projection.

 

Holiday movie watch: A first peek at 'The Book Thief'

The Book Thief may technically be a young adult book, but every person who's recommended it to me so far (with great enthusiasm, it's worth noting) has been an adult. The story itself has all-ages appeal, following a foster girl whose adoptive parents take in a young Jewish man in Nazi Germany. The book drew raves for its innovative writing style, which includes having Death as its narrator. The trailer for the movie just released, and while there are no voice-overs from 'Death' heard, it appears the feature will be emotionally riveting. An opening title card boasts that the movie comes "From the studio that brought you Life of Pi," an unusual credit, but an apt one given that both films are adaptations of popular yet literary bestsellers. Pi, too, had a distinctive writing style that become more straightforward cinematically. I suspect that The Book Thief, if it gets good reviews, will follow a similar trajectory to Pi: a potential spot in the top ten among the Best Picture nominees, and a scattering of other nominations. However, World War II movies have always done extremely well at the Oscars, and that may give the picture more standing than Pi did.

In the trailer, Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush is a standout. With a glance, he's believable as a kind-hearted foster parent who's courageous enough to house an "enemy of state" in his basement. A two-time Oscar nominee, Emily Watson, plays his wife. The young French-Canadian actress Sophie Nélisse has the leading role as the book-loving girl, and she seems incredibly at home in the part, which is only her second notable role after a part in Monsieur Lazhar.

The 20th Century Fox production has been unusually quick. It moved up from a winter 2014 to a November 15, 2013, release date, which is also something of a vote of confidence. The director of a number of "Downton Abbey" episodes, Brian Percival, helms, and those that hail from television are often known for being able to work quickly. With a release date in prime Oscar territory, it looks like The Book Thief will be one to watch, both in theatres and during awards season.

'Lone Survivor': Another gritty war movie like 'Zero Dark Thirty'?

After so many summer tentpoles flopped, there's already worry in Hollywood that a crowded fall of adult-leaning prestige releases, which includes Captain Philips, Rush, and The Fifth Estate, will mean at least one movie will end up completely being overrun by the competition. Additionally, all three of the above releases are biographical (Commercial ship captain, racecar driver, and Wikileaks creator, respectively), which is yet another story trend that appears to be picking up speed. Lone Survivor will release after the fall rush but in the midst of the holiday one, on December 27. The trailer for the movie released today, which makes the military procedural appear like Zero Dark Thirty, although with flourishes that render the movie more Heartland and military base-friendly, like a SEAL reciting his military credo, and an inspirational song that plays against the trailer's images of the firefight.

Like Best Picture Oscar nominee ZDT, Lone Survivor is based on a true story. It takes place in 2005, when a group of SEALs engages Al Qaeda in an epic firefight that, as the title suggests, does not have a good outcome for the group. Mark Wahlberg and Eric Bana star, and Friday Night Lights director Peter Berg, hopefully recovering from the poor showing of another Universal picture last year, Battleship, is at the helm. Check out the trailer below.

 

Low-budget horror movie 'The Conjuring' tops expensive tentpoles

As the East Coast and Midwest endured a heat wave, the spine-chilling The Conjuring performed some magic this weekend as it opened to $41.5 million. Made for just half its opening gross, the horror feature combined great reviews with a stellar marketing campaign to coast to the top. Meanwhile, news wasn't nearly as good for the other three wide releases this weekend, which were far more expensive to make.

DreamWorks Animation's Turbo opened in third with $21.5 million, with a five-day total of $31.2 million. That's a disappointment for the animation studio, which spent at least $135 million in production. Meanwhile, Despicable Me 2, which cost just $76 million to make, racked up another $25 million in its third week, easily outshining the debut of Turbo.

Red 2 posted totals of $18.5 million, a few million less than the original. Older males comprised the majority of the audience. The action feature about aging spies performed similarly to The Expendables 2, which starring aging action heroes. That sequel's opening also dropped slightly from that of the original.

The Men in Black-like supernatural buddy cop action-comedy R.I.P.D. bombed, maybe because it included just too many genres. With $12.7 million, it's slightly better than some projections, which doubted if the movie could top $10 million, but this feature will definitely lead to a big writedown at Universal.

In 353 locations, Girl Most Likely averaged $2,000 a screen for a total of $736,000. That's less than expected for the Kristen Wiig-led comedy, which unfortunately has been plagued by poor reviews. Another star-led indie, Only God Forgives, had double the per-screen average, $4,000, for a total of $315,000. Thanks to the star power of Ryan Gosling, the Radius-TWC release is expected to post strong VOD numbers. Meanwhile, The Way, Way Back continued its slow burn, going up 100% as it added locations for another $2.2 million in its third week. The indie beach comedy will expand into over 650 locations on Friday.

This Friday, Wolverine will lead the pack of new releases, while The To-Do List opens in a moderate 500 locations. Also on the menu is Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine.

Reese Witherspoon will tame her image with 'Wild'

Reese Witherspoon has long been a favorite star of mine. As a teen, I followed her through her performances in Cruel Intentions, Election, and Legally Blonde. She's since won an Oscar for Walk the Line, while appearing in romantic comedies like Sweet Home Alabama. Then she got arrested for arguing with a cop while her husband was pulled over for a suspected DUI. Her star image took a bit of a hit, although compared with the Lindsay Lohans and Amanda Bynes of the world, she's barely done a thing. Back in the early days of Hollywood, studios carefully controlled a star's image, but Witherspoon's crew of handlers must be taking a cue from that era's meticulous management with her next role. It can't be a coincidence that Witherspoon will be playing a messed-up woman in search of redemption by starring in Fox Searchlight's Wild.

Wild, based on a book by Cheryl Strayed, recounts the author's trek up the Pacific Crest Trail when she was in her mid-twenties. Strayed's mother had recently passed away, she and her husband divorced after her numerous infidelities, and she had even been dallying with heroin, thanks to her drug-addicted new boyfriend. She's outdoorsy, but no hiker, which made her relatable, frank account of being sore, lost, and exhausted skyrocket to the top of the bestseller lists. For Witherspoon, it's perfect casting, mirroring (albeit in less extreme ways) the star's own need for redemption from the public.

There's one minor quibble. In the book, Strayed is just 26 when she hikes the trail. Witherspoon is 37. She does look young, and the level of drama (mother's death, divorce, drugs) in Strayed's life at 26 could easily be believable at 37, but it's worth pointing out.

Witherspoon is also producing the feature. Her team hired Nick Hornby, who wrote a number of books that have been adapted into movies, including About A Boy, and also penned the screenplay for Carey Mulligan's breakout movie, An Education, to do the adaptation. If all goes well, it looks like this movie will pick up a director sometime between now and fall, when the production will begin filming.

 

Ben Affleck may play the husband in 'Gone Girl'

I love good casting. After reading Gillian Flynn's bestseller and page-turner Gone Girl, I know that Ben Affleck would be great in the part as the husband, a role THR reported today the actor is seriously considering. The question now is who will play the second lead, the wife. Reese

Witherspoon is producing the adaptation, and sadly she's not playing the lead, which is too bad, because she's perfect for the role. Maybe after her run-in with the law earlier this year, the part of a good girl who has a dark side felt too close to home.

But back to Affleck. Without giving too much away, he plays a man whose wife goes missing on their fifth wedding anniversary. He's a guy with some flaws (he may be seeing someone on the side), and the suspicions of the police quickly turn to him. But as he tries to solve the puzzle of his missing wife, some details turn up that start to put her under suspicion. Both characters have to play good and bad, which requires some excellent acting chops--and casting.

Affleck generally plays the good guy. Even when he's a criminal, like in The Town, he's a likeable character. Apparently, the stars in the running to play the wife include Charlize Theron, Emily Blunt, and Natalie Portman--who have also generally played good-natured heroines, Theron and her Monster and Young Adult roles excepting. If the casting director were to choose two stars equally known for playing nice characters, it would play nicely off the dilemma in the thriller itself--if both stars are usually good, the audience may wonder,  which one is actually bad?

David Fincher has signed on to direct the adaptation, which Flynn herself adapted. Affleck would appear in Gone Girl before he directs his next feature, Live By Night, so it seems like the 20th Century Fox production may be planned for a 2014 release.

Does the 'Fifty Shades' director choice hint at its leading man?

Yesterday, fans of E.L. James' Fifty Shades of Gray rejoiced at one crew announcement, while still holding out for news about who will play the leading man and lady in the erotic romance. Sam Taylor-Johnson, who directed the 2009 film Nowhere Boy about the young John Lennon, will direct. She's

married to Aaron Taylor-Johnson (they met when she directed him in Nowhere Boy). Aaron is no stranger to playing a romantic lead--he was Vronsky in Anna Karenina last year and shows off his six-pack abs in the upcoming Kick-Ass 2. There is a chance that Aaron could be believable as Christian Grey, who seduces recent college graduate Anastasia Steele. In the book, Grey is described as a wealthy, successful industrialist, which most people would see as someone in his thirties or forties, but he's actually much younger: THR puts his age at 27, which is confirmed by the fan Wiki for the book. Fifty Shades was originally Twilight fan fiction, which means that Grey was an unaging vampire who was young, but had hundreds of years to build up a fortune. But in the Seattle-set romance, maybe Grey is just the latest young tech millionaire. The young industrialist would go even younger if he were played by Aaron, who is just 23. But maybe the question is beside the point. At least historically, it hasn't been great for many couples to film intimate scenes together: Kate Winslet split from director Sam Mendes not long after the emotionally raw Revolutionary Road, and Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise divorced not long after they wrapped Eyes Wide Shut together. That being said, the Taylor-Johnson relationship itself is a bit unusual: Sam is in her forties, and met Aaron when he was just 18. They married last year and have two children together. Sam is a former video artist whose projects include Crying Men, a series of photographs of celebrities in tears.

The Focus features production may not have cast its stars yet, but it's being shepherded by producers Michael De Luca and Dana Brunetti, who shared an Oscar nomination for The Social Network. De Luca has also received an Oscar nomination for Moneyball. Kelly Marcel, whose picture about the clash between Walt Disney and Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers, Saving Mr. Banks, comes out this December, is still a bit of an unknown in terms of her screenwriting style. Still, the producing and directing team, as well as the writer, all suggest that Fifty Shades of Grey has pulled the right ingredients together--now it's just a matter of cooking it to perfection.

Carey Mulligan may play a young Hillary Rodham Clinton in 'Rodham'

I never thought I would say there was a resemblance between Carey Mulligan and Hillary Rodham Clinton, but so there is. With a strategic prosthetic or two, Mulligan could easily play the former

Secretary of State and First Lady. While deals are still in the works, Mulligan may play the young Clinton in a biopic entitled Rodham. It focuses on the lawyer's participation in a committee focused on President Richard Nixon's impeachment proceedings, as well as more personal matters--her relationship with future husband, Bill Clinton. The script by Young Il Kim made the 2012 Black List of unproduced films, with the fourth-highest number of votes. Here was the logline:

"During the height of the Watergate scandal, rising star Hillary Rodham is the
youngest lawyer chosen for the House Judiciary Committee to Impeach Nixon, but
she soon finds herself forced to choose between a destined path to the White House
and her unresolved feelings for Bill Clinton, her former boyfriend who now teaches
law in Arkansas."

Since Clinton is rumored to be in contention for the presidency in 2016, the biopic has an added relevance that it might not have otherwise. There's also a chance this movie will offer a take on the sacrifices women often make in the name of their families, a debate that's still raging--consider the response last year to the article "Why Women Still Can't Have It All" in The Atlantic, written by an advisor to Clinton. Rising director James Ponsoldt (Smashed, The Spectacular Now) has signed on to helm, and it looks like this script will join fellow 2012 Black List scripts, including Draft Day and The Judge and The Fault in Our Stars, that are moving forward into production.

Friday film recommendation: See 'The East'

The East is currently tracking as one of my favorite films of the year. The thriller centers on a young woman who takes an undercover assignment as a corporate spy, trying to infiltrate an anarchist collective known as The East. I'm not the only one who likes the movie: 75% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes are giving the thriller a "fresh" rating. Why is it so great?

1. Brit Marling. She's completely compelling in the role, especially because it requires her to act without the help of dialogue. She's often in the position of saying one thing while thinking another in her head, which really shows off her talents as an actor. In her Village Voice review, critic Amy Nicholson muses "I'd love to see Marling play Bond," a reflection of how easily she plays self-assured.

What's even more interesting is that Marling used to work for Goldman Sachs, the type of corporation that would be considered the enemy by the anarchist collective she infiltrates in the movie. Marling co-wrote the story with Zal Batmanglij, who also directs, and the project was inspired by the months they spent living like freegans and hanging out with anarchists.

2. It's infused with an Occupy Wall Street flavor. A number of movies have tried to take advantage of the recession and its aftermath, from Margin Call, which received an Oscar nomination for its screenplay, to the revenge-filled, pulpy failure Assault on Wall Street. The East doesn't reference any specific current events, but it taps into the feelings of injustice and anger over the lack of accountability present in corporations. It's all the more relevant for taking this more oblique approach.

3. Low-budget feel, high-budget thrills. The East needed to be released through an indie distributor--given its message, it would feel disingenuous otherwise. (Of course, Fox Searchlight and Fox News are just two different branches of the same parent company). But this movie has even more muscle behind it, with Ridley Scott among its producers. Scott's movies (Black Hawk Down, Prometheus) often hinge on suspense, though they tend to prize action over interpersonal drama. However, he's also the one who made Sigourney Weaver the lead in Alien, one of the most prized female action heroes of all time. The thrills in The East have a polish to them that suggests the hand of someone like Scott, and it's interesting to see the mix of an indie sensibilities with the production power of a Hollywood legend.

The East comes out on Friday, joining a roster of excellent specialty releases. It looks like it's going to be a great summer for indies.

Underripe 'Oblivion' offers a taste of summer movie season

Oblivion is a visual effects-heavy sci-fi movie. It's releasing in IMAX. It stars Tom Cruise. Maybe a decade ago, these things would give the movie prime placement in the summer movie season. But now Cruise is clocking well over two decades in the movie business, and he's settling for slightly less competitive spots on the release slate. Our critic Daniel Eagan likes Oblivion (3,782 theatres), but he's also quick to point out that the "sleek, good-looking
sci-fi adventure [is] haunted by the ghosts of better films," and predicts it "should make a
splash at the box office until more mainstream blockbusters take
over." Oblivion could open in the high $30 million range in the U.S. Overseas, it's already racked up $77 million, affirming the international box office's interest in tentpoles with known quantities like Cruise.



With no other similar competitors, 42 is expected to hold strong. Its second weekend could be off by just 25%, which would give the Jackie Robinson biopic an impressive second-week total of $20 million. Although most school holidays are wrapping up, The Croods should earn over $10 million, which will bring it over the $150 million mark domestically and make it one of DreamWorks Animation's bigger successes.

The Place Beyond the Pines will expand to 1,542 theatres in its fourth week. The Ryan Gosling-led picture expanded into over 500 screens last week and maintained a $7,000 per-screen average. The humanistic crime drama should do at least as well this week as it did last week, bolstered by strong indie cred and the supporting performances of Eva Mendes and Bradley Cooper.

Rocker/filmmaker Rob Zombie will roll out his fifth film, The Lords of Salem, in 300 theatres. "Is Rob Zombie the Woody Allen of horror auteurs?" Our critic Maitland McDonagh speculates. Not only does he assemble an impressive cast, he "has the look of a
low-budget '70s horror film down cold, and it's packed with
allusions to genre classics and cult favorites." That may be enough to make the horror flick a hit among guts-and-gore afficianados.

On Monday, we'll see if Oblivion jump-started the summer movie season and if the solitary new wide release gave the returning pictures some breathing room.

'42' should hit a triple while 'Scary Movie 5' may not even get on base

Finally, an adult-leaning picture that doesn't involve car chases, mobsters, or kidnapping. 42 (3,003  theatres) is one of the first dramas to release this year that aims to connect with audiences in search of quality. Baseball fans, history buffs, and African-Americans (or any

combination of the three) should also be among the viewers turning out this weekend. The question is whether the idea of seeing Jackie Robinson on the big screen will outweigh the poor box office precedents for this picture. Recent baseball pictures (including Moneyball and Benchwarmers ) just haven't opened above $20 million. Of course, if you look way back, you have both A League of Their Own, which earned over $100 million back in 1992, and Field of Dreams, which earned $64 million in 1989. In spirit, those are closer to 42. However, the most recent story of triumph in a predominantly white space, the flying movie Red Tails, didn't even cross $50 million. It's a mixed bag out there. Many predict an opening of $20 million, but I could see the movie going even higher. 42 gives a saintly portrait of Robinson, which doesn't necessarily make for high drama, but the inspiring, feel-good story could have audiences coming back due to positive word-of-mouth. Despite its flaws, it's one of the best wide releases to come out this year, and I'm rooting for Robinson and 42.

Scary Movie 5 (3,402 theatres) is back from the dead, and this time Lindsay Lohan, Charlie
Sheen, and Ashley Tisdale are among the stars in this horror parody franchise. Scary Movie 4 came out a good six years ago, and such a long lag between sequels is dicey. It's most likely that the release will fall flat, opening under $20 million.

Two specialty releases are scaling up. After debuting last week to a $32,000 per-screen average, Trance will expand into 438 locations. The Place Beyond the Pines will go from 30 to 514 locations in its third
week. Pines will likely earn at least $1 million in the expanded release, while Trance should be somewhere in the mid-six figures.

Writer/director Terence Malick, who is famous for taking years to edit films, has a surprise: another film just two years after his last, The Tree of Life. Ben Affleck, Olga Kurylenko and Rachel McAdams star in To the Wonder (5 locations), which FJI critic Chris Barsanti describes as "a
floating beauty of a philosophical love story that can’t yank its
head out of the wispy clouds of meaning long enough to consider the
humans mucking about on terra firma." That about sums up the artistic work, which has beautiful visuals but not much of a plot.

On Monday, we'll see if 42 scored and if Scary Movie 5 revived the aging franchise.

 

'Age of Miracles' to come to big screen courtesy of director Catherine Hardwicke

Since she launched the incredibly successful Twilight franchise, director Catherine Hardwicke has moved on to more modest pursuits (though the original film itself was quite modest). She directed Red Riding Hood and recently wrapped the thriller Plush, but hasn't had a project as high-profile
as the vampire franchise. However, the director recently signed on to helm an adaptation of The Age of Miracles, a popular novel last year that received multiple mentions on "best" lists, including a recommendation from O: The Oprah Magazine.

The book uses science fiction as an entry point for family drama and a coming-of-age story. Inexplicably, the Earth's rotation starts to slow, elongating the days and nights and leading to gradual changes that upend both how the world functions and the friendships and family of an 11-year-old girl. If Karen Thompson Walker's novel had a film parallel, it would be the indie Another Earth. That movie used a sci-fi concept but then focused on the interpersonal drama. There's also an "Is-the-world-ending?" element that's reminiscent of Seeking a Friend for the End of the World, where people look for solace in one another in unusual ways. River Road Entertainment is producing the drama.

It's possible that Hardwicke was selected for the project because she's specialized in works for young adults, but The Age of Miracles is definitely an adult novel that happens to star an 11-year-old girl, at least in the book version. The screenwriter for the project, Seth Lochhead, scripted Hanna, which centers on a young girl who is also an assassin, so it's safe to bet that this project will also keep its adult bent intact. The Age of Miracles is one of the more interesting and unusual books to come out in recent years, and seeing the perils of a slowing world come to life on the big screen will undoubtedly draw plenty of its devoted readers to theatres.

 

 

Where's Dory? 'Finding Dory' will be the 2015 follow-up to 'Finding Nemo'

The long-anticipated sequel to Finding Nemo has a name: Finding Dory. That means that the goofy, scatter-brained Dory (voiced by Ellen DeGeneres) will be the star of the show in the CG-animated feature, which will release November 2015.

DeGeneres made the announcement about Finding Dory on "The Ellen Show" this morning. The talk-show host has been a huge advocate for moving the sequel forward, voicing frustration when Pixar went ahead with Toy Story 3 and Cars 2 instead of developing a follow-up to the 2003 animated feature. Now, twelve years after the original, Dory will release in November 2015. That's actually earlier than the 2016 date originally projected.

 

 

The shift from the serious father-son relationship in Finding Nemo to a project centered on its primary source of comic relief, Dory, is something of a trend in animated features. The minions in Despicable Me weren't used too heavily, but they were a comic highlight. They will be featured more prominently in this summer's Despicable Me 2, and they're also getting their own spinoff. Minions will release through Universal in December 2014, and focus entirely on the tiny peanut-like creatures.

DreamWorks Animation is also trying to give its comic characters a role in the spotlight. After appearing in three Madagascar films, its penguins will finally get to star in their own movie in The Penguins of Madagascar, which is set for a release in March 2015. It's worth noting that the penguins also have their own show on Nickelodeon with the same name, which is very popular.

While Dory was a great comic character, she managed to be multi-dimensional even in the brief span of the movie. Andrew Stanton (Wall-E, Finding Nemo) will be directing the feature, and he's one of Pixar's best. Especially with how far animated technology has come in the last decade, the visuals, so stunning in the original, will likely reveal even more luminous oceanic plants and animals.

'G.I. Joe: Retaliation' shocks and awes with $40 million weekend

G.I. Joe: Retaliation is having the last laugh.
After Paramount moved the release date from last summer to this March, many in
the industry suspected they were trying to salvage a stinker. Instead, G.I. Joe:
Retaliation earned $41.2 million over the weekend, and
$51.7 million since its
Thursday opening. The budget for the follow-up feature
was slightly lower, yet including the overseas totals, the movie is already
pacing ahead of the 2009 original. The studio's decision to convert the feature
to 3D also paid off: 45% of tickets sold were for 3D showings, which is better
than many other recent films, including The Croods.

The Easter weekend was also kind to Tyler Perry. His film Temptation:
Confessions of a Marriage Counselor opened to $22.3 million
and received high marks from its older female, African-American viewers. The
general critical community, however, was not impressed. Perry is definitely a
workhorse, and though he's never had the kind of massive hits of Steven
Spielberg or Robert Zemeckis, he joins their ranks by having nine films open
over $20 million. Perry's mix of romance, drama, and humor has thrived with little variation at the box office--talk about evergreen returns.

If only young adult sci-fi romances were so predictable. The Host,
which came courtesy of none other than fantasy-romance queen bee Stephenie
Meyer, who wrote the Twilight series and produced this adaptation of
her book, showed that teen girls are picky--and fickle. It's the latest twist
on the genre to be greeted by a tepid reaction at the box office. That's what
happened to Beautiful Creatures, which recently opened to $7.5
million. The
Host did slightly better, debuting to $11 million,
but that's still nowhere near the original Twilight's $70 million opening. It's time for studios to look at other content that appeals to teen girls that doesn't recycle the same elements. That's what worked for The Hunger Games, and coming up with the next idea like that is what will lead to a billion-dollar franchise.

The Place Beyond the Pines averaged $67,000 per screen in four locations in NYC and LA. While critics found flaws in the movie, it does star Ryan Gosling, who has turned into a sort of tongue-in-cheek feminist icon and blog meme. There was also a spontaneous Ryan Gosling-themed Easter egg hunt that undoubtedly turned a few eyes near his work. Another specialty feature, The Shining documentary Room 237, got a good start with $18,000 per screen in two locations.

This Friday, the horror classic Evil Dead gets a reboot and the original Jurassic Park returns to theatres in 3D.

'The Croods' kicks off school holiday while 'Spring Breakers' expands for the college set

The first major animated film to open this year, The Croods (4,046 theatres), could easily exceed the mid-$40 million figure Fox is predicting for the DreamWorks Animation production. A debut weekend in that range would put it in line with the March opening of DreamWorks Animation's How to Train Your Dragon. At the time, that opening for Dragon was seen as low, but it ended up grossing five times its opening weekend, or $217 million. That's an excellent multiple. In comparison, DWA's Megamind opened $3 million higher than Dragon but had a cumulative total that was $75 million lower. The difference here is partly one of quality: Dragon had a 98% critics rating to Megamind's 73% approval on Rotten Tomatoes. The Croods is currently falling below both of those numbers: just 61% of critics have come out in favor of the film. One of those is FJI's Kevin Lally, who lauded the "dazzling 3D style" and "lively vocal performances" of the leads. The concept of a
prehistoric family battling to survive feels novel enough, which could give the animated feature a boost. That plus the pent-up demand for a quality animated feature (the ratings are still higher than those for Escape from Planet Earth) and the release timed to kids' spring break could spell great box-office returns.

With an early 2013 glut of R-rated content geared towards adult males, Olympus Has Fallen (3,098 theatres) may be the latest to fall flat. However, the scope and budget of this "Die Hard in the White House" feature at least feels larger than its comparable predecessors. But then you read the reviews. Our Daniel Eagan was unimpressed with the "generic thriller marred by poor special effects." It also earns its R rating with "grim, ugly" and graphic depictions of violence. Gerard Butler, who leads as a Secret Service agent, hasn't been much of a draw for audiences lately (see: Playing for Keeps) and a lackluster opening could only confirm that
his star status is in jeopardy. At least this time, he'll have the help of Morgan Freeman playing House Speaker and acting President.

Tina Fey plays an uptight admissions officer in Admission (2,160 theatres),
a "bracingly smart, affecting romp" that critic David Noh thought was
"one of the best comedies in a while." Paul Rudd plays the leader of an
alternative school who's gunning to get one of his students into
Princeton. Focus is smartly limiting the release, and fewer auditoriums
should lead to a greater concentration of laughter. Still, this one will
open low, to around $10 million, and then will rely on word-of-mouth to
turn it into a quiet, Pitch Perfect-like hit.

Spring Breakers wowed last weekend with a stunning per-screen average. It expands to 1,104 theatres today, and the big question is if its success in specialty theatres in New York and Los Angeles will translate to success across the nation. Because of doubts about the movie's viability, sub-$10 million estimates have been circulating, but I think it could potentially go much, much higher. People drawn in by director Harmony Korine's auteur status will be sitting next to people who are just looking for American Pie-style debauchery.

Opening in just 4 theatres, The Sapphires offers a "familiar but supremely well-told and produced tale" about four Aboriginal young women who entertain the troops during the Vietnam War, assesses critic Doris Toumarkine. The socially aware feature about a group's rise of success, which I gave a shout-out to earlier this week, is a ripe offering for specialty-seeking audiences.

On Monday, we'll see which films were in the winners in a weekend crowded with a number of attractive offerings.

 

Director Chris Wedge teases clips of this summer's 'Epic'

The mystery behind Epic's Leaf Men has partially been solved. Yesterday in a movie theatre in Manhattan's Times Square, Ice Age director Chris Wedge previewed clips from the latest Blue Sky Animation feature, Epic. The May 24 release from 20th Century Fox melds comedy with action-adventure in a way that appears to please children (judging by the giggles I heard afterward) and maybe even adults too, though I didn't see enough of the movie in the preview to tell if the story

would coalesce. The premise is that in the forest, there live tiny fairy-like creatures called Leaf Men, which are just one species in a whole range of tiny creatures invisible to the human eye. One scientist (voiced by Jason Sudeikis) has spent his whole life trying to identify these creatures, but it's his college-age daughter (Amanda Seyfried), who he has neglected for most of his years, who's shrunk down to Leaf Men-size and embroiled in a race-against-time that will preserve their existence. That's because the gross, fungi-like Boggans want to destroy the forest and the Leaf Men who protect it.

Epic has such intricately designed characters inhabiting a unique, parallel world, it feels almost literary. At the same time, with so much going on, the clips Wedge showed often followed completely different characters. I didn't even know that the daughter was the main character until Wedge finally said so midway through the talk.

The 3D trailer at the end of the presentation, which will be shown in front of The Croods this Friday, was the only finished, polished piece of animation shown. Wedge described giving reporters "a peek behind the green curtain," and that couldn't be more true. While it was easy to observe what was missing during scenes that skipped frames or used production artwork, the coloring and resolution were off, as was the sound mix, which includes a Danny Elfman music score, which Wedge noted had just been added. The visuals made me feel like I was like watching a later '90s or early aughts CG-animated feature. The type of lighting sparkle and crisp resolution that I've observed in Tangled and How to Train Your Dragon was only there in the trailer.

Watching Epic made me slightly nostalgic for another forest-set animated tale that was popular during my childhood (although not a hit at the box office), FernGully: The Last Rainforest. That film also feature tiny creatures struggling against evil in the forest, and at the time the idea was simply magical. I think it's safe to say that however Epic plays among adults, the world it presents will enchant kids. And did I mention there are two very goofy slugs (voiced by Aziz Ansari and Chris O'Dowd) who do funny things with their eyeballs? Their antics made adults and kids in the audience laugh out loud.

 

March will get some shine with the earnest 'Sapphires'

Early 2013 has had just a few bright, fresh releases. After a few months with the best specialty films the year has to offer, there's nothing to appeal to audiences who like quality, thought-provoking features. Auteur-bait Stoker came out a couple of weeks ago, and now there's another film worthy of arthouse applause and crossover success: The Sapphires. The story of four Aboriginal young
women in Australia who style themselves as an R&B quartet and play for American troops in Vietnam is sweet story that will have you rooting for their success--but it also packs a punch, with insights about race and identity that will feel both familiar and foreign to American audiences. In Australia, the movie has been a huge success, as anyone who read a recent "Day and Date Down Under" column can attest.

The movie bills itself as a true story based on the experiences of the mother of playwright Tony Briggs, who also co-adapted the screenplay. He took a lot of liberties with the material, but the heart of what went actually happened is there. What's most shocking is how overtly racist Australia was in 1968. A trio of girls try to enter a contest at a local watering hole, where they receive a completely indifferent reaction despite their stunning harmonies. Still, their performance catches the attention of a down-and-out
promoter/manager (Chris O'Dowd), who tries to get them a contract to sing in Vietnam. In the city, the girls track down a long-lost cousin who was taken away from them as a girl, because of her light-colored skin, and raised as white--a common practice at the time. She joins the group, but the bossy leader of the quartet has trouble keeping in her anger at the light-skinned girl for abandoning her Aboriginal identity, despite the fact that as a young girl she had little choice in the matter.

Once they're in Vietnam, the girls flirt with the troops, wow them with their R&B hits, and narrowly avoid getting caught in the crossfire. Here the movie can lag a bit, but overall The Sapphires is an entertaining underdog story that offers education about another country's history of racial oppression. The Help set to music, with a less pat outcome. The girls refer to themselves as the "blacks" of Australia, sometimes as way of explanation to the American troops. In American terms, the Aboriginals suffered from the kind of government policies and cultural beliefs that oppressed both Native Americans and Blacks. They were alternately assimilated and separated out into poor, rural areas, and openly discriminated against. While thousands of miles away, the United States is something of a touchstone for the singers. They're aware of the Civil Rights movement that is afoot in the U.S, which they see expressed in the country's soul music. That makes their performances of the music that much more powerful. As they learn to sing in that style, you can feel them changing, and rebelling against the structures that have constrained them. The Sapphires is launching in four theatres this Friday, and it's my vote for those who need a reprieve from the action films and thrillers that have been dominating the release slate.

Horror movie 'App' encourages viewers to download in-movie app to enhance scares

Seeing the glow from a person checking their cell phone in a movie theatre is an annoying breach of etiquette--normally. Viewers will be encouraged to take out their phones and follow along during the Dutch movie App, which is coming out this April in the Netherlands. Before watching the thriller, which is about a girl who downloads a bad app that unleashes her into a world of trouble, viewers will download the app too, then receive complementary messages and second-screen content throughout the viewing. After watching the Dutch-language trailer for the movie, I'm optimistic. Because the plot centers on a girl's interactions with her mobile phone, there's a strong crossover between the beyond-the-screen elements and what's taking place in the on-screen story.

 

 

Horror movies have always been ripe for beyond-the-screen scares. Famed showman of B-movies William Castle came up with all kinds of gimmicks (including Percepto and seats that buzzed) to entertain audiences and make the movies feel more real (taking out insurance policies in case an audience member died of fright). App producer 2CFilm is just following a long movie theatre tradition with horror movies. Only the technology is different.

In addition to using the relatively new technology of mobile apps to engage audiences, the phone syncs with the on-screen content through digital audio watermarking. This is the same technology that Hollywood studios are using to identify cammed copies of movies. Though the human ear can't hear the audio signature, the app will pick up on it and use those signals to sync with audience members' phones.

The Netherlands may be a good test case to see if audiences like the novelty of following along to a horror movie. Its 110-screen release is huge by the country's standards. Though local content is often a prized rarity in Hollywood-dominated markets, and seeing a movie in a native language gives it a boost, it shouldn't be hard to figure out if audiences are responding to the app. Then, it'll only be a matter of time before the Hollywood remake.

 

Coen Brothers to write script for Angelina Jolie-directed 'Unbroken'

I feel a little protective over Laura Hillenbrand's nonfiction tour de force, Unbroken. She works with amazing material--the endurance against all odds of Louis Zamperini, an Olympic track star who survived first in a lifeboat for 47 days and then in a Japanese POW camp--but it's what she does with that life story that makes it special. In her hands, Zamperini's story is about his will to
survive. In the face of complete and utter hopelessness, he summoned and directed that will, and that's what helped him make it through. Powerful stuff.

Angelina Jolie wouldn't be my first choice for director of this movie, but she's taken an interest in the Universal project. Even more curiously, she and her fellow producers hired Ethan and Joel Coen to write the script for the adaptation of the 496-page novel. It's a bold decision. The Coen Brothers' works often have a style that distances the work from reality (see: Raising Arizona), turning their main characters into darkly comic figures with distinctive accents. But they also have works that, absurd as they are, feel intensely real and true to their genre, like Fargo and No Country for Old Men. Although not particularly
prominent in the book, there is plenty of ambient dark and gallows humor. How else can one survive without food on a lifeboat, or while under the thumb of fickle and cruel wardens of POW camps? I imagine that the Coen Brothers' screenplay will bring these elements to the forefront.

As adaptations go, this one has a number of major challenges. First, there's the length of the book, 496 pages. Then there's the fact that there are four distinct parts: Zamperini's childhood (likely to be elided) and time as an Olympic track star, his work in the army, his plane crash and survival in the lifeboat, and his years in the POW camp. The latter two are the most important, but couldn't be more different. It will be like watching Life of Pi and then seeing the same characters segue into Schindler's List. Seriously. Apparently, Universal has been trying to adapt the Zamperini story for decades, even before Hillenbrand's book came out. Her take on events combined with the Coen Brothers' script may be enough to finally crack this incredible tale that you would never believe if it hadn't actually, in fact, happened.

 

Assembling the cast for 'The Book Thief'

Like many kids, I was fascinated with the Holocaust and World War II growing up. Newbery Award-winning novel Number the Stars, which features a girl whose Jewish friend is threatened by Nazis, was required reading. Orphans have always been literary favorites, because these novels give their child protagonists independence that's uncharacteristic for kids. Combine that with living in a
secret hiding place, and the blend is absolutely thrilling--which is not to say that kids don't understand the gravity of the historical fiction or non-fiction they're reading. In recent years, enthusiasm for the genre hasn't died down. Now The Book Thief, which tops the "Amazon Best Sellers for Children's Holocaust Fiction" (yes, you read that category right, and it only covers the top 100) is being turned into a movie.

Sophie Nelisee (Anna Karenina, War Horse) will star as the title character, The Book Thief. The Munich-based foster child finds comfort and salvation in books during a time of war. Her foster parents, who will be played by Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson, also take a Jewish man (Ben Schnetzer) into hiding. Tonally, the movie has the potential to be more Inglourious Basterds than The Reader. The book by Marcus Zusak is narrated by Death, and is filled with dark comedy that has drawn in adults and young readers alike. That may be enough to set this story apart from the large pack of novels covering the same topic.

Brian Percival of "Downton Abbey" is directing. Now that the leading cast is assembled, the Fox 2000 project will begin shooting next month in Berlin.