The second weekend in August is often the last potential weekend of the summer for a big hit, and Rush Hour 3, the action-comedy that reunites Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan, is looking to make it three weekends in a row with a $50 million opener. Considering that the previous installment opened with over $65 million six years ago, that might be seen as a disappointment, but times have changed in those six years with neither of the movie's stars nor the action-comedy genre being nearly as big as they were back in 2001. (Then again, considering how badly we underestimated both The Simpsons Movie and The Bourne Ultimatum, you may want to just add $20 million to that prediction.)
Director Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake) adapts Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess' fantasy graphic novel Stardust and though it will be of interest to Gaiman's comic and novel-reading fans, it's not getting a particularly wide release or strong marketing push, which means it will have a hard time making much of a mark against the high profile summer blockbusters. Still, with a lot of things dropping, expect it to wind up in a distant third place.
The week starts a bit earlier as Oscar-winning supporting actor Cuba Gooding Jr. steps in for Oscar-losing supporting actor Eddie Murphy in the family comedy sequel Daddy Day Camp, which will open on Wednesday with the presumption that the young fans of the first movie won't be able to tell the difference in the cast change. Fortunately, their parents will and what should have been a straight-to-DVD stinker won't do well enough to warrant a third movie.
After Dark Films will finally release the werewolf action-thriller Skinwalkers into 650 theatres after months of delays, and despite getting a bit of a boost from its Comic-Con push, it's still unlikely to make much more than a flat million this weekend, landing it well outside the Top 10.
1. Rush Hour 3 (New Line) - $55.6 million N/A
2. The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal) - $33.3 million -52%
3. Stardust (Paramount) - $13.6 million N/A
4. The Simpsons Movie (20th Century Fox) - $11.8 million -53%
5. Underdog (Walt Disney) - $6.6 million -43%
6. Daddy Day Camp (Sony/TriStar) - $6.1 million N/A
7. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (Universal) - $5.8 million -45%
8. Hairspray (New Line) - $5.5 million -40%
9. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Warner Bros.) - $5.2 million -45%
10. No Reservations (Warner Bros.) - $3.9 million -40%
Last year saw the release of four new movies in wide release but Will Ferrell's Talladega Nights remained on top with $22 million, followed closely by Touchstone Pictures' breakout dance smash Step Up with just under $21 million and Oliver Stone's World Trade Center with $18.7 million. Dimension Films' remake of the Japanese horror film Pulse made a weak $8.2 million, but that was nearly double what Tim Allen's superhero comedy Zoom made in more theatres. This weekend should see another marked improvement over last year's $103.8 million for the Top 10 as 2007 continues to see one of the strongest summer seasons ever.
Daddy Day Camp (Sony/Tristar Pictures)
Starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Paul Rae, Lochlyn Munro, Richard Gant, Buck Hinton, Spencir Bridges, Josh McLerran, Talon G. Ackerman, Tamala Jones, Brian Doyle-Murray, Taggart Hurtubise, Tad D'Agostino, Bart Johnson, Tyger Rawlings, Molly Jepson, Dallin Boyce
Directed by Fred Savage (debut feature by the child actor from "The Wonder Years" who has directed a LOT of television); Written by Geoff Rodkey (RV, The Shaggy Dog, Daddy Day Care), J. David Stern and David N. Weiss (Are We There Yet?, Shrek 2, Clockstoppers)
Genre: Comedy, Family
Rated PG
Tagline: "The summer is going to be in tents." (Get it? "in tents"… "intense"… ay-yi-yi)
Plot Summary: Charlie Hinton (Cuba Gooding Jr.) and his pal Phil (Paul Rae) are back up to their old plots to make money, this time setting up a summer day camp despite not knowing anything about the outdoors. After experiencing all sorts of problems, Charlie calls upon his father Colonel Buck Hinton (Richard Tant) to help out.
Of Note: Cuba Gooding Jr. takes over for Eddie Murphy in this sequel to the hit family comedy Daddy Day Care.
Analysis: Contrary to what some people might think, Rush Hour 3 isn't the only sequel this weekend as Sony will try to capitalize on the lack of strong family films (Sorry Underdog) in hopes of grabbing some of the kiddie market. The way they're doing it? By releasing a sequel to one those oh-so common movies that pit a comic star against a group of kids to see who will win. In this case, it's the sequel to Eddie Murphy's 2003 pseudo-hit Daddy Day Care, taking them to summer camp, but the major difference between Daddy Day Camp and Rush Hour 3 is that literally no one involved with the original movie has returned for the sequel, not even Jeff Garlin or Steve Zahn. This means that the movie is going to be relying on people actually remembering the original Eddie Murphy movie, forgetting how bad it was and then denying the fact that this isn't even going to be as good as that. (And considering how bad that was, it's not saying much.) Yes, those are a lot of factors that need to come into play for Daddy Daddy Camp to have any kind of shot.
Unlike Jim Carrey, who refuses to appear in any sequels to his hit comedies, Murphy has had a fairly successful career with his comedy sequels like 2002's Dr. Dolittle 2 and 2000's The Nutty Professor 2: Meet the Klumps. For whatever reason, he didn't feel that a sequel to Daddy Day Care warranted his participation so replacing Murphy is Oscar winner Cuba Gooding Jr., who's continuing to make a mockery of the Academy members who voted for his breakout appearance in Tom Cruise's Jerry Maguire by appearing in schlocky comedies like Rat Race, Disney's Snow Dogs and the impossible to forget Razzy-nominated Boat Trip. Although Gooding Jr. has tried to return to serious drama with movies like Radio, he's appeared in so many bad movies in recent years that Daddy Day Camp doesn't look like it will do much to save his career from the downwards turn it's taken.
What's funny is that the movie doesn't even acknowledge that these are different actors playing the roles, although most smart moviegoers should be able to figure out that much. (Surely, there are a few of them out there, right?) Not that it will have much of an effect on business, but it's interesting to note that this is the feature film directorial debut of actor Fred Savage, best known from his stint on "The Wonder Years" after directing TV for the last few years.
While Daddy Day Camp follows in the wake of others movies that attack famous comic actors with kids, it's combining that with the age-old tradition of comedies set at summer camp as epitomized by the '80s classic Meatballs starring Bill Murray, which was one of the many movies spoofed by David Wain, director of last week's The Ten in his 2001 movie Wet Hot American Summer. While plenty of kids and parents might be able to relate to the camp experience, one would think that those kids would actually be at summer camp right now, rather than going to see a movie about it.
At one point, this sequel was thought to be straight-to-DVD but apparently Cuba Gooding Jr.'s involvement deemed it worthy of a theatrical release despite his last two movies Shadowboxer and Dirty barely getting theatrical releases themselves. With that in mind, it's been given a moderate release into around 2,200 theatres by Sony's TriStar Pictures, a division where movies tend to be dumped as seen by the recent horror bombs Wind Chill and I Know Who Killed Me. Sony is opening the movie on Wednesday, maybe in hopes of driving up a bit of word-of-mouth for the weekend, even though it's likely to lose any potential urban audience to Rush Hour 3. (Sony has tacked-on the animated short "The Chubbchubbs Save X-Mas" as an additional motivator for getting kids and parents into theatres to see this.) It also might not have been a good decision to screen the movie for critics, because while family comedies like this tend to be review-proof, the trailer makes the movie look so bad that one can seriously see this being a contender for this year's Razzies. Surely bad reviews won't do much to help convince those already skeptical of a sequel done without anyone from the original movie to skip this or wait until it arrives on DVD. Even so, with very little family fare, this is likely to do enough business to get into the Top 10 although one can expect it won't be around for very long.
Why I Should See It: Because you still think that Cuba Gooding Jr. deserved that Oscar and that this movie will elevate him back to the heights of serious dramatic actor.
Why Not: Because you live in this reality where Gooding Jr. is a hack actor who'll do anything for a buck.
Projections: This should make $2 to 3 million on Wednesday and Thursday and then another $5 to 7 million over the weekend, winding up with roughly $20 million total.
Rush Hour 3 (New Line)
Starring Chris Tucker, Jackie Chan, Hiroyuki Sanada, Youki Kudoh, Max Von Sydow, Noemie Lenoir, Vinnie Jones, Yvan Attel, Roselyn Sanchez, Roman Polanski
Directed by Brett Ratner (Rush Hour, Rush Hour 2, X-Men: The Last Stand, Red Dragon, After the Sunset); Written by Jeff Nathanson (Rush Hour 2, Catch Me If You Can, The Terminal, The Last Shot)
Genre: Action, Comedy, Thriller
Rated PG-13
Tagline: "This summer they're kicking it in Paris"
Plot Summary: LAPD Detective James Carter (Chris Tucker) and China's Chief Inspector Lee (Jackie Chan) reunite, this time traveling to Paris to take on a division of the Chinese organized crime family, the Triad.
Of Note: After six years, Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan reunite for a threequel to their blockbuster action-comedy
Mini-Review: "Rush Hour 3" isn't as much a sequel as it is a stand-alone movie using the same formula as the first two movies, this time transplanting the duo to Paris for the usual fish-out-of-water shenanigans. Most of the movie's humor is as obvious as the fact that Brett Ratner and screenwriter Jeff Nathanson watched every single Bruce Lee and John Woo movie before making this, but for all the decent fight and chase sequences, there's a lot of cheesy overplayed drama (mostly from Chan) with Tucker cracking-wise at every opportunity. There are a few bits that work like an extended sequence involving a nun being asked to translate expletives and a French cab driver who steals a few scenes, but for the most part, the film seems rather dated and stagnant compared to the summer's other offerings. (Even "Live Free or Die Hard" allowed the modern-day world into its formula.) After plodding through a convoluted plot, it all leads up to a fairly predictable battle on the Eiffel Tower and after another cutesy stunt ending, you're left wondering why anyone who watches this would want to see a fourth movie using the same formula. Rating: 6/10
Analysis: While the buddy comedy genre might be dead, it's certainly going to get a kick in the pants this weekend with a sequel to one of the most successful movies of its kind, Rush Hour 2, which set a new August opening record in 2001 with $67 million, a record that's remained in place until just last week. That was double the opening of the original Rush Hour movie, which set a new September opening record three years prior, and the action-comedy proceeded to gross $226 million over the late summer to become the fifth biggest movie of the year. It was quite a surprise for those who underestimated the popularity of putting a Chinese and an African-American cop into a car and allowing hilarity to ensue.
The first two movies made over a billion dollars worldwide, which would make a threequel a no-brainer, but it's taken six years for them to deliver another movie, reportedly because Chris Tucker was waiting for the right script to come along before signing on. It's kind of odd since Chris Tucker hasn't made a movie, let alone appeared almost anywhere, in the six years since Rush Hour 2, which is either impressive or worrying.
In the interim, director Brett Ratner has made three movies, including the Hannibal prequel Red Dragon, the third chapter in the superhero franchise X-Men: The Last Stand and the bomb After the Sunset, which tried to recreate the Rush Hour magic only with two middle-aged white guys. Older moviegoers definitely have a love-hate thing going with Ratner since he tends to be a franchise-killer in terms of quality even if his movies still make money, but he's not really taken seriously as a filmmaker because of his partying persona which has had him appearing on shows like "Entourage" and "On the Lot" and even doing commercials for a New York film school (after losing a poker bet).
Meanwhile, Jackie Chan's career has been going to sh*t, to put it politely, having not had a substantial hit in the United States since 2003's sequel Shanghai Knights, which reteamed him with Owen Wilson, and used a similar fish-out-of-water premise. Chan's next two movies, The Medallion and Around the World in 80 Days bombed very badly, the latter having been a very costly error for the fledgling Walden Media. Then there was the incident last year where Chan showed up at the concert of a famous Chinese pop singer and proceeded to make a drunken ass of himself. For Chan, Rush Hour 3 is a chance for him to resuscitate his career by returning to his most successful franchise, something that's being done a lot recently, whether it's Bruce Willis' return to the Die Hard franchise or Harrison Ford returning to Indiana Jones.
Both of the previous movies have been fairly well received by moviegoing audiences, though less so by critics, but are either of them considered comedy classics? Probably not, but this time, the duo are being taken to Paris, which should allow all sorts of humor based on both of them being out of their element. Ratner even got legendary exiled filmmaker Roman Polanski to play a part in the movie, which has to be some sort of coup.
Buddy comedies have not been faring particularly well in the last few years as odd pairings like Martin Lawrence and Steve Zahn (National Security), Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock (Bad Company) and Samuel L. Jackson and Eugene Levy (The Man) failed to find much of an audience. That said, there's something to be said about an action-comedy that pairs an African-American comic and a Chinese action star, since it would tend to appeal to a large demographic of Asians and blacks who have been mostly ignored by summer blockbusters featuring large white ensemble casts. That's probably what helped Rush Hour 2 do so well six years ago and one can imagine it will help the threequel do well.
The younger audience that liked Rush Hour 2 six years ago may be old enough to have moved on to more adult fare, but since neither of the film's stars have done much in the last few years, have they built up enough of a new young audience for the third in the series? One can assume that the kids who enjoyed Jackie Chan's family movies are old enough now to go see something like this, which should work since this will probably appeal more to teens than last week's The Bourne Ultimatum, even though it won't have as much appeal to older male and female moviegoers.
The previous Rush Hour movies have generally been no-brainers that don't require heavy marketing campaigns to sell them, and yet, it certainly doesn't seem like New Line has spent nearly as much time or money marketing the threequel. (Heck, they could have used the recent Comic-Con to get people excited by bringing out Jackie Chan, but instead they invested their slot into the upcoming R-rated Shoot 'Em Up.) Even though the critics were kind to last week's The Bourne Ultimatum, don't expect them to be too kind to another threequel in a summer full of them, especially for a franchise which is still very much stuck in the pre-9/11 times.
Still, it's hard to imagine this threequel will do nearly as well as the last movie, considering how times have changed and the fact that it's opening in a summer against much stronger fare, including last week's highly-praised action threequel The Bourne Ultimatum.
Why I Should See It: You've been holding your breath waiting to see Chris Tucker make another movie with Jackie Chan for six years.
Why Not: Does anyone even remember Rush Hour 2 or care for a sequel?
Projections: $53 to 56 million opening weekend and $145 million total.
Stardust (Paramount)
Starring Claire Danes, Charlie Cox, Sienna Miller, Ricky Gervais, Jason Flemyng, Peter O'Toole, Michelle Pfeiffer, Robert De Niro, Ian McKellen
Directed by Matthew Vaughn (Layer Cake); Written by Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn
Genre: Fantasy, Adventure, Romance
Rated PG-13
Tagline: "This summer, a star falls. The chase begins."
Plot Summary: Tristan Thorne (Charlie Cox) is sent on a wild adventure when he agrees to capture and bring back a star for his spoiled love interest Victoria (Sienna Miller), but when he crosses the wall into the fantasy world of Stormhold, he discovers that the star is a living being (Claire Danes) and that there's a bunch of unsavory characters including an evil witch (Michelle Pfeiffer) trying to get her for themselves.
Of Note: Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess' fantasy graphic novel comes to the big screen with an all-star cast.
Analysis: The true underdog of the weekend—that being the really good movie that may have a hard time finding its audience—is this semi-import from the UK based on a lesser-known graphic fantasy novel by award-winning novelist Neil Gaiman and artist Charles Vess. It was Gaiman's first major work after completing his popular Vertigo series "The Sandman" in 1996, and though it was originally published as a comic book mini-series, it sold even better in its collected format, and then in a non-illustrated novel format starting in 1999. Gaiman is a hugely popular writer among comic book fans, but he's also a well-established novelist, having won back-to-back Hugo, Nebula and Bram Stoker awards in 2001 and 2002 for his novels. Although Stardust is by no means the most popular or best selling work of Gaiman's compared to prior and subsequent work, the story does have a following among fantasy and romance novel fans, presumably mostly women who might be more interested in a movie like this over something like Rush Hour 3.
The movie is the brainchild of Matthew Vaughn, producer of Guy Ritchie's early films and director of his own 2005 crime-drama Layer Cake, though he's better known among comic fans as the director who was signed then walked away from helming X-Men: The Last Stand. (Irony alert! The movie ended up being directed by Brett Ratner, who'll offer Vaughn his heaviest competition this weekend with his new movie Rush Hour 3). It might seem strange for Vaughn to direct a big-budget effects movie like this after Layer Cake, but Vaughn obviously found the same appeal in Gaiman's work that so many others have.
Despite Gaiman's popularity as a writer, the movie is going to be a hard sell because it takes most of its cues from The Princess Bride, a beloved film classic that didn't do much business in theatres before finding its audience on cable and video. It also has a similar quirky vibe as the movies of Terry Gilliam, which are also arguably an acquired taste among American moviegoers. On the other hand, fantasy has found itself a resurgence thanks to the success of movies based on J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter" books, Peter Jackson's blockbuster The Lord of the Rings and Disney's success with C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia and the lesser Bridge to Terabithia. 20th Century Fox's attempt at starting a successful franchise with a movie based on the bestselling novel Eragon only did moderately well, though not well enough to warrant a sequel. Granted, Gaiman's novel isn't nearly as well known as some of these other bestsellers, but the interest in fantasy films is out there to create a potential audience for Stardust.
The best thing going for the movie is the amazing ensemble cast that Vaughn has assembled, despite none of them individually being enough to convince someone to go see the movie. The main character Tristan is played by Charlie Cox, pretty much an unknown, and his female counterpart of the star is played by Claire Danes, who hasn't exactly gotten droves of people into theatres to see her in Steve Martin's Shopgirl or the recent drama Evening. One of the bigger name draws for the movie is Michelle Pfeiffer playing the main baddie, the Witch Queen. Although she recently appeared in the musical Hairspray, Stardust was her first major feature film after nearly five years. Pfeiffer certainly had a stronger career box office career in the '80s and '90s but her presence will mostly be of interest to the older women who might be curious about this movie. Actor Robert De Niro also hasn't been appearing in many movies in recent years, probably because he was directing The Good Shepherd with Matt Damon, so his appearance as the pirate leader Captain Shakespeare is also pretty major, because it's not the type of role one normally sees De Niro playing, even if it's more in the comedic vein of Meet the Parents or Analyze This. The movie also stars tabloid fodder Sienna Miller in a smaller role, as well as British comic Ricky Gervais, who was last seen in Night at the Museum, and there's a small appearance by legendary actor Peter O'Toole, who was recently nominated for an Oscar for his performance in the British indie Venus. On top of all that, the movie is narrated by Ian McKellen, arguably the king of the fantasy genre after playing Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings movies.
Paramount must know they have a potentially strong movie since they decided to move it from its original March release to early August. They may merely have wanted to get it away from the far more prominent comic-book based movie 300 or take advantage of schools being out, but even with that added time, they don't seem to know how to market the movie. They're not even mentioning Neil Gaiman's name in the ads for instance, which could prove to be a mistake since the writer does have a lot of fans here from his novels that may not even be aware of his comics work. Early trailers and ads don't make it look particularly appealing either, which is a shame since it has qualities that could easily be compared to the first Pirates of the Caribbean.
Still, fans of Gaiman's comic work will probably be aware of it (especially if they attended Comic-Con International the last two years where the movie's been featured), although that audience hasn't exactly helped other fringe comic movies like Hellboy or From Hell or The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen do a lot of business. By comparison, Stardust is being released in a miniscule 2,300 theatres, which might make it hard for the movie to make more than $15 million over the weekend, although being one of the few movies this summer that isn't a sequel might be a good selling point, since audiences are looking for new and different things, which neither of the other two wide releases this weekend will offer. The sad fact is that teen audiences will probably go for the sure thing this weekend, which is Rush Hour 3, and this will have to find its audience based on word-of-mouth among older moviegoers.
Why I Should See It: Gaiman and Vess' fantasy epic is brought to vibrant life in this exciting and fun adventure.
Why Not: It might be too whimsically British for American audiences.
Projections: $13 to 15 million opening weekend and $50 million total.
Skinwalkers (Lionsgate/After Dark Films)
Starring Scott Anderson, Jason Behr, Lyriq Bent, Sarah Carter, Kim Coates, Barbara Gordon, Tom Jackson, Rogue Johnston, Matthew Knight, Elias Koteas, Natassia Malthe, Carl Marotte, Rhona Mitra, Ramona Pringle, Shawn Roberts, David Sparrow
Directed by Jim Isaac (Jason X, The Horror Show); Written by James DeMonaco (Assault on Precinct 13, The Negotiator), Todd Harthan (upcoming Spike TV show "The Kill Point"), James Roday (star of the USA Network show "Psych")
Genre: Action, Horror
Rated PG-13
Tagline: "The live among us. They hunt us."
Plot Summary: A 12-year-old boy finds himself at the center of a war between two factions of werewolf.
Of Note: This long-delayed werewolf flick finally sees the light of the silvery moon.
Analysis: If Stardust is the underdog of the weekend then Skinwalkers is simply the dog of the weekend, as this long-delayed action-horror flick finally gets a theatrical release by After Dark Films after being moved around the release schedule for months by original distributor Lionsgate and then unceremoniously dumped. Although the producers of the movie probably hoped to attain the success of Underworld with this werewolf action-thriller, that was probably the same thing hoped by the producers of Blood and Chocolate (who actually produced Underworld) and that movie is one of the year's biggest bombs. The thing is that while movies about werewolves always sound cool when mentioned in the pitch meetings, they rarely deliver as seen by Wes Craven's Cursed and the disappointing sequel An American Werewolf in Paris. This one looks like '80s vampire flicks such as The Lost Boys or Near Dusk, though at least the latter only found most of its audience once it was released on video.
Although it rarely matters when it comes to horror flicks, there are very few members of this cast who are well known enough to be any sort of draw, just Rhona Mitra, who's appeared on shows like "The Practice" and "Boston Legal" and character actor Elias Koteas, both of whom appeared in Mark Wahlberg's recent thriller Shooter. Neither will do much to get people interested in the movie.
Written by a mixed bag of first-time screenwriters and actors, Skinwalkers is helmed by Jim Isaac, whose last movie was the weak Jason X, but the biggest selling point for the movie will probably be the werewolf make-up by the legendary Stan Winston, who has gone to Comic-Con in San Diego two years in a row to promote the movie. In 2006, they showed a clip from the movie that was so boring, not even showing any of the werewolves, that it may have convinced Lionsgate to finally give up on this one, handing it over to their "younger brother" After Dark Films, thinking they might be able to save it. Even not considering the delays and problems, After Dark Films does not exactly have a great reputation for getting their movies seen by the public in theatres, which we saw most recently with their horror-thriller Captivity, which has been promoted a lot more rampantly than Skinwalkers despite the amount of extra time they had to promote it. Captivity made $1.4 million its opening weekend while Blood and Chocolate made $2 million and both of them opened in more theatres than Skinwalkers, which is getting a release into 600 theatres and probably will have trouble making a million dollars.
The thing that really kills this movie and might keep even the more diehard horror or werewolf fans away is the fact that it's PG-13, and seriously, what horror fan wants to see a werewolf movie that doesn't promise a lot of blood and gore as people are ripped apart? At one point, the movie was supposed to be rated R but apparently, it was felt that it would find a bigger audience if rated PG-13, completely ignoring the fact that this was the same decision that killed Cursed and the recent Blood and Chocolate. So essentially, here's another nail in the coffin of the werewolf genre, at least until they get around to remaking The Wolf Man.
Why I Should See It: Because it's a full moon and hiding in a theatre might keep your body count down.
Why Not: Who on earth really wants to see a PG-13 werewolf movie?
Projections: $1 to 1.5 million opening weekend and less than $3 million total.
Next week, the summer starts to wind down with the R-rated comedy Superbad from Knocked Up producer Judd Apatow and star Seth Rogen. Also, Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig star in the long-delayed remake, The Invasion. Also check back on Thursday for updated predictions and thoughts on the weekend.
