SPEARE'S TIPS - The Films of 10/8

[Shrykespeare]

The last few months have been very weird. Some surprising success stories, some surprising flops. To no one’s surprise, The Social Network easily won this past weekend, pulling in over $22 million, more than double its nearest competition. Many of the holdovers from the past two weeks suffered minimal drops (less than 40%), and all the critical acclaim in the world couldn’t help Let Me In even get near the Top 5. Meanwhile, Waiting For Superman won the PTA crown for the second week while new documentary Freakonomics foundered. I guess for a documentary to be successful these days, it needs a subject matter that is hard-hitting or polarizing. What a coincidence, we have one of those this week.

October 8th is an incredibly busy weekend for Fantasy gamers, as eight, count ‘em, eight new movies make their way to theaters. That’s a lot to take in, considering that there are only eleven new titles coming in the next THREE weeks. There are three wide-release films and five limited-release films, and that’s quite a bit of ground to cover, so in the interests of space, I’ll have to curtail my usual verbosity. Off we go.

Katherine Heigl became a household name playing Dr. Izzie Stevens on Grey’s Anatomy. She had also appeared in supporting roles in numerous movies going all the way back to 1992, but when she was given the lead in the monster hit comedy Knocked Up, she seemed to be on the road to a major movie career. However, she has followed that success story up with a bunch of ever-decreasingly popular films: the decent 27 Dresses, the so-so The Ugly Truth, and the lame-as-hell Killers. Her latest attempt to right the ship is Life As We Know It, a rom-com/tearjerker from Warner Bros.

Director Greg Berlanti, who has made his bones recently as an executive producer on such TV shows as Everwood, Dirty Sexy Money, Brothers & Sisters and the just-started No Ordinary Family, has cast Heigl as up-and-coming caterer Holly Berenson. Her best friends, Allison and Peter (who’s baby daughter Sophie is Holly’s goddaughter), set her up on a date with Eric Messer (Josh Duhamel), a network sports director, who is also friends with Allison and Peter as well as being Sophie’s godfather. The date is a complete non-starter, to say the least. However, tragedy strikes when Allison and Peter are killed in an accident, and Holly and Eric are dumbfounded when find out that they were both given custody of Sophie.

Needless to say, having a baby thrust into their lives puts a kink in Holly and Eric’s professional lives. And given that their feelings for each other are less than positive, putting their differences aside for Sophie’s sake is going to be an uphill climb. But this is also a feel-good movie, and I’m sure the foibles of parenthood will eventually bring the three together as a “family”. (Just a guess.)

Life As We Know It is being given a decent release (3,100 theaters), and it’s the only romantic comedy for at least a month. What surprises me is that I’ve seen little advertising for it (which doesn’t mean it isn’t there, I just haven’t seen it). Given the rather lackadaisical returns of the last two months, I’m going to only profess an OW of $16 million for this film, which should put it just ahead of The Social Network’s second weekend. I haven’t seen any reviews, but I doubt they will be very positive, as it looks to be just another formulaic baby comedy. I also don’t think it will hold well, given what’s coming in the next few weeks, so I would say this title is definitely overpriced at $14 (in both leagues). It might give you seven or eight Top 5 points, but that’s about it. $40 million and an incredibly average Rating are not enough to warrant that kind of cash.

How many famous thoroughbreds can you name? Well, if you’re a movie buff, you would probably say Seabiscuit, whose story was made into a very good film in 2003. But you might also say Secretariat, the horse that, in 1973, won the Triple Crown (the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness and the Belmont Stakes), something that hadn’t been done since 1948. He also set speed records that wouldn’t be broken for many years, winning the Belmont by an unprecedented 31 lengths.

Those that enjoyed Seabiscuit will probably flock to see Disney’s adaptation of Secretariat, which looks to be equally inspirational in that old-fashioned nostalgic way that many sports underdog stories are. Aging-like-a-fine-wine actress Diane Lane plays Penny Chenery-Tweedy, a Virginian housewife who takes over her father’s horse-breeding operation after her father falls ill. Along comes Secretariat, a promising colt that Penny not only forms a connection with, but ends up pinning all of her financial hopes to. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Also in the cast are John Malkovich (who will also be co-starring in next week’s action romp Red) as legendary trainer Lucien Laurin, as well as Kevin Connolly, Fred Thompson, Scott Glenn and James Cromwell. In all, it looks like a fairly routine inspirational sports story (typical of Disney), and I’m sure the reviews will be marginally good at worst. But while I think it’s a better, more engaging-looking biopic than last fall’s lackluster Amelia, I’m not convinced it will do that much better.

Secretariat will run you $12 in the October Ultimate leagues ($13 in Box Office), and honestly, I would be surprised if it finished higher than third this weekend. It’s only going to be shown in 2,500 theaters, and despite the PG rating, I envision only $12 million in its first three days. I think it will make roughly $32 million overall, the kind of movie that most people look at and decide they’d rather wait for it to come out on DVD.

Onward and downward. The least appealing title of this week’s wide-release films is My Soul To Take, a low-grade horror film that has only one thing in its favor: director Wes Craven. The man behind the camera for such classic horror fare as The Hills Have Eyes (the original), Nightmare on Elm Street (the original), and the Scream series is the name above the title for this film, which is the latest horror flick that will also be shown in 3D.

The story: the small town of Riverton was, once upon a time, plagued by a serial killer known as the Ripper. But on the night of his alleged death, seven children were born in Riverton (quite a population explosion for such a small town), and sixteen years later, members of the community begin to disappear, prompting rumors that the Ripper has returned, perhaps reincarnated in the body of one of the seven kids. The lead suspect is Adam “Bug” Hellerman (Jumper’s Max Theriot), who has been plagued by nightmares since infancy… but he swears to find the source of the evil before his friends meet a gruesome fate.

In other words: a slightly-tweaked version of a familiar theme. Being shown in around 2,500 theaters, I think My Soul to Take will not find much of an audience. There are better-pedigreed horror movies coming up (Paranormal Activity and Saw 8) as well as better-advertised 3D movies (Jackass 3D and Saw 8 again), and I imagine My Soul to Take will fare similarly or worse to like-budgeted horror films: $10 million OW ($23 million overall), two Top 5 points, no PTA, and a Rating in the 5’s. Do not take Soul (heh).

And now, a bit about this week’s limited-release films:

Stone ($7 Ult) – On paper, this film has a lot to recommend it: a decent director in John Curran (The Painted Veil), an equally decent cast including Robert DeNiro and Edward Norton (who was also in Veil), a stellar Rating so far (8.7 with over 300 votes), and a release-platform of six theaters.

Stone refers to a convicted arsonist (Norton), who uses his wife (Resident Evil’s Milla Jovovich) as a device to secure his release by getting him to seduce the parole officer (DeNiro) who is in charge of his case. From the trailer, it looks very late-night-B-movie-noir, something that Overture Films specializes in. It has an excellent shot at the PTA crown, but there are some strong contenders for that this week, so even if it falls short, at least the $7 will likely buy you an outstanding Rating.

Nowhere Boy ($5 Ult) – Perhaps less risky a pick (the operative word being “perhaps”) is this British-Canadian biopic about the adolescent years of music legend John Lennon (played by Kick Ass’s Aaron Johnson), his introduction to Paul McCartney (Thomas Brodie Sangster), and the formation of their first band, The Quarrymen… which would, of course, eventually evolve into the Beatles, quite possibly the greatest rock band of all time.

Whereas Stone has a lot of maybes attached to it, Nowhere Boy has significantly fewer. It too has a very good Rating (7.0 with over 2,700 votes, so it won’t change much), and it has been praised by most critics (41/49 on RT). It, too, has an optimum number of theaters for PTA purposes (four) and it’s $2 cheaper. So all around, a much safer pick.

It’s Kind of a Funny Story ($5 Ult) – This outing from Focus Features – the same studio that killed in the PTA department recently with The Kids Are All Right – is based on the 2006 novel of the same name by author Ted Vizzini. It centers on Craig (Keir Gilchrist), a 16-year-old boy who checks himself into a psychiatric hospital after a bout of depression. There, he bonds with the eccentric Bobby (Zach Galifianakis) and the cute-but-disturbed Noelle (Emma Roberts).

As you can tell by the title, this is a comedy, and it also has a good Rating (8.0 with 177 votes) and a decent RT score (63% on 10/16). I’m not entirely sure how many screens it will be shown on, however, and the film’s official site is not forthcoming with that information. However, this is the kind of quirky story, much like The Kids Are All Right, that can climb to the top and stay there for a while.

Tamara Drewe ($5 Ult) – Rather than a novel, this film is based on a comic strip that ran in the Manchester (UK) Guardian from 2005-07. It has been adapted for the big screen by acclaimed director Stephen Frears (Dangerous Liaisons, The Queen), and stars Gemma Arterton (Prince of Persia) in the titular role. Tamara is a young, attractive journalist who returns to her hometown in Dorset to sell her deceased mother’s home, which she has inherited. Having returned a far more attractive woman than she left, Tamara proceeds to shake up the community, not the least of which is catching the eyeballs of every man who sees her.

Tamara Drewe was an entry at Cannes this past year, and it has gotten terrific reviews so far (24/29 on RT, 6.9 on IMDb with nearly 1,000 votes). It will be debuting on four screens this Friday, which, again, puts it well within range for PTA points. What a logjam!

Inside Job ($3 Ult) – But even with all these contenders, it is this documentary that might give you the most bang for your buck. It is the cheapest of the bunch, is being given the smallest release (two theaters), and, like recent PTA powerhouse Waiting For Superman, is a hard-hitting, scathing documentary about a particularly polarizing subject… namely, the economic meltdown of 2008 and the Washington and Wall Street power players who let it happen.

Narrated by Matt Damon and directed by Charles Ferguson (whose last film, No End in Sight, a film about the U.S. occupation of Iraq, was equally hard-hitting and well-received), Inside Job features a lot of interview footage, not only of economic professors who decry the actions of a select few and espouse that the whole debacle was easily preventable, but also with a few of those “select few” who we get to see waffle and squirm and futz about while they try to explain how the global economic system disintegrated on their watch. Now, that’s something I want to see.

The kudos, thus far, are very impressive. Apart from being named the Best Film at Cannes this year, it’s gotten perfect reviews so far (9/9 at RT) – reviews that explain that Inside Job goes where even Michael Moore wouldn’t in Capitalism: A Love Story – but it also has an amazing Rating (8.3 with 126 votes), a Rating that I can’t see dropping very much. So, based on the overwhelming success of Waiting For Superman and added to all these other factors, I’m tabbing Inside Job as this week’s PTA winner. For $3, it could help you immensely in PTA and in Rating, and that’s a hell of a bargain.


My predictions for the weekend of October 8-10, 2010:

1. Life As We Know It - $16 million
2. The Social Network - $14 million
3. Secretariat - $12 million
4. My Soul to Take - $10 million
5. Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole - $7 million


Well, that will do it for me for another week. Next week, only four films are on tap for the weekend of October 15th, including: Red, a whimsical-looking action film starring Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren and John Malkovich as spies lured out of retirement, and Jackass 3D, the latest collection of what-are-they-thinking dangerous shenanigans of Johnny Knoxville and his gang of misfits. Next week will also see the limited release of Hereafter, a spooky thriller starring Matt Damon and directed by Clint Eastwood, and Conviction, a true-to-life story about a woman (Hilary Swank) who dedicates her life to getting her brother (Sam Rockwell) out of prison.

Later!

[Buscemi]

I'll go with...

1. Secretariat $15 million
2. Life As We Know It $12 million
3. The Social Network $11.5 million
4. Legend Of The Guardians $9 million
5. My Soul To Take $8 million (early word is pretty negative among the horror community)

As for the limited releases, I'll pick Inside Job to win it. Stone is basically being dumped by Relativity, It's Kind Of A Funny Story looks like too many other quirky indie comedies, Nowhere Boy is a Weinstein release (and it wasn't a big hit in its native UK) and Tamara Drewe doesn't look like it would appeal to the arthouse crowd (since it's a basic comic book adaptation and not an underground-type thing). Tamara Drewe also bombed in its native country (they aren't too big on the "Gemma Arterton is the next big thing" hype).

[Chienfantome]

I think "Tamara Drewe" will find a good place in the PTA race this week-end. THe film was an arthouse hit this summer in France, attracting 600,000 moviegoers. That's an excellent score in France for such a film. To give you an idea, that's the same score as "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs".

[numbersix]

Secreteriat is tracking in the low 20's at the moment! I doubt it'll go that high but it may win the weekend. Not sure what to make of Life as We Know it, it just seems like a non-starter to me. And as for MY Soul to Take, it looks like another sub-par under single-digit opener

Secreteriat: 17 mil
Life as We Know it: 14 mil
The Social Network: 12 mil
Legends of the Guardian: 7.5 mil
My Soul to Take: 7 mil

As for the limited, I think Inside Job, Tamara Drewe (which critics like, but the average public doesn't seem to), and Nowhere Boy (Kick-Ass as John Lennon!) will all nab some PTA points, and the rest will battle it out with Secreteriat and Waiting for Superman.

[BanksIsDaFuture]

I think The Social Network will win the weekend again, it's getting great WOM from everyone and I could see it only dropping 20% or so. Secretariat will be lucky to get to $10M this weekend - it reminds me too much of Amelia.

[Buscemi]

But it's being promoted as being like The Blind Side. If any forthcoming movie is like Amelia, it's Conviction (due to having the same lead, the same studio and being Oscar bait).

[Shrykespeare]

Agreed, Boosh. If Hilary Swank wants another Oscar, she's going to have to make better choices. Conviction and Amelia are just Oscar mirages.

[numbersix]

I think The Social Network will win the weekend again, it's getting great WOM from everyone and I could see it only dropping 20% or so. Secretariat will be lucky to get to $10M this weekend - it reminds me too much of Amelia.

Definitely don't see it dropping by 20%. Even though it's getting great reviews it doesn't feel like something people would rewatch. Maybe it's just my personal bias! Plus, the intial buzz may mean that it's frontloaded. I think a 50% drop will happen

[Buscemi]

Also the film is doing nothing in Middle America (other than Chicago). This is not good for its staying power.

[transformers2]

I think The Social Network will hold pretty well not quite 20% drop well but I would 30-35%, it is getting good reception and that tends to help. Secretariat is kind of crap shoot but I don't see it doing overly well. Life As We Know It I think will win the weekend, I have actually seen quite a few ad's for it and it's kind of movie that tends to do pretty decent at the box office. I completely agree with Six and Boosh on My Soul To Take, it will do high single digit numbers and be a non-starter.

My predictions for this weekend
Life As We Know It 17 Mil
The Social Network 14 Mill
Secretariat 13 Mil
My Soul To Take 8 Mil
Legend Of The Guardians 7.5 Mil

[Buscemi]

It's Kind Of A Funny Story might not be worth taking for PTA points. It's getting a pretty wide limited run (I noticed that two theatres in St. Louis and one theatre in Kansas City are getting it so it looks like the film will have a 100-200 theatre opening).

[BanksIsDaFuture]

Yeah, my theater is getting it too so I think it might be as high as 400-500. We don't get limited releases, unless they're religious indies that appeal to old white people.

[transformers2]

My local theater is also getting It's Kind Of A Funny Story. They don't tend to get "indie" movies untill at least the 2nd week of release, if they get them at all so I am assuming this getting at least 400 theaters.

[Shrykespeare]

I just checked tomorrow's listings on IMDb, and IKOAFS is being shown in six theaters in my area (within 15 miles). I'm betting on around 800 theaters nationwide, so it's a definite PTA no-go.

[Buscemi]

Probably not 800. It's not playing where I live (the local arthouse would have probably picked it up but they're keeping Winter's Bone for yet another weekend and their only new movie is a return engagement of the Grease Sing-A-Long). Most likely 400-500.