This weekend historically is one of the worst possible weekends of the year to release a movie, right up there with the first weekend of January and the last weekend of April. Because we already know the weekend is going to be fairly craptastic, this week's column will be a bit stripped-down to allow the Weary Warrior a bit of a reprise. You can still check out some comparisons for the films below here.
On paper, the action-thriller War (Lionsgate) looks like the strongest contender, helped greatly by the premise of pitting two popular action stars, Jason Statham and Jet Li, against each other. Both Statham and Li are coming off moderate solo hits in 2006 with Crank and Jet Li's Fearless both opening over $10 million, and War, directed by rap video director Philip G. Atwell, is certainly going to be a first choice for younger guys who've already seen everything else in theatres. Still, it probably won't make enough to defeat last week's box office champ Superbad in its second weekend, while it also has to face The Bourne Ultimatum and Rush Hour 3 in their fourth and third weekend. With Bourne doing well due to sold word-of-mouth, it's likely it might keep War out of second place, though it will be a tight race with the Lionsgate action flick making between $10 and 12 million this weekend on its way to less than $25 million total after it gets slaughtered by the Labor Day options.
After being delayed for six months, the movie based on the best-selling novel The Nanny Diaries (The Weinstein Company) is brought to the big screen by Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, the couple that brought you the Oscar-nominated American Splendour, with Scarlett Johansson watching over the kid of a rich and snobbish Upper East Side wife played by Laura Linney. Of the new movies, it should be a first-choice for many women and girls, at least those that aren't on vacation, although Johansson really hasn't proven herself as a box office draw. It probably won't be helped by what should be generally dismal reviews from critics either, so expect it to end up somewhere between $7 and 9 million this weekend with a slight chance of seeing $20 million total.
The same can be said for Mr. Bean's Holiday (Universal), the family comedy sequel that has British comic Rowan Atkinson reprising his popular, wacky character. It's been nearly ten years since the first Bean movie made Atkinson a star in this country, grossing $45 million, but Universal is opening the sequel in less theatres with very few hopes for a repeat. There really aren't that many movies in theatres for younger kids or families—granted, many of them are on vacation or back in school by now--although that didn't help Daddy Day Camp and this looks almost as bad, so look for it to end up somewhere between $5 and 6 million this weekend and under $15 million total.
Rod Lurie's drama Resurrecting the Champ (Yari Film Group), starring Samuel L. Jackson and Josh Hartnett, is the underdog of the weekend, as it doesn't have nearly as big a marketing budget as the other movies, but it should be able to find an audience from older moviegoers looking for something a bit deeper and more solid than the weekend's other offerings. Despite a strong pedigree and predecessors like Million Dollar Baby and Cinderella Man, it's still likely to end up near the bottom end of the Top 10 with $3 to 5 million this weekend and roughly $15 million in total. You can read more about this movie in this week's Chosen One section.
(I'm not one for tabloid speculation or anything but it seems just a little ironic to me that both Hartnett and his former girlfriend Johansson have new movies this weekend where they're acting opposite kids… makes you wonder, doesn't it? No? Okay, moving on…)
There are also two movies that aren't opening nearly as wide and probably won't wind up anywhere near the Top 10. The decision to release the historic drama September Dawn (Slowhand Releasing), starring Jon Voight and Terrence Stamp, into nearly 850 theatres might seem like a foolhardy idea, especially due to the backlash from the Mormon community about its intentions for chronicling a massacre of a caravan of travelers by the religion's founder. It probably won't even make a million dollars despite the wider release, and the same can be said about Franc Reyes' crime-drama Illegal Tender (Universal), his follow-up to his 2002 movie Empire starring Rick Gonzalez (Coach Carter), which is being dumped into 450 theatres with very little fanfare. Even though Reyes might have a following among the urban Latino community, this movie is just too low-profile to break out in the way that Vondie Curtis-Hall's Waist Deep did last year.
1. Superbad (Sony) - $19.5 million -41%
2. The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal) - $11.4 million -43%
3. War (Lionsgate) - $11.3 million N/A
4. Rush Hour 3 (New Line) - $10.8 million -50%
5. The Nanny Diaries (The Weinstein Co.) - $7.9 million N/A
6. Mr. Bean's Holiday (Universal) - $5.2 million N/A
7. Resurrecting the Champ (Yari Film Group) - $4.1 million N/A
8. The Simpsons Movie (20th Century Fox) - $4.0 million -42%
9. Stardust (Paramount) - $3.5 million -38%
10. Hairspray (New Line) - $3.0 million -31%
11. The Invasion (Warner Bros.) - $2.8 million -54%
- Illegal Tender (Universal) - $1 million N/A
- September Dawn (Slowhand Releasing) - $.75 million N/A
Last year, Mark Wahlberg's football drama Invincible dodged the usual box office jinx of the 2nd to last weekend in August by topping the box office with $17 million, the second highest amount made by a new movie on this weekend after Jet Li's Hero. The Broken Lizards' drinking comedy Beerfest, rap group The Outkast's retro-musical Idlewild and New Line's adaptation of the children's novel How to Eat Fried Worms all did relatively poorly. Beerfest wound up with $7 million in nearly 3,000 theatres (average of $2,372), while Idlewild made $5.8 million in a third as many theatres. New Line's family film wound up outside the Top 10 with $3 million, but the Top 10 movies grossed $76 million, which this weekend should surpass if it's to continue the summer trend.
Next week, we're back to the full Weekend Warrior write-up mode (maybe) as Labor Day sees three new movies in wide release including Rob Zombie's remake of John Carpenter's Halloween, the ping pong comedy (yes, you read that right) Balls of Fury and James (Saw) Wan's revenge thriller Death Sentence with Kevin Bacon.
