Then there's Warner Bros.' update of the teen detective Nancy Drew, starring Eric Roberts' daughter and Julia Roberts' niece Emma Roberts (I'm sure she loves being reminded of her familial roots). It's a modern update that will only appeal to the 'tween girl market that's very unreliable as far as showing up to see movies opening weekend, so it's likely to wind up in fifth or sixth place for the weekend amidst a number of other PG-rated family fare.

After delaying the movie for nearly a year, Dimension Films finally releases DOA: Dead or Alive, based on the popular video game, but dumping it into 500 theatres with almost no advertising will make it hard for it to attain even $1 million this weekend, which means it won't be seeing the Top 10 any time soon.

Disney/Pixar's new computer animated film Ratatouille will get sneak previews on Saturday night in 800 theatres, almost two weeks before its national release on June 29.

Last year, as Disney/Pixar's Cars remained on top of the charts with $33 million in its second weekend, four new movies tried to make a mark with Jack Black's turn as Nacho Libre doing the best, bringing in $28 million in its opening weekend. It was followed in third place by the threequel The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift with $24 million (about half the opening of its predecessor) and Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves reteaming for Warner Bros.' The Lake House, which made $13.6 million. The weekend's other sequel Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties failed to find the family audience of the original movie, making just $7.3 million over the weekend. The Top 10 grossed $139 million which is roughly what we should expect this weekend unless we have another weekend like last where the new movies fail to meet up to expectations.

This Week's Predictions

1. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (20th Century Fox) - $61.7 million N/A
2. Ocean's Thirteen (Warner Bros.) - $19.0 million -48%
3. Knocked Up (Universal) - $13.0 million -34%
4. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (Disney) - $11.2 million -47%
5. Surf's Up (Sony) - $11.0 million -38%
6. Nancy Drew (Warner Bros.) - $10.3 million N/A
7. Shrek the Third (DreamWorks) - $8.6 million -44%
8. Hostel: Part II (Lionsgate) - $3.8 million -54%
9. Mr. Brooks (MGM) - $2.8 million -43%
10. Spider-Man 3 (Sony) - $2.4 million -45%

Fantastic Four: The Rise of the Silver Surfer (20th Century Fox)
Starring Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, Andre Braugher, Gonzalo Menendez, Laurence Fishburne
Directed by Tim Story (Fantastic Four, Barbershop, Taxi); Written by Don Payne (My Super Ex-Girlfriend), Mark Frost (Fantastic Four, The Greatest Game Ever Played)
Genre: Action, Superhero, Comedy, Sci-Fi
Rated PG
Tagline: "Rise."
Plot Summary: As Reed and Sue (Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba) prepare to get married, the superteam faces their greatest challenge in the cosmic herald, the Silver Surfer (Doug Jones and voiced by Laurence Fishburne), who warns them of impending danger coming towards Earth and containing cosmic power that's desired by Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon).
Of Note: The sequel to the 2005 blockbuster based on the Marvel Comics characters gets a sequel that adds a new element: the Silver Surfer!

Analysis: In a summer of disappointing sequels, it would be surprising if one of the few to transcend the original movie is this sequel to the 2005 blockbuster hit Fantastic Four, based on the team created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in 1961. The original movie arrived with a bit of pessimism due to director Tim Story's comedy background with movies like Barbershop and Taxi and less than overwhelming effects compared to Pixar's recent The Incredibles. Still, it made $56 million its opening weekend and went on to make over $154 million that summer, so a sequel was kind of a no-brainer. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer reunites the entire cast from the original movie as well as returning director Tim Story to the helm, but this time, it reinvents the popular story of the Silver Surfer, herald of the world-devouring Galactus. That's probably going to be what keeps Rise of the Silver Surfer from suffering the same fate of other recent sequels and the general malaise they're starting to be faced with as the summer motors along.

For those who don't remember, the team consists of Welch actor Ioan Gruffud playing Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, ultrahottie Jessica Alba as Sue Storm/The Invisible Woman, Chris Evans as Johnny Storm/The Human Torch and Michael Chiklis as Ben Grimm/The Thing. Julian McMahon also returns as Dr. Victor von Doom and Kerry Washington (who's just as hot as Alba in my book) returns as the Thing's blind girlfriend Alicia Masters. We'll just assume that everyone's been reading this column in the last two years and knows pretty much what everyone's been up to in the past two years, but the main new addition is Doug Jones, the creature actor star of Guillermo del Toro's Hellboy (he played Abe Sapien) and Pan's Labyrinth, providing the body of the Silver Surfer with veteran actor Laurence Fishburne providing the voice. Fishburne also probably needs no introduction, especially for those who've seen him as Morpheus in The Matrix trilogy.

We could point out the various things that each of the cast has done since the last movie (and really, it's not much), but the biggest thing going for the sequel is the Silver Surfer himself, who is essentially a cosmic surfer made of silver who has captured the imagination and excitement of comic book fans for nearly forty years, as well as becoming a bit of a pop cultural icon. The character was mentioned in one of the most famous scenes of Tony Scott's Crimson Tide and has been referenced by musicians like Joe Satriani and on TV shows for years, yet oddly, the character hasn't had a consistent running comic book title for a number of years, tending to appear in other comics despite being considered one of the more popular second-string characters in the Marvel Universe. What's cool is that like Ghost Rider, the character is the type of cool visual that makes him an exciting addition to an effects-driven action film like this, something that's been greatly played up in the teaser and trailers for the movie. (The improved effects could be attributed to Story's use of WETA FX, who were responsible for The Lord of the Rings and King Kong.)

That said, Rise of the Silver Surfer is arriving with a bit of baggage, firstly the poor reception to the original movie got both by critics (26% on Rotten Tomatoes) and by moviegoers (5.9/10 by IMDb users), and as we saw with Ocean's Thirteen, people aren't so forgiving when a studio tries to release a sequel to a movie they weren't crazy about. There's also the early internet rumors that the world-devouring being Galactus will be depicted like a giant cosmic cloud or a tornado, something that won't go over well with comic fans whose negativity hurt the legs of comic movies like The Hulk and more recently, Spider-Man 3.

One would presume this would mean a lower opening than the previous installment though there are just as many things working in its favor, the first one being the movie's short running time, which will allow for many more screenings a day than the summer's longer movies, plus it also was given a PG rating, which means it will be able to bring a lot more of a younger audience than the previous movie. (Oddly, next week's Evan Almighty is another sequel which is getting a lower rating than the original movie.) With many adults and older teens snubbed their nose at the original movie, shifting the movie's target audience to a younger one might be a smart move by 20th Century Fox, because younger viewers won't be as finicky after seeing the first movie. Still, plenty of older kids and teens will still want to see the movie for the cool action and effects in the very well executed series of trailers, commercials and the posters that have been everywhere. (Fox even had very cool life-size replicas of the Silver Surfer and his surfboard in many theatres.) On top of that, the movie might have more appeal towards urban audiences than some of the other recent choices in theatres.

The sequel also has the added power of MySpace, which is a huge boost for the sequel. Since the highly popular networking system is owned by Fox and Story has his own personal page, they've really been able to get the word out on the movie to many people, which will certainly have a major impact on how well it opens compared to the first movie. We have some great resources here at ComingSoon.net, and the fact that Rise of the Silver Surfer won our June poll quite definitively is a good sign, as is the fact that 50% of Superhero Hype! readers think that the movie will make well over $60 million its opening weekend! (Obviously, that shows there is definite excitement about the movie.)

Unfortunately, a lot of the movie's success will depend on early reviews, so 20th Century Fox is likely to follow Sony in their treatment of Ghost Rider by not screening it for critics until the last minute. (Already, one negative reader review has shown up on the "moviekiller" site Ain't It Cool News, but do we really care what they think? Probably not.)

Why I Should See It: Possibly one of the greatest comic book epics is brought to the big screen!
Why Not: Well, if you saw the original movie, you might still be a bit hesitant and skeptical.
Projections: $60 to 63 million opening weekend and $165 million total.
COMPARISONS

(Look for my mini-review in the Thursday update.)

Nancy Drew (Warner Bros.)
Starring Emma Roberts, Josh Flitter, Max Thieriot, Rachael Leigh Cook, Tate Donovan
Directed by Andrew Fleming (The Craft, Dick, The In-Laws; Written by Andrew Fleming (Dick, The Craft), Tiffany Paulsen
Genre: Adventure, Family, Comedy, Mystery
Rated PG
Tagline: "Small Town Girl. Big Time Adventure."
Plot Summary: River Heights' favorite teen detective Nancy Drew (Emma Roberts) goes on a business trip to L.A. with her father (Tate Donovan), and while trying to adjust to the very different world of Hollywood, she discovers evidence that might help her solve the mysterious unsolved case of a dead movie star.
Of Note: The Stratemeyer Syndicate's teen girl detective Nancy Drew, who has been headlining a series of books for nearly 80 years, is brought to the big screen and into the 21st Century.

Analysis: This is a strange movie to analyze, because on the one hand, it has the namebrand of one of the more famous literary characters of the last 70 years, but it's also been reimagined to be the type of frivolous teen girlie fare that might appeal to teens and tween girls but no one else... and even they haven't exactly been racing out to see half the movies made for them. A lot of it can be traced back or blamed on Disney's success with their movie based on The Princess Diaries back in 2000, which kickstarted Anne Hathaway's career. Plenty of other teen actresses have been elevated onto the big screen in hopes of them being the next big thing among 'tween girls, and you may have heard of some of them, like Lindsay Lohan, Hillary Duff, Mandy Moore and Amanda Bynes, but really only Bynes has had any sort of staying power, basically by limiting the number of movies she stars in. We all know of the problems Lohan has been having, which is a shame because she had the best shot of fame after the one-two punch of Disney's Freaky Friday and the dark comedy Mean Girls. Duff, Disney's attempt to fill the gap left by a departing Lohan, had success with The Lizzie McGuire Movie and not much since then, though it seems like her last movie Material Girls was the template for the reinvention of this much beloved literary character among girls and women.

Although most guys will never admit to ever having read a Nancy Drew book, you have to figure that every woman at one point in their life has read one, because they've been publishing her books back to the '30s. What's interesting about the series is that the books were all written by different people working under the pseudonym "Carolyn Keene" under the guidance of Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, who followed in the footsteps of her father Edward, who created the character then died before the first book was published. They put out 56 volumes of the character between 1930 and 1979, before Simon & Shuster took over and published another 118 in the next 23 years. Surprisingly, the only time Nancy Drew has made it to the big screen was back in the late '30s for four movies that will be re-released on DVD this coming week, but more famously, she starred in a popular television series during the late '70s. In recent years, Nancy Drew has been the star of a number of computer games based on the mysteries from her books.

While many women have grown up reading (or playing) the adventures of Nancy Drew, this is not your grandmother's Nancy Drew, being very different from the one in the books, putting her into the modern world of Hollywood and incorporating all the modern technology that young girls are familiar with, and the character's older fans might not be able to deal with the thought of Nancy using a Sidekick.

Taking on the challenge of bringing Nancy into the modern age is 16-year-old Emma Roberts, who if you didn't guess, is related to both Eric (her father) and Julia (her aunt) Roberts, and we'll count the days until she gets so sick of being asked about her relateives that she changes her last name to get out of their shadow. In the meantime, this is Roberts' second major movie after the similar based-on-a-book 'tweener movie Aquamarine, which only made $19 million. Joining Roberts as her younger brother is the scene stealing Josh Flitter, who did just that when paired with Shia LaBeouf in the Disney golf drama The Greatest Game Ever Played, which did so little business and probably had a completely different audience than those who might see this movie.

The new Nancy Drew doesn't look like it's that big an advance over movies like Catch That Kid starring Kristen Stewart or the Agent Cody Banks movies, but Emma Roberts clearly doesn't have the name draw as someone like Amanda Bynes, who had a moderate hit last year with She's the Man, or Lindsay Lohan, who followed that a few months later with the bomb Just My Luck. What might save this movie from the fate suffered by so many other girlie movies is its title, because Nancy Drew is such a well-known character after selling millions of books over the last seven decades, and mothers might feel obliged to take their daughters to see it. Of course, if any of them actually see the commercials, they might think differently because they're pretty bad, though at least the trailer plays up the fish out of water humor of Nancy in the big city much like how The Brady Bunch Movie did. Then again, it also makes the movie look a bit too much like the Olsen Twins' New York Minute, a classic Warner Bros. summer bomb. Either way, it's doubtful that few guys of any age or anyone over 20 will have any interest in seeing this unless they have younger daughters.

What's interesting is that Warner Bros. already has a sequel in the works, although who knows if it will be released theatrically or done for a video-only release. I guess that will mostly be determined by how well girls take to Emma Roberts in the role, although there's a chance that this movie will do only moderately well in theatres and find its audience once it arrives on DVD.

Why I Should See It: Even if you've never read any of the books, this could help fill your Hilary Duff fix until she makes another movie.
Why Not: Few guys will be able to sit through this one unless they need to earn points with their young daughters (or criminally young girlfriends).
Projections: $10 to 12 million opening weekend on its way to $35 million total.
COMPARISONS

Another week, another sequel, and this time it's Steve Carell channeling Noah (of ark fame) in Evan Almighty, John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson visiting Stephen King's Room 1408 and Angelina Jolie taking on the role of Marianne Pearl in Michael Winterbottom's A Mighty Heart.