Still it's not likely to be the big bomb of the weekend, because that honor will be going to the Weinstein Company's historic epic The Last Legion, which is being dumped into 2,000 theatres this weekend. With little more than a few vague commercials and an unadvertised cast which includes Colin Firth and Sir Ben Kingsley, this will be lucky if it even gets into the Top 10, but it probably will just barely due to the volume of theatres alone.

Frank Oz's long-delayed British comedy Death at a Funeral (MGM) will also open in around 250 theatres, though that might have trouble getting a million dollars in business this weekend due to its lack of name stars that might interest American audiences.

This Week's Predictions -

1. Superbad (Sony) - $26.4 million N/A

2. Rush Hour 3 (New Line) - $22.6 million -54%

3. The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal) - $18.3 million -44%

4. The Invasion (Warner Bros.) - $10.5 million N/A

5. The Simpsons Movie (20th Century Fox) - $5.8 million -49%

6. Stardust (Paramount) - $5.5 million -40%

7. Hairspray (New Line) - $4.3 million -33%

8. Underdog (Walt Disney) - $3.8 million -41%

9. The Last Legion (The Weinstein Co.) - $3.7 million N/A

10. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry (Universal) - $3.3 million -44%

Last year, to prove the statement above about the second half of August being lame, New Line's Snakes on a Plane starring Samuel L. Jackson opened at the #1 spot with just $16.5 million, despite a huge internet campaign and tons of buzz (much like Superbad). Universal's collegiate comedy Accepted starring Superbad's Jonah Hill only made $10 million in nearly 3,000 theatres while the Duff Sisters' Material Girls barely made half that in half as many theatres. The Top 10 grossed just $86 million down from the previous weekend, although Superbad should help the Top 10 do a good $20 million higher than that.

And just because I haven't said it enough in this column so far… Superbad!!!!

Superbad (Sony)
Starring Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, Bill Hader, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Emma Stone, Aviva, Martha MacIsaac, Kevin Corrigan
Directed by Greg Mottola (The Daytrippers, "Undeclared"); Written by Seth Rogen ("Undeclared", "Da Ali G Show", upcoming The Pineapple Express and Drillbit Taylor), Evan Goldberg ("Da Ali G Show")
Genre: Comedy, High School
Rated R
Plot Summary: It's the last days of high school and Evan and Seth (Michael Cera, Jonah Hill) want to use them to try to hook up with their dream girls at a last-minute graduation party, but first they must get alcohol for the party along with their nerdy friend Fogell (Christopher Mintz-Plasse), sending them on an adventure they could never have foreseen.
Of Note: Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg's hilarious first comedy brings together a talented young cast!

Mini-Review (Coming Soon!)

Analysis: After creating one of the most profitable hits of the summer (percentage-wise) with Knocked Up, Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen are at it again, this time producing one of Rogen's long-time pet projects, a high school coming-of-age comedy written with his high school buddy Evan Goldberg about trying to get alcohol in order to get laid, something that way too many people can relate to. It's a departure from Knocked Up and The 40-Year Old-Virgin in terms of dealing with far younger people, but it has similar sensibilities in terms of raunchy R-rated humor and more importantly, it's just as funny.

While Superbad doesn't have a known television star like a Steve Carell or a Katherine Heigl, making it somewhat of a tougher sell for the over-30 crowd, it does have two young stars that will interest the teen and slightly older set: Michael Cera, who played George Michael Bluth on the popular cult comedy "Arrested Development" and Jonah Hill, part of Apatow's regular crew, who had a small cameo in The 40-Year-Old Virgin (the guy in the eBay store) and a larger part as one of Rogen's pals in Knocked Up. In between, he played a major role in last year's collegiate comedy Accepted and yet, here he is back in high school, go figure. While Hill is already establishing some comedy cred for these movies, it's Cera who is likely to be a bigger draw, especially among the younger ladies, 'cause they seem to love him. Even with that in mind, the talented newcomer who'll probably make a name for himself with this movie is Christopher Mintz-Plasse, who plays their friend Fogell, but who may forever become known as "McLovin." (Imagine Jon Heder's problems being recognized as "Napoleon Dynamite" and multiply that by like ten and that's how much people who see this movie love his character.) Although Seth Rogen does appear in the movie, he's become too old to play himself in high school (tough break, kid) so he's taking a back seat to the younger cast in order to play an inept rookie police officer who rides along with Bill Hader from "Saturday Night Live" and the recent comedy bomb Hot Rod.

Still, the lack of "name stars" isn't going to matter much, because the movie's being marketed as "from the creators of 40-Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up", two popular comedies that have created a rabid fanbase that will be interested in seeing what they do next. Superbad will go over particularly well with the younger moviegoing audience from ages 15 to 25, who will remember all too well what it was like to want to get booze and to get laid, and they'll appreciate this young cast more than those over 30, even if there's a certain nostalgia factor that older audiences might appreciate from back when it wasn't so easy to get alcohol whenever they want. Apatow's movies have built up a fairly hefty and appreciative audience from their raunchy sex humor, essentially reinvigorating the possibilities of success with an R-rated comedy, but the high school premise for Superbad will probably keep its audience fairly young and it will generally be of less interest to women over 30 than something like Knocked Up, which dealt with marriage, pregnancy and other hot topics.

Universal has been trying to sell the Adam Sandler comedy I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry, but that usually being Sony's turf, the comedy only just crossed the $100 million mark this past weekend. This time, the roles have been reversed as Sony is trying to market a Judd Apatow movie which Universal has had great success with, using an intensive Napoleon Dynamite like campaign to get buzz going among those younger audiences. Part of this campaign included a hugely successful Comic-Con appearance, but also Sony has been bombarding college towns with tons of preview screenings, while the three young actors have been touring the country for the last few weeks, making appearances at these screenings and on radio shows to introduce themselves and hype the movie. It's hard to tell if it's really working or if the saturation has insured that everyone who wants to see the movie has already seen it. Although the trailer has been received well, the commercials don't really make the movie look as good or funny as it is, maybe because the funniest parts can't be shown in a trailer or TV commercial.

Unfortunately, this is being released in late August where many people are going on vacation, but in the last few years, there's been a comedy released on the third weekend of August. This is even the same weekend where Apatow's The 40-Year-Old Virgin opened two years ago, making nearly $22 million with gargantuan legs that brought in over $100 million. The other comedies that have opened over this weekend--Without a Paddle and Accepted which also starred Jonah Hill—haven't done nearly as well, at least their opening weekend. Either way, it's likely that with all the buzz and positive word-of-mouth, Superbad will be the first choice for the college-age and younger crowd. It's also likely that Superbad will be finding even more business once school starts up in a few weeks and everyone's quoting the hilarious lines (while continuing their efforts to get alcohol and get laid, of course.) Don't be too surprised if Superbad surpasses Rush Hour 3 in its second weekend and then winds up in the #1 spot for two weeks in a row as it faces very little strong competition next week.

Why I Should See It: This could very well be the funniest comedy this year.
Why Not: Not everyone is going to appreciate it's filthy high school humor.
Projections: $24 to 27 million opening weekend and $100 million total.

COMPARISONS

The Invasion (Warner Bros.)
Starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, Jeremy Northam, Malin Akerman, Celia Weston, Jeffrey Wright
Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall, Das Experiment); Written by David Kajganich (upcoming Town Creek for Joel Schumacher)
Genre: Thriller, Drama, Horror, Sci-Fi, Action
Rated PG-13
Tagline: "Do not trust anyone. Do not show emotion. Do not fall asleep." (Congrats to Warner Bros. for creating one of the bossiest marketing campaigns ever. Sheesh!)
Plot Summary: When something alien is found in the wreckage of a crashed space shuttle, those who come into contact with it are changed into emotionless beings, leaving psychiatrist Carol Bennell (Nicole Kidman) and Dr. Ben Driscoll (Daniel Craig) on the run while trying to find the truth about the extraterrestrial infection that's changing everyone.
Of Note: Joel Silver and German director Oliver Hirschbiegel remake Invasion of the Body Snatchers with Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig.

Mini-Review: (Coming Soon!)

Analysis: This is one of two movies in wide release this week that has been delayed for various reasons, but unlike The Last Legion (see below), this one is a remake done by a well-known Hollywood producer with an A-list star and a substantial budget that's being dumped into late summer in a way that doesn't seem like there's much hope for success.

One could safely assume that the biggest selling point for the movie will be that star, Ms. Nicole Kidman, though let's be honest here, Nicole is not exactly the box office draw that she once was thought to be due to eclectic choices like The Human Stain, Birth and last year's Fur, all difficult movies that weren't able to capitalize on the audiences she'd built-up from popular films like Moulin Rouge!, The Others, The Hours or to a lesser degree, Cold Mountain. It didn't help that she had squandered some of her good karma on lame comedy remakes like The Stepford Wives and Bewitched either, but Kidman's more recent dramas have been so difficult even for critics to sit through that audiences have mostly been giving them a pass. Kidman's last big hit was the thriller The Interpreter in 2005, a similar two hander co-starring Sean Penn, and it's kind of funny how the title of this movie sounds so much like that one, using a similar simplicity in its title approach as Julianne Moore's hit thriller The Forgotten, both of which opened over $22 million.

The other half of the acting equation is British actor Daniel Craig, who went from being a little known British character actor to being hugely famous star, when he was assigned the mission of reviving James Bond 007 for last year's relaunch Casino Royale, a hit that was well received by critics and audiences alike. (Oddly, Craig isn't even mentioned in the advertising for the movie despite this new-found fame even though this movie was made before he was even cast as Bond.) The cast also includes Jeffrey Wright, the award-winning actor who has appeared in other Warner Bros. flicks like Syriana and M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water, Jeremy Northan and Malina Ackerman, who just landed a plum role in Zack Snyder's Watchmen.

Even though The Invasion isn't really being marketed as a remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers as such, anyone old enough to remember the original 1956 movie will also know about the 1978 remake with Donald Sutherland. Maybe the premise is fair game for another remake, especially in this day and age, but there's already a lot of skepticism behind the movie due to the delays. You see, The Invasion started production in Washington DC back in '05 under the title The Visiting with acclaimed German director Oliver Hirschbiegel at the helm, following up his Oscar-nominated Downfall about the last days of Hitler. They started filming even before Daniel Craig had been announced as James Bond, and after the original shooting, Craig went and shot Casino Royale, that movie was released and yet there was still no sign of this movie, as it changed its name to The Invasion. While the new name might have helped separate the project from the long-delayed Hirschbiegel film, it also helped solidify the fact that it was a remake, something that had been denied for a long time. The reason for the delays weren't as clear until it got out that test screenings for the first cut were received so poorly that producer Joel Silver and Warner Bros. asked their wünderkind the Wachowski Brothers to step in and help the movie out with a bit more action. They called upon their long-time 2nd Unit Director (and helmer of V For Vendetta) James McTeague, and brought Kidman and Craig back for a few more weeks of filming in order to goose things up, while further delaying the movie for a year. This has been kept relatively hush-hush in the advertising and marketing where the lesser-known Hirschbiegel is still listed, but it's still one of the big talking points about the movie in the press, partially because it added even more money to the budget, bringing up to a reported $65 million. Who knows? Maybe advertising the Wachowski's involvement might bring in some of the fans they garnered from The Matrix trilogy or maybe not.

On top of all that, Warner Bros. started the advertising campaign for this movie fairly late in the game, and the choice of release dates, a weekend where very few movies make more than $20 million, is not a very good sign either. In many ways, this is in the same boat as Warner Bros.' remake of The Wicker Man from last year, although that's never been remade like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and there might be a been-there seen-it attitude among the older audiences that are potentially the ones that would be interested in seeing this because of Kidman. However anyone tries to avoid it, this looks like it's going to be one of Warner Bros.' and Joel Silver's more significant bombs of the year, and it's going to be lucky if it manages to do more than $10 million its opening weekend.

Why I Should See It: The original Invasion of the Body Snatchers is a classic thriller and it might be interesting to see what the combination of Hirschbiegel and Wachowski brings to the table.
Why Not: Or it could just be another horrifying remake that has people screaming like the pod people when they discover an interloper.
Projections: $9 to 12 million opening weekend and less than $28 million total.

COMPARISONS

The Last Legion (The Weinstein Co.)
Starring Colin Firth, Aishwarya Rai, Sir Ben Kingsley, Thomas Sangster, Peter Mullan, Iain Glen
Directed by Doug Lefler (directorial debut from the director of shows like "Xena, Warrior Princess", "Hercules" and the video release "Dragonheart: A New Beginning"); Written by Jez and Tom Butterworth (Birthday Girl, Mojo)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Fantasy
Rated PG-13
Tagline: "Before King Arthur, there was Excalibur." (Yes, the John Boorman movie. Can you tell us something we don't know? Thanks.)
Plot Summary: The story of King Arthur is transplanted into ancient Rome in this fantasy adventure about 12-year-old Romulus Augustus, the last emperor of Rome who discovers Caesar's sword "excaliburnus" while imprisoned on the island of Capri and realizes that he must use it to save Rome with the help of his teacher Ambrosinus (Ben Kingsley) and the brave General Aurelius (Colin Firth). The group travels to Britannia in search of the fabled Dragon Legion to help them.
Of Note: This long delayed fantasy epic finally sees the light of day… for better or for worse.

Analysis: What can one say about this movie that has been moved around the release schedule for nearly a year before being dumped on a weekend with a vague marketing campaign that started about two weeks ago? Not a hell of a lot, that's for sure. The funny thing about this movie is that I knew about it well over a year ago when I interviewed Sir Ben Kingsley, and while this one sounded promising at the time—feel free to laugh at my thoughts of it as Oscar-fodder—it probably will be joining Kingsley's extensive roster of movie flops.

Yes, sadly The Last Legion will be another notch in the declining career of the great Sir Ben Kingsley, whose last really great movie was probably Sexy Beast in 2001, for which Kingsley was nominated for an Oscar. He also got a nomination for his performance in House of Sand and Fog a few years later, but not a single one of his movies has made more than $22 million at the box office in the last five years, so one wonders whether being a great actor is enough these days. Most of his film choices have been questionable at best and money-driven at worst, things like Uwe Boll's BloodRayne and Thunderbirds (yes, based on the puppet show) or the serial killer thriller Suspect Zero. Even the recent Roman Polanski version of Oliver Twist and John Dahl's You Kill Me were dogs at the box office, neither of them making more than $3 million, which seems to be the ceiling for a film starring the actor. Maybe that's why Kingsley's name isn't being used to sell this one, but neither are any of the rest of the cast, which includes much-loved British actor Colin Firth, who has starred in many Working Title films like the Bridget Jones movies and Love Actually. He's obviously playing a very different role here, as is the gorgeous Indian superstar Aishwarya Rai, best known in the States for her role in Gurinder Chadha's Bride and Prejudice, but she's one of Bollywood's biggest superstars, appearing in numerous movies every year. Whether fans of her musical rom-coms will be interested enough in this subject to pay to see an adventure epic in theatres is doubtful.

Essentially, the movie tries to act as a fictitious fantasy prequel to movies like John Boorman's Excalibur and the Jerry Bruckheimer produced flop King Arthur, capitalizing on the popularity of war epics like Gladiator and Troy and fantasy-based films like Lord of the Rings. Sure, there's probably a good number of Arthurians out there who might have interest in seeing a movie about Roman Centurions that ties into their beloved myths, but will they even know that this movie is about Romans bringing Excalibur to England centuries before Arthur's time? You certainly couldn't be able to tell from the television ads that showed up literally from out of thin air two weeks ago, because they say nothing about the plot of the movie or who's in it. They just show a lot of shots of Roman Centurions and ancient architecture in hopes of interesting those who like those historic war epics.

This is following a similar tactic as 20th Century Fox did with Marcus Nispel's Pathfinder earlier this year, a similarly cool high concept premise, which at least had an R-rating with promises of lots of violence and blood, something you really can't get out of a presumed war epic which carries a PG-13 rating. Since audiences for this type of movie tend to be older anyway, making it PG-13 in order to try to interest teens really doesn't seem like a worthwhile cause. So far, no U.S. critics have or will see the movie before opening and the Weinstein Company aren't doing any sort of press or interviews to promote it either. Essentially, they just bought a bunch of TV ads a couple weeks ago and were able to get 2,000 theatres to play the movie (probably on the smallest screen) in hopes that some people might become interested by the title (which also has changed a few times over the last year).

Why I Should See It: It sounds like a cool premise that will appeal to fans of historic epics.
Why Not: Why is the Weinstein Company burying this one? Can't be because it's great.
Projections: $3 to 5 million opening weekend and less than $8 million total.

COMPARISONS

Next week is historically the worst weekend of the summer in previous years, so don't expect the column to be very long or detailed, as we're treated to dogs like the Jason Statham-Jet Li action-thriller War, the comedy sequel Mr. Bean's Holiday (no, don't worry, Cuba Gooding Jr. hasn't replaced Rowan Atkinson in this one), Scarlett Johansson writes up The Nanny Diaries, the urban crime drama Illegal Tender and the Mormon-hating historical drama September Dawn finally opens. That's FIVE movies in wide release next weekend, and amidst that motley lot, the only movie that really stands out is Rod Lurie's excellent Resurrecting the Champ, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett. Expect most of next week's column to be about that, if I even bother to write one at all.