SPEARE'S TIPS - The Films of 9/30/11

[Shrykespeare]

With major league baseball's regular season coming to an end this week, this seemed like the perfect time to release Moneyball, and, let by Brad Pitt, it might have sailed to victory on any other weekend. However, the 3D re-release of The Lion King held sway for a second week, depriving Moneyball of its victory and us of at least one Top 5 points that took it. All of the other releases cracked the Top 5 as well, and kudos to Machine Gun Preacher for winning the PTA race.

Some time this week, I will likely be creating the October leagues. It is important to remember that IF you are still participating in the Super Leagues, and IF you are able to survive the final cuts, this is the round that you have to win to secure a victory. Not many will be around to vie for the titles, but those that do had better choose wisely. This week, however, we close out September, and there are six films on the docket.

The first film I’ll talk about this week is What’s Your Number?, a romantic comedy from Fox. It is the second wide-release feature from director Mark Mylod, following the low-grade 2005 crime comedy The Big White. It stars Anna Faris as Ally Darling, a thirtysomething Bostonian who realizes that she has been in no less than twenty failed relationships, and becomes convinced that one of her exes may have been her true love after all. Enter Colin (Chris Evans), a neighbor who agrees to help track them down if she can help him end a relationship of his own. And all of her exes (from the trailer, anyway) are familiar names, kind of: Chris Pratt, Andy Samberg, Martin Freeman, Joel McHale, Anthony Mackie, Thomas Lennon and Zachary Quinto. Who do you wanna bet she ends up with at the end?

I like Anna Faris, but given her film choices so far, it’s hard to take even a film like this seriously. Yes, she scored fairly big with The House Bunny a few years ago, but What’s Your Number? just does doesn’t seem to have that appeal. Likewise, Chris Evans doesn’t seem the right type for comedy (get back to playing superheroes and badasses, Chris!). Even more baffling, this is Fox, so what have I seen zero advertising for this film? I have a feeling that many of the 3,000 theaters showing this film will be at half-capacity or less for the duration.

Unbelievably, this film is the most expensive of the four wide-release films this week, at $11 in both leagues. I expect a spongy-soft opening of $7 million, on its way to zero Top 5 points, no PTA, $21 million and an average Rating at best. There is no way I’d pick What's Your Number?for my slates, and you shouldn’t either. It’s the last rom-com on tap for a good long while, but I don’t expect that to be a factor.

Up next is Dream House, a horror film from Universal that is quite different from most horror films that comes out, in that it has no fewer than three A-list actors in its cast: Daniel Craig, Naomi Watts and Rachel Weisz. It comes from Universal and director Jim Sheridan (Brothers, The Boxer, My Left Foot), who is making his first foray into horror. (Off-topic: doesn’t the title remind you of the classic Treehouse of Horror story “Bad Dream House”?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCrhc9RnYck)

Successful publisher Will Atenton (Craig) quits his job in NYC and moves his wife (Weisz, who is now Craig’s real-life wife) and two little girls to a quaint New England town. After moving in, however, they find that their “dream house” was the site of a grisly murder several years before, in which a man named Peter Ward survived a tragedy that claimed the lives of his entire family. Investigating with the help of a neighbor, Ann (Watts), Will discovers some truly disturbing secrets of his own.

Despite the veterans that are working in front of and behind the camera, Dream House just doesn’t look that interesting to me. The plot just seems like something we’ve seen before, and the trailer gives rather too much away anyway. Still, Dream House has probably the most potential of any of this week’s new films, and it may even scooch over the top of The Lion King 3D for the #1 spot. Scheduled to bow in over 2,600 locations, I will predict an OW of $16 million, on its way to $39 million, seven or eight Top 5 points, a few PTA and a Rating in the 6’s. For $10 (in either league), that’s not too shabby, all things considered. But be cautious: this film could easily end up tanking the way Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark did.

Watching Joseph Gordon-Levitt slowly but surely become a household name has been fun. From his teenage years on 3rd Rock From the Sun to early turns in films like Brick and The Lookout, and leading up to high-profile films like (500) Days of Summer, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, and last year’s monster hit Inception, Joseph’s star is as high as it’s ever been. And it’s not stopping: he’ll star in Premium Rush next January, work opposite Bruce Willis in Looper next fall, and team up with Christopher Nolan again in the eagerly-anticipated trilogy-capper The Dark Knight Rises next summer.

Now, however, he’s in 50/50, a dramedy directed by Jonathan Levine (The Wackness), which will be showing in roughly 2,400 theaters. Gordon-Levitt plays Adam, a 27-year-old who has just been diagnosed with cancer, who then breaks the news to his best friend Kyle (Seth Rogen), his girlfriend (Bryce Dallas Howard, coming off the immense success of The Help) and his mother (Anjelica Huston), who is also dealing with a husband coping with Alzheimer’s. Each person deals with the news in different ways, and Adam also seeks therapy from a young therapist (Anna Kendrick) as well as several older chemotherapy patients to help him deal with it.

Based loosely on the life of screenwriter Will Reiser, the film’s title refers to Adam’s chance of either defeating or succumbing to his cancer. The plot does seem to resemble in parts Seth Rogen’s film Funny People, which did marginally well despite being overly long. However, it should be mentioned that the early word on 50/50 is extremely positive: it has an RT score of 92% at the moment (on 12/13 positive revies) and has a terrific Rating as well (8.2 with over 400 votes).

That’s a good rating, but this is a very crowded weekend, so Top 5 points may be hard to come by, as well as PTA points. In all, I envision only a $13 million OW ($35 million overall), two Top 5 and perhaps a PTA point as well. It’s only $7 in Ultimate and $8 in Box Office, but the premise for the film may be a hard-sell for everyday moviegoers, and I would probably avoid putting this on my slates for just that reason.

The last of the wide-release films for September is Courageous, a Christian drama film from Sherwood Pictures, the same studio that brought Fireproof to theaters in 2008. The film, according to its one-sheet, is about fatherhood, and the story centers around four police officers “all in various stages of fatherhood trying to figure out what it means to be a great dad.” Courageous is directed by Alex Kendrick and also co-wrote the script with his brother Stephen, who, in turn, not only co-produced the film but also plays the primary character, Adam Mitchell. (And yes, both of them were the driving force behind Fireproof as well.)

Obviously, the correlation between Courageous and Fireproof can’t be ignored, and the key to Fireproof’s success was its longevity: it opened to $6.8 million in 839 theaters (#4), but made at least $1 million over its next seven weekends, ending up at $33.4 million total. Courageous will be getting a slightly higher theater count (1,100 total), but even so, I can’t envision it cracking the Top 5, because the competition this weekend is a lot stiffer than the one Fireproof had, a weekend in which only two films cracked $10 million.

Courageous will run you $5 in Ultimate, and f or that, you can expect no Top 5, maybe one or two PTA and only a middling rating (Fireproof ended up at only 5.6). You are far better off spending $6 on it in Box Office, but only just. I can see Courageous pull in $25-30 million, but not much more, and it may take a while to do that. I’d probably just skip it and pick something in late November.

And now, a little bit about this weekend’s two limited-release features:

Take Shelter ($4 Ult, $2 BO) – This highly-acclaimed film from director Jeff Nichols stars Michael Shannon (Boardwalk Empire) as Curtis, a resident of a small Ohio town with his wife Samantha (the up-and-coming Jessica Chastain) and six-year-old hearing-impaired daughter Hannah. Struggling to make ends meet on top of Hannah’s expensive special needs, the family nonetheless remain very close. When Curtis begins to experience horrifying dreams about an approaching apocalypse, he chooses to keep them to himself. However, when he starts building a storm shelter in his backyard, seemingly for no reason, he begins to alarm his wife and neighbors to the point where tensions could boil over.

Take Shelter won two awards at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and was also nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance. It currently has a perfect score on RT with 10/10 positive reviews and an 8.0 User Rating with over 400 votes, and it will be debuting on a select few screens in New York and Los Angeles this weekend, so this is one title you should definitely snap up for your Ultimate slates. Restless turned out to be a mirage, but I very much doubt that this one will be too. I could easily see this repeating as PTA champ depending on how much it expands its second week.

Tucker & Dale vs. Evil ($3 Ult, $1 BO) – This horror farce from director Eli Craig, is, from my research, the exception to a number of rules. Horror movies and spoofs tend to be among the worst-reviewed films there are. However, you might be interested to know that all 33 reviews for this film, which turn horror-movie clichés and turn them on their ear with full blood-spatter, have been positive. Yeah, I’m shocked myself.

The premise: a group of preppy college kids decide to vacation in a remote location in the mountains, prime territory for backwoods hillbilly types. And sure enough, they come across Tucker (Alan Tudyk) and Dale (Tyler Labine), who they instantly suspect of being killers. However, it’s all just a series of hilarious misunderstandings, as the duo are just a couple of good-natured guys. But when the youths start dying off – accidentally, of course – it turns into an all-out war for survival.

I would love to recommend this film based on its awesome premise, total likeability and User Rating (currently at 7.6 with over 20,000 votes). However, its theater count of thirty is likely to kill any chances of PTA that it has. What a shame, because any slate with this one on it is that much cooler to look at.


My predictions for the weekend of September 30-October 2, 2011:

1. Dream House - $16 million
2. The Lion King 3D - $16 million
3. Dolphin Tale - $14 million
4. 50/50 - $13 million
5. Moneyball - $12 million

Well, that will do it for me for another week. Next week, we start the fourth and final quarter of the year with a quartet of dramas, all set to debut on October 7th: Real Steel, an action drama starring Hugh Jackman; The Ides of March, a political drama starring George Clooney and Ryan Gosling; Dirty Girl, a drama starring Juno Temple and Milla Jovovich; and Texas Killing Fields, a crime drama starring Sam Worthington and Chloe Moretz.

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

Serena Williams (tennis star) (30 on 9/26)
Angie Dickinson (Police Woman, Rio Bravo) (80 on 9/30)
Eric Stoltz (Mask, Pulp Fiction) (50 on 9/30)
Crystal Bernard (Wings) (50 on 9/30)
Jenna Elfman (Dharma & Greg) (40 on 9/30)
Sting (singer/musician, also in Dune and The Bride) (60 on 10/2)
Tiffany (singer) (40 on 10/2)

Later!

[numbersix]

Hmmmmm... looks like another dud weekend to me. I don't see Dream House doing that well, the trailer looked boring and it's not close enough to Halloween to catch that market. A very standard film. A pity, as Our Jim can be capable of brilliance sometimes.

I'm gonna say 50/50 will beat the other openers this weekend. Good reviews, a different premise, and likeable stars should help it. I know it's Summit, so god knows how the marketing has been (that said, when I was in California I saw a lot of marketing for this, and very little for the other films coming out this week).

Corageous seems like a good BO pick to me.

I priced What's Your Number quite high because I felt it was the only comedy appealing to a female audience for some time. But now I doubt that will save it. I blame Anna Faris, an actress who prides herself on looking like an idiot.

As for PTA, Take Shleter should do well. I'd be surprised to see it beat Real Steel or Texas Killing Fields next week, but this week the competition is not very strong.

Predictions....

1. The Lion King 3D - $15 million
2. Dolphin Tale - $13 million
3. Moneyball - $11.5 million
4. 50/50 - $11 million
5. Dream House - $10 million

Corageous $8
What's Your Number $7

[ROBDude]

I'll say that What's Your Number will win the weekend.

[transformers2]

This a tough weekend to predict. I think Lion King, Dolphin Tale, and Moneyball all will have good holdovers. Dream House, 50/50, and What's Your Number? could go either way. I have seen pretty much equal advertising for all three films(50/50 a little more than the other two) and they all have premises that could lead to a mild success.
Predictions
1.Dolphin Tale $15 Mil
2.The Lion King 3D $14.5 Mil
3.Moneyball $14 Mil
4.50/50 $13 Mil
5.What's Your Number? $11 Mil

Dream House $10 Mil
Courageous $7 Mil

[Buscemi]

1. Dolphin Tale $16 million (A+ scores on Cinemascore always mean something)
2. Moneyball $14 million
3. The Lion King $13 million (passing $400 million all-time in the process)
4. Dream House $10 million
5. Courageous $9 million (don't underestimate the power of church groups)
-- What's Your Number? $8.5 million
-- 50/50 $7 million (this is probably too quirky for the mainstream audience)

[Buscemi]

In other news, Star Trek is being reissued for one week on Friday in IMAX theatres only. This is possibly being done as filler between Contagion and Real Steel.

[englishozzy]

1. The Lion King 3D - 17 million
2. 50/50 - 16 million
3. Dolphin Tale - 16 million
4. Dream House - 13 millon
5. Moneyball - 12 million

[MisterInformative]

(A+ scores on Cinemascore always mean something)

Right, like when Soul Surfer debuted at #4.

Also, I'm not really getting the vibe that 50/50 is "too quirky." I mean, this isn't Adrien Brody in a Wes Anderson film, here.

[Brockster]

MTC tracking is very poor:

50/50 - 8M
House - 8M
Courageous - 6.5M
Number - 6M

Ouch.

[Buscemi]

Soul Surfer had great legs though, Mr. I. $40 million on a movie that no one expected to do anything is very good.

[BanksIsDaFuture]

Underestimating What's Your Number....just sayin'

[Buscemi]

Along with Star Trek, Inception and Fast Five are being reissued to IMAX screens. If you are near an AMC, all tickets are $7.

[BanksIsDaFuture]

Along with Star Trek, Inception and Fast Five are being reissued to IMAX screens. If you are near an AMC, all tickets are $7.

So random, especially because they're all different studios.

[thswrestler160]

they did it last month too with trans3 and kungfu panda 2 in imax 3d for 10$. it's basically because nothing is releasing in IMAX right now and the studios are saying "hey give our movie another chance rather than play something no one wants to see"

[Buscemi]

Rotten Tomatoes ratings:

50/50 - 92%
What's Your Number? - 26%
Dream House - not screened for critics
Courageous - not screened for critics (but has two reviews in, one fresh and one rotten)
Take Shelter - 97%
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil - 87%

Not In The Game:
Margaret - 44%
Bunraku - 19%

Theatre Counts:

What's Your Number? - 3,002
Dream House - 2,660
50/50 - 2,458
Courageous - 1,161
Tucker and Dale vs. Evil - 30
Take Shelter - 3

In other news, Jim Sheridan is disowning the final cut of Dream House as he was forced out of the editing room after reshoots. The version being released is a cut prepared by the producers.