SPEARE'S TIPS - The Films of 6/3/11

[Shrykespeare]

Yikes. Never in my wildest imaginings did I have Kung Fu Panda 2 opening as softly as it did. I mean, for 95% of the movies that open, $53 million in its first four days would be off the charts. But this is a summer blockbuster, from DreamWorks no less, the sequel to a very popular film. What went wrong? I haven’t figured it out. It can’t all be because its audience was flocking to see The Hangover Part II, which opened to a stellar $118 million on its OW, because the demographic is radically different. Who knows. One thing that was not a surprise this weekend was the titanic PTA victory turned in by Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life, which outduelled Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris in its second week.

This coming weekend marks the beginning of the June-August leagues, as well as the second-half Half Year Super Leagues, so get in now! It’s tempting in this season to just pick the really big films like Cars 2, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 and have done with it. After all, those three films are probably the biggest surefire hits this summer. But as this past weekend illustrated, “surefire” doesn’t mean what it used to, does it?

This summer season is a bit unusual in one other respect: a whopping FOUR superhero films, and not one of them is a sequel. Thor, Green Lantern and Captain America are all getting their origin stories, and the X-Men franchise, whose trilogy began in 2000 and ended rather ignominiously in 2006 with The Last Stand (though I prefer to call it The Last Straw), is going back to the beginning of the popular Marvel comic book series’ mythos with its own origin story, entitled X-Men: First Class, from 20th Century Fox. Needless to say, what Bryan Singer started and then ended up getting overblown and overcomplicated a la The Matrix or the Pirates series, hopes are high with this latest X-Men film.

Before I go into the plot, let me say that so far, the critics are unanimous in their praise of First Class: nineteen critics have turned in reviews to RT, and every single one has been positive. And no, not every one of those critics represents a fanboy mag. Bottom line is, this is one film to keep your eye on. Bryan Singer, the director who started it off, is now sitting in the producer’s chair, and taking the directorial reins is up-and-coming helmer Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass), who also co-wrote the screenplay. That fact alone would make me want to see it.

The two most prominent characters in the X-Men franchise are, of course, Professor X and Magneto. In First Class, we go back to 1962, the time of JFK, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Civil Rights Movement. We are introduced to Charles Xavier (James McAvoy) and Erik Lensherr (Michael Fassbender) as young men, discovering their mutant abilities for the first time. Starting as friends rather than enemies, they band together with a bunch of other young mutants in order to prevent a nuclear war.

Many of these names will be familiar to avid readers of the comic. There’s Beast (Nicholas Hoult), Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence), Emma Frost (January Jones), Havok (Lucas Till), Riptide (Alex Gonzalez), Banshee (Caleb Jones), Darwin (Edi Gathegi), Angel (Zoe Kravitz) and Azazel (Jason Flemyng). Other notable actors in the cast include Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne, Oliver Platt and Ray Wise. And, in case you’re are wondering, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) is reported to have a cameo appearance only.

In this topsy-turvy summer, it’s tough to predict just what level of “hit” these films will reach. Solid reviews didn’t help Panda 2 much, and poor reviews didn’t slow Hangover 2 down one iota. What can we reasonably expect from First Class? Well, I’ll predict $64 million in its first three days, on its way to eleven Top 5 points, three PTA, a Rating in the mid-to-high 7’s and $150 million. Those are decent numbers for $21 (Ultimate) or $22 (Box Office). If you are a player not solidly behind talking cars, talking robots or young wizards, you should seriously consider taking this film.

I just recently added two new films to the roster for this weekend. Given that this is the first weekend of a new season, it seems fitting that there be five films on tap, so that every PTA point possible will be awarded. X-Men and the four limited-release films coming this Friday are guaranteed at least one PTA point each, which means, again, you should consider one or two of these for inclusion. Will any of them beat First Class to the PTA punch? It’s certainly possible… every single one of them will be debuting between two and five theaters, which is an optimum number for PTA purposes. Three of these four films should merit serious consideration, as any one of them could conceivably end up taking the crown. (Remember, for PTA purposes, the May films will not enter into consideration, so for the June leagues ONLY, you need not worry about these films beating Tree of Life or Midnight in Paris.)

Beginners ($5 Ult) (5 theaters) – Acclaimed director Mike Mills (Thumbsucker) is behind the camera for this film, which is based partly on the story of Mills’ own father, who came out of the closet at the age of 75. Beginners tells the story of Oliver (Ewan McGregor), an ordinary man who is presented with two startling revelations at the hands of his father Hal (Christopher Plummer): his dad not only has terminal cancer, but is actually gay and has taken a younger man (Goran Visnjic) as a partner. This throws Oliver for a loop, and he must find a way to deal with it while maintaining a relationship with Anna (Inglourious Basterds’ Melanie Laurent), who has become his only confidant.

Critically, Beginners is off to a good start: it made its debut at the Toronto Film Festival to favorable reviews, and currently has an 86% score on RT (6/7 positive). Its current Rating is 7.0 (on nearly 300 votes), which is decent. For $5, you could have a winner. But this weekend’s PTA is very hard to predict, as all the films seem to be on fairly equal ground.

Submarine ($5 Ult) (4 theaters) – Ben Stiller acts as executive producer for this film from the Weinstein Company, and is directed by Richard Ayoade (who also directs the TV show Community). It centers on a 15-year-old boy named Oliver (this must be the week for Olivers!), an asocial teen who prefers to live in his own little world, coming as he does from a home where the love has gone out of the marriage of his parents (Noah Taylor, Sally Hawkins). He has the hots for a girl named Jordana (Yasmin Paige), and goes way out of his comfort zone to impress her.

From the trailer, it looks like a cute but quirky comedy, and certain someones at Toronto and Sundance called Submarine an homage to Wes Anderson and Hal Ashby. Whatever the case, reviews have been stellar: Only two of 33 reviews at RT have been negative, and its current Rating (7.7 with well over 1,000 votes) can only help you. $5 may seem a lot to pay, but in this case, it seems like just the right amount.

Beautiful Boy ($4 Ult) (4 theaters) – Newbie director Shawn Ku helms this drama, which stars Michael Sheen and Maria Bello as Bill and Kate Carroll, two average parents who, one day, are presented with perhaps the most tragic news possible: their 18-year-old son has died by his own hand, after perpetrating a massive school-shooting. I mean, what do you do in that case? The entire country is looking at you sideways like it’s your horrible parenting that caused this tragedy, on top of losing your only child. The film, however, seems to travel down the same road as Rabbit Hole did: learning to forgive not only their son for his heinous deed but themselves for failing to see it coming, and to move on with their lives. Alan Tudyk, Moon Bloodgood and Meat Loaf co-star.

Beautiful Boy won the International Critics Award at Toronto last year, and currently sports a 7.6 Rating (though with only 142 votes). I would probably place this film’s PTA potential just a hair below that of Submarine and about equal to that of Beginners, so it all depends on whether that $1 that you’d save for Beautiful Boy is a factor for you.

Love, Wedding, Marriage ($3 Ult) (2 theaters) – Low-grade rom-coms are aplenty on the wide-release schedule. From the looks of the trailer, all this film is missing to merit a 1,500-theater release platform is a major studio to put it there. IFC Films, on the other hand, is purely arthouse-level, which means the majority of the public will likely never hear of this film. But perhaps that’s just as well, as it looks like Love, Wedding, Marriage is nothing but a formulaic, by-the-numbers rom com.

Actor Dermot Mulroney (My Best Friend’s Wedding) is behind the camera for this film, which stars Mandy Moore as Ava, a successful marriage counselor who just became happily married to Charlie (played by the Twilight films’ Kellan Lutz). But a dark cloud appears when, in a turn of irony, her parents (Jane Seymour, James Brolin) announce that they are getting divorced. Turning her marriage-counselor persona up to 11, Ava must find a way to keep her folks together.

Well, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that this film will end up on the low end of the PTA totem pole. At least it will get one point, which is more than some films get.


My predictions for the weekend of June 3-5, 2011:

1. X-Men: First Class - $64 million
2. The Hangover Part II - $47 million
3. Kung Fu Panda 2 - $30 million
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides - $18 million
5. Bridesmaids - $11 million

Well, that will do it for me for another week. Next week, we soldier on into June with five more films, scheduled to debut on June 10th: Super 8, a retro-looking family-action film from the brain trust of Steven Spielberg and J.J. Abrams; Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer, a kiddie comedy about a third grader attempting to have the best summer of her life; and limited-release features The Trip, The Troll Hunter and Viva Riva!

Celebrities with milestone (div. by 10) birthdays this week:

Stephen Tobolowsky (famous character actor) (60 on 5/30)
Lea Thompson (Back to the Future) (50 on 5/31)
Stacy Keach (TV’s Prison Break, Machete) (70 on 6/2)
Noah Wyle (ER, debuting in Falling Skies on 6/19) (40 on 6/4)
Mark Wahlberg (The Fighter, next up in Contraband in March) (40 on 6/5)

Later!

[W]

Richard Ayoade only directed one episode of Community. He's most known for his role as Maurice Moss on the BBC show "The IT Crowd." It's a hilarious show. Check it out.

He's this guy:

[numbersix]

I saw Submarine a few weeks ago. It was good. Real Wes Anderson vibe. Not sure if it will translate to US audiences though.

[Shrykespeare]

Official Theater Counts:

X-Men: First Class - 3,641
Beginners - 5
Beautiful Boy - 4
Submarine - 4
Love, Wedding Marriage - 2

Also:
Midnight in Paris expands to 147 locations (probably no more PTA then)
The Tree of Life expands to 20 locations


Current RT scores (IMDb Ratings):

X-Men: First Class - 85% (96/113) (no Rating yet) (very impressive)
Submarine - 90% (47/52) (7.7 on 1,261 votes)
Beginners - 78% (21/27) (6.9 on 313 votes)
Beautiful Boy - 77% (17/23) (7.4 on 149 votes)
Love, Wedding, Marriage - 0% (0/10) (no Rating yet)


Next Week Estimates:

Super 8 - 3,200
Judy Moody - 2,000


So, assuming Tree of Life doesn't repeat as champion (which, for the June leagues, wouldn't matter anyway), which title do you guys think has the best chance to be PTA champ this weekend? It could be any of the first four titles! (If anyone picks LWM for their slate, I will laugh at them repeatedly.)

[silversurfer19]

I'd say X-Men should win. I reckon it will bring in somewhere in the region of $70m this weekend, or 19,200 PTA. I don't really see any of the smaller movies doing THAT well. I reckon it's a close call for the rest though, Submarine has had some great reviews but may not translate to US audiences, Beginners has a fairly well respected director and a good cast but I haven't heard too much about it. Don't really know anything of Beautiful Boy.

[undeadmonkey]

i agree with SS, XMen, should take it, unless one of the limited ones break out, but they don't seem high profile enough to do so.

[W]

Hearing all the hubbub about First Class, I figured it at a good number, but Deadline projects it at only $58 M for the weekend.

[Buscemi]

The showing I went to tonight was only about 40% full. However, word of mouth was good so it should pick up on Saturday.

[Buscemi]

Early weekend estimates:

X-Men: First Class
$23 million Friday, $58 million weekend

[Shrykespeare]

BOM Friday estimates:

X-Men: First Class, $28M
Hangover 2, $10.5M
Kung Fu Panda 2, $6.2M
Pirates 4, $5.1M
Bridesmaids, $3.6M
Thor, $1.2M
Fast Five, $962K
Midnight in Paris, $705K
Something Borrowed, $265K
Jumping the Broom, $240K
Rio, $185K

Bridesmaids will likely hit $100M today, and Fast Five will become the first 2011 film to hit $200M, also today.

[W]

Weekend #s

1. First Class $53 M
2. Hangover II $35 M
3. Panda II $22 M (it says 22 M Saturday, but there's no way that's right. They mean weekend.)
4. Pirates 4 $16.5 M
5. Bridesmaids $12 M

...8. Midnight in Paris $2.4 M ($16,000+ PTA, X Men is $14000+)

EDIT: From Deadline

[Buscemi]

There weren't that many people at the showing of Kung Fu Panda 2 I was at. Probably about 20 people in a sub-100 seat auditorium.

[W]

My computer was dying, so I didn't see Beginners will have a weekend PTA of $25,000. Same source.

BO Mojo says Tree of Life did about $9000 per theater on Friday (compared to Beginners $7200) so I'd imagine PTA will be:
1. Tree of Life (30 ish K)
2. Beginners (25 K)
3. Midnight in Paris (16 K)
4. First Class (14 K)
5. Hangover II (9.5 K)

And Submarine may/may not knock some of them down a peg.

[Buscemi]

Reportedly, Submarine had an opening day PTA of under $2,000.

[silversurfer19]

Dammit. I went on the reviews and general praise of Submarine and dropped Beginners in favour of it on most of my slates. There goes another league down the pan...