Opening early on Wednesday is the family holiday comedy The Perfect Holiday (Yari Film Group), billed as the "first African American ensemble comedy for the Christmas season"--probably before they realized that This Christmas was coming out first--but it stars Gabrielle Union and Morris Chestnut in their third venture together, which probably won't mean much to anyone but the African-American community in big cities. Even with small roles for producer Queen Latifah and the ever-present Terrence Howard, it's not likely that this smaller indie comedy will do nearly as well as This Christmas, especially facing Alvin and the Chipmunks for the young ‘uns and the other more prominent holiday fare.

This Week's Predictions -

1. I Am Legend (Warner Bros.) - $47.6 million N/A

2. Alvin and the Chipmunks (20th Century Fox) - $15.3 million

3. The Golden Compass (New Line) - $13.7 million -47%

4. Enchanted (Disney) - $6.6 million -38%

5. The Perfect Holiday (Yari Film Group) - $4.4 million N/A

6. No Country for Old Men (Miramax) - $3.4 million -17%

7. Fred Claus (Warner Bros) - $3.3 million -28%

8. This Christmas (Sony/Screen Gems) - $3.0 million -39%

9. Beowulf (Paramount) - $2.4 million -47%

10. August Rush (Warner Bros.) - $2.3 million -35%

Last year saw a few surprises as the two family films Eragon (20th Century Fox) and Charlotte's Web (Paramount) were expected to fight it out for the top spot, but instead Will Smith's drama The Pursuit of Happyness came out on top despite opening in the fewest theatres with $26.5 million to Eragon's weaker $23.2 million and Charlotte's pathetic $11.5 million. (The latter might be an indicator of how Alvin fares although it also picked up a lot of steam in the week after Christmas.) The top 10 for the weekend grossed $106 million, which may be slightly more than this week's offerings even with another Will Smith hit on the way.

I Am Legend (Warner Bros.)
Starring Will Smith, Alice Braga, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, Willow Smith, Charlie Tahan
Directed by Francis Lawrence (Constantine); Written by Mark Protosevich (Poseidon, The Cell, upcoming Thor), Akiva Goldsman (The Da Vinci Code, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, I, Robot)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Sci-fi, Horror
Rated PG-13
Tagline: "The last man on earth is not alone."
Plot Summary: Dr. Robert Neville (Will Smith) is the last man alive in New York City after a virus was unleashed which infected the other people of the city turning them into nocturnal rampaging creatures, and it's up to Neville to try to find a cure while trying to survive all alone in that environment.

Review

Interview with director Francis Lawrence

It's hard to believe that we might have gone an entire year without a single Will Smith movie, but here it is, that single movie Will Smith does every year, a big budget adaptation of Richard Matheson's 1954 genre novel "I Am Legend" which was previously done up as The Last Man on Earth and more famously as The Omega Man, starring Charlton Heston. It's a fairly simple premise, one that was borrowed for Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later a couple years ago to great success, but this time, it's Will Smith stranded in a New York populated by contagious nocturnal creatures that were once human beings, and that will probably sound very appealing to the rabid Will Smith fans who are getting sick and tired of having Smith share the spotlight with other "actors."

All kidding aside, Will Smith continues to be one of the most bankable box office stars working with 17 movies in 14 years grossing nearly $2 billion in the U.S. and more than twice that worldwide. His career has only been improving in the past few years by limiting the number of movies he stars in each year—hey, when you're paid what Will Smith gets, you don't have to work too much! By limiting his visibility, it's really paid off for Smith as his last six movies have grossed more than $130 million each with the sequels to Men in Black and Bad Boys kicking off an amazing streak including the 2004 summer blockbuster I, Robot, his first attempt at a romantic comedy with Hitch and last year's The Pursuit of Happyness, for which Smith received his second Oscar nomination. It was also the second time that Smith broke away from his normal summer releases to do a holiday film and like the previous time, Michael Mann's Ali, it was done in the hope of getting awards recognition. That isn't necessarily the case with I Am Legend which isn't looking for awards recognition as much as it is looking to stand alone in the holiday marketplace as something for which one might usually have to wait until summer.

I Am Legend reunites Smith with the writer of I, Robot Akiva Goldsman working with helmer Francis Lawrence, who directed Constantine for Warner Bros. a few years back, a pairing that should up the "cool factor" on the movie. The film relies almost solely on Will Smith (as most of his movies do), although this time his only co-star is a dog named Sam and a bunch of CG-created creatures, and in some ways, it's reminiscent of Tom Hanks' 2000 movie Cast Away, which also opened just before Christmas in its own quest for awards and ended up bringing in $200 million by the time they rolled around. The only other significant role in the film is played by Brazilian beauty Alice Braga who starred in Fernando Meirelles' Oscar-nominated City of God and appeared in a few other movies that have gotten over here like Lower City, plus she'll be seen in a number of bigger American movies in the next year.

The movie is tracking extremely well among guys of all ages, maybe as much or more than Universal's American Gangster last month, and with movies like Beowulf and The Golden Compass failing to find an audience among the teen and older fantasy fans, there's a good chance this will be the only choice for teen and older males this weekend. Unlike Gangster and other recent guys' films, this has a PG-13 rating which means that it could bring in the younger teen audience and with Will Smith's wide appeal among men and women alike, this could end up being a surprisingly strong date movie as well, because we all know how good scary movies are to get couples closer, right? A big selling point for the movie in New York City will be the thought of seeing the city completely abandoned, something that's really only been done once before, in Tom Cruise's Vanilla Sky, but never on this scale. Still, there's a chance that the over 25 crowd will dig the movie more because it's slower and more intelligent, while the cheesy computer animation might seem like a joke to discerning teen moviegoers who are be used to seeing better graphics on their video games.

Because it's proven to be very profitable in recent years, Warner Bros. is releasing the movie simultaneously into regular and IMAX theatres, and as an added bonus for those going to see it in that larger format, they're debuting the first seven minutes of next year's highly anticipated The Dark Knight, which was shot in IMAX. This may be one of the few times where that kind of promotion might bring just as many people to IMAX theatres as the movie itself, and there's no question that this is going to be one of the season's biggest movies, at least opening weekend. Big Willie might have a bit of trouble sustaining this one, even with the normal holiday legs, with Nicholas Cage, Johnny Depp and Tom Hanks nipping at his heels with their own holiday movies next week not to mention all the choices in limited release that will expand wider for the holidays. With that in mind, expect a minimum 55% - 60% drop next weekend as word gets around about this event movie's flaws, although as is always the case, it might be able to bounce back in the week between Christmas and New Year's if it doesn't get trampled by Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem.

Why I Should See It: If you like Will Smith, you're going to get a lot of Will Smith in this one, which returns him to the sci-fi action setting of some of his biggest movies.
Why Not: The movie might seem way too similar to 28 Days Later, except much slower and with awful CG creatures, something that will not help its chance at sustaining legs despite the holidays.
Projections: $46 to 50 million opening weekend and around $155 million total.

COMPARISONS

Alvin and the Chipmunks (20th Century Fox)
Starring Jason Lee, David Cross, Cameron Richardson, Jane Lynch and the voice of Justin Long
Directed by Tim Hill (Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, Max Keeble's Big Move, Muppets from Space); Written by Jon Vitti (The Simpsons Movie), Will McRobb (Snow Day and various TV shows)
Genre: Family, Comedy, Animated
Rated PG
Tagline: "The original entourage."
Plot Summary: David Seville (Jason Lee) is a man who lives with three singing chipmunks named Alvin, Simon and Theodore. (Maybe the movie will explain why a man is allowed to keep pet chipmunks without getting in trouble, because it's something I've been wondering about for way too many years.)

The studio that brought us cinematic gems like Garfield and Fat Albert are back in the classic TV cartoon pool for another movie based on popular cartoon characters and the second movie of the weekend to be based on a property dating back to the ‘50s, having not learned a lesson from Disney's Underdog, which came out just 3 months ago in the middle of summer, making a whopping $43 million.

Created by Ross Bagdasarian back in 1958 for a novelty Christmas record that's still a holiday favorite nearly 50 years later, Alvin and the Chipmunks have gone on to be pop culture icons of the highest order, having starred in cartoons, movies, TV specials, but always finding new audiences of kids over the years. It's hard to believe that the Chipmunks have won five Grammy awards since their debut, although they'll always be best known for the beloved classic "The Chipmunk Song (Christmas Don't Be Late)" which may be why Fox is releasing it over the holidays, knowing that however well or poorly the movie does its opening weekend, it will pick up a lot of business over the week between Christmas and New Year's when kids get out of school. Instead of using a real dog like in Underdog, the famous singing chipmunks are being created using CG much like they did with the two Garfield movies, and the studio even gave Tim Hill, director of the failed sequel Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, another job despite that movie bombing so badly.

Since this movie is all about the chipmunks, there's only one prominent human actor, playing the ever-present Dave Seville, and that honor goes to Jason Lee, who has gone from Kevin Smith regular to box office jinx to a highly respected television star thanks to his starring role on NBC's "My Name Is Earl." Obviously, this is a very different role and movie, not one that might interest the fans of Lee's show or his previous collaborations with Kevin Smith in classics like Mallrats or Chasing Amy, but it continues Lee's run of family films after providing the voice for the one and only Underdog and for the bad guy in Pixar's very popular animated film The Incredibles. Who knows how many people will know (or care) that Alvin is voiced by none other than Justin Long, but apparently, Long's voice can go even higher than we've heard in movies like Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. (Okay, is anyone else freaked out that both actors have an "underdog" connection?)

With New Line's The Golden Compass failing to find the expected audience of other family fantasy films over the holidays and Disney's Enchanted dropping fast, it's left a pretty wide gap for Alvin and the Chipmunks to come along and find an audience of parents and kids alike. While the weekends before Christmas are rarely good for kids' movies—just see Charlotte's Web last year—it's only because so many families are saving money for the holidays and/or using the weekends for Christmas shopping. Releasing a movie that has such a well-known title and characters should make Alvin and the Chipmunks more of a last-minute movie to see after doing shopping than something that's planned in advance, and though the commercials look dumb, the conveniently placed Christmas classic song should add even more incentive for those looking for a bit of light holiday entertainment.

Why I Should See It: They're Alvin and the Chipmunks and aren't they just the cutest thing with fake CG fur?
Why Not: Man, does this movie look dumb or what? (Caveat: I haven't seen the movie, so maybe it's just the commercials that are dumb.) The movie looks so dumb that even the dumbest fans of Garfield might feel that they're too smart to go see it.
Projections: $14 to 17 million opening weekend and close to $70 million total thanks to the holiday bump.

COMPARISONS

The Perfect Holiday (Yari Film Group)
Starring Gabrielle Union, Morris Chestnut, Queen Latifah, Terrence Howard, Malik Hammond, Charlie Murphy, Faizon Love, Jeremy Gumbs, Jill Marie Jones, Rachel True
Directed by Lance Rivera (The Cookout); Written by Lance Rivera, Marc Calixte (Rivera's assistant)
Genre: Family, Comedy, Romance, Holiday
Rated PG
Tagline: "This Christmas, the perfect man just happens to be Santa."
Plot Summary: Nancy (Gabrielle Union) is the divorced mother of three who's looking for a good man until her young daughter Emily (Khail Bryant) tells a store Santa Claus, actually songwriter Benjamin (Morris Chestnut) who takes what he learns from the girl to woo her mother. Meanwhile, Nancy's ex-husband, rap star and producer J-Jizzy (Charlie Murphy) is trying to get his kids back, because they'd make great accessories for his upcoming Christmas record.

Mini-Review: While this isn't exactly family entertainment of the highest order, it never pretends to be anything more than what is advertised: a simple holiday movie for the family which tries to offer a few escapist laughs and a touch of romance. The chemistry that's built between Union and Chestnut after doing three movies together is evident and they make a sweet couple that keeps the film's fires stoked, although it seems very similar to Union's quest for the perfect man in "Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls" except this time she's the one with three kids. Unfortunately, the laughs are slim despite a number of prominent comic actors like Charlie Murphy, who gets a few laughs as a cocky rapper, but the cast is working from a weaker than weak script that constantly falls back on pratfalls when its attempt at jokes falls short. Most people seeing this movie might wonder what Queen Latifah did to convince Terrence Howard to take on what will surely be his worst role of the year as a grumpy holiday curmudgeon. Despite the few sweet moments between Union, Chestnut and the way-too-adorable-to-be-credible Khail Bryant, things tend to get stupid and silly far too often, culminating in such a dumb ending that any good will that's been built up is dashed to pieces by the end. And yet, it's not nearly as offensive as "This Christmas" since it never claims to be anything more than a silly family comedy. Rating: 5/10

Just a few weeks after the surprise success of the holiday comedy This Christmas, here's another Christmas-themed African-American ensemble comedy, this one geared a little more towards the comedy and the holiday fun that can be shared with the family thanks to its PG-rating. Coming out second is rarely a good thing and this one already had to change its title from The Perfect Christmas to avoid confusion, although this one certainly has stronger star power, at least as far as the African-American community is concerned. It's also the second movie from Lance Rivera who directed the poorly-received 2004 Queen Latifah comedy The Cookout, though that probably won't matter much to African-American families looking for something new to see this weekend that won't be able to bring the kids to Will Smith's scary sci-fi action flick.

This one reunites the pairing of Gabrielle Union and Morris Chestnut, who've appeared together in two previous movies in 2001, The Brothers and Two Can Play That Game, but also appeared in more than their share of urban comedies and romance movies in the last few years. Fans of urban romantic comedies will already know the two of them from various movies, so their reunion might be somewhat of a draw, even though this is being sold more as a family holiday comedy. Most recently, Union starred in Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls with Idres Elba, which unfortunately ended up being Perry's lowest grossing movie, and The Perfect Holiday has a similar premise with Union looking for a man. Chestnut has been appearing in a variety of genre movies in recent years including Anacondas and Half Past Dead and his star has been in a bit of a decline compared to Union. The film is produced by Queen Latifah, who took a small role as a Christmas spirit/narrator named Mrs. Christmas, along with Terrence Howard, who does a rare comedy bit as he appears in his sixth movie of the year, and the fifth since the beginning of September. Dude's a great actor, but methinks he needs to slow down and be somewhat more selective. (At least he's got Iron Man next year to make people forget how many dogs he's appeared in this fall.)

To help bring in the older Def Jam Comedy Hour crowd, the film co-stars comedians Charlie Murphy (Eddie Murphy's brother and a regular on "The Chappelle Show"), Faizon Love (who appeared in MGM's bomb Who's Your Caddy? earlier this year) and Kat Williams, a very popular African-American comic who hasn't appeared in too many movies but has built up an audience with his stand-up videos and an appearance on the Comedy Central roast of Snoop Dogg. He also appears in next month's First Sunday with Ice Cube, which should be another January hit for the Cube.

So essentially, the film will try to bring in audiences on a few levels based on it being a holiday comedy and based on the romance factor, but it's likely to lean heavily towards women and mothers with kids, rather than single guys and fathers, who will probably be too busy going to see Will Smith's movie this weekend. This is the Yari Group's first attempt at an urban comedy, let alone a holiday film, and sadly, they've not had a very good year in terms of marketing their films so that they bring in much business. They're opening this one on Wednesday in roughly 1,300 theatres, which isn't terrible for an urban-centric movie, and presumably, the idea is to bring in a bit of business before it loses much of its African-American audience to those that would automatically go see any new Will Smith movie. That said, by its very nature, it's still likely to bring in most of its business over the weekend. Advertising for The Perfect Holiday hasn't been that strong, and it's also going to lose some of its business over the weekend to the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie, though it also doesn't seem like the movie that people might rush out to see as much as one that African-American families who've already seen This Christmas might go to see together as it gets closer to Christmas Day. We'll see if the Yari Group are able to hold onto their screens very long with so many other movies coming out in the next two weeks.

Why I Should See It: You gotta admit that Union and Chestnut have some mad chemistry and there's some funny comics given a chance to shine.
Why Not: The commercials look pretty dumb and that's even compared to Alvin and the Chipmunks!
Projections: Roughly $1 to 2 million on Wednesday and Thursday, and another $4 to 5 million over the weekend, and it may be able to generate enough word-of-mouth to get to $20 million by the time it leaves theatres, although that might be shortly after Christmas Day.

COMPARISONS

THE CHOSEN ONE

Another tie this week (it's that time of year again) with two movies that take place in foreign lands, one based on a best-selling novel, the other based on a little known tragedy in Chinese history.

The Kite Runner (Paramount Vantage)
Starring Khalid Abdalla, Homayoun Ershadi, Atossa Leoni, Zekiria Ebrahimi, Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada, Wali Razaqi, Said Taghmaoui, Shaun Toub, Nasser Memarzia
Directed by Marc Forster (Monster's Ball, Finding Neverland, Stay, Stranger than Fiction); Written by David Benioff (25th Hour, Stay, Troy)
Genre: Drama
Rated PG-13
Plot Summary: An Afghan-American writer named Amir (Khalid Abdalla) returns to Afghanistan nearly twenty years after leaving with his father during the Soviet invasion
Tagline: "There is a way to be good again."

Dual Review with "Atonement"

Interview with director Marc Forster

(Interviews with screenwriter David Benioff and author Khaled Hosseini Coming Soon!)

The first time I saw this film, I hadn't read Khaled Hosseini's novel of the same name, but I was blown away by what was done by Marc Forster and his mostly unknown cast in telling the powerful emotional story of Amir, an Afghan-American writer who returns to Kabul to right a wrong he did as a youth, when he betrayed his childhood friend in an act of cowardice. Now some people might be thinking that they would like to see another movie about the Afghanistan or the Middle East like they want a hole in the head, but this is very different from all the Middle East war movies that have come out before, because this is not about war or terrorism or anything like that. It just so happens to be a story of childhood innocence and the loss of same, the desire by that boy to win the love and respect of his father, and a vivid immigrant story about how moving to America helped him escape his earlier mistake and get closer to his father, until he finally had to return to Afghanistan to make up for his earlier errors. Having read the book since I first saw the movie and having seen it again after reading it makes it apparent that Forster and screenwriter David Benioff really wanted to remain faithful to Hosseini's story and they did an amazing job capturing the tone and the feel of his writing while retaining all of the beats and moments from the book. While the main star is Khalid Abdalla, whose previous major role was as a terrorist in Paul Greengrass' United 93, the real standouts are the two young Afghan boys who play the young Amir and his friend Hassan in Kabul before the Soviet invasion, and Homayoun Ershadi as Amir's father who goes through the most amazing transformation from their days in Kabul to their years trying to make a new life for themselves in America. If you're a fan of the novel, you will be pleasantly surprised by how much of it was captured in the film and if you're looking for an easy way into the book before picking it up, then this is two hours well spent for sure.

The Kite Runner opens in select cities (Top 30 markets to be exact) and is scheduled to go wider on December 21.

Nanking (THINKFilm)
Starring Woody Harrelson, Mariel Hemingway, Jurgen Prochnow, Stephen Dorff
Written and directed by Bill Guttentag and Dan Sturman (Twin Towers)
Genre: Documentary, History, War
Rated R
Plot Summary: In 1937, the Japanese invaded mainland China and after taking Shanghai, it headed for the country's capitol of Nanking where a group of Westerners stayed behind and banded together to protect the women who would be brutally raped by the Japanese soldiers despite being in the safe zone.
Tagline: "Even in the darkest of times, there is light."

Interview with producer Ted Leonsis

There have been a lot of good and great documentaries this year and this one is definitely one of the latter, although I can't recommend it to everyone, because it's a very tough movie to get through due to the subject matter, and it's emotionally draining to hear first-hand accounts of the tragedies from tearful survivors who were kids at the time of the Japanese invasion of Nanking, let alone see harrowing images of the atrocities. I saw this before the Sundance Film Festival this year and it left me speechless and really shaken up, but I decided to watch it again recently and it was just as effective in getting its message across, that war brings out the worst AND the best in people. What sets it apart from other docs is that it has a cast of actors reading letters and journal entries from the Western doctors and missionaries who stayed behind to help the poorest Chinese people and protect them from the Japanese soldiers who would rape and kill women without any remorse whatsoever. So like I said, this isn't exactly the feel-good movie of the year and not one that I'd recommend if you're looking for a little light entertainment, but if you want to learn more about an important time in Chinese history that's gone almost unrecognized and ignored in this country (possibly due to our corporate partnership with Japan in recent times), then Nanking is an amazing experience that you won't forget.

I wouldn't be too surprised if Nanking made the short list of documentaries at the Oscars this year--after all, Guttentag and Sturman won in the category not too long ago--but those who live in New York City can get an early look at the film, which opens exclusively at the Film Forum.

Also in Limited Release:

Goodbye Bafana (Paramount Vantage) - Danish filmmaker Bille (Smilla's Sense of Snow) August's African drama stars Joseph Fiennes as the racist South African guard who watched over Nelson Mandela (Dennis Haysbert) on Robben Island for twenty years, an experience that forever changed his life.

Half Moon (Strand Releasing) - Kurdish director Bahman (Turtles Can Fly) Ghobadi's drama about a elderly Kurdish musician who must lead his sons to Iraq for a concert to celebrate the fall of Saddam Hussein and the end of their music being repressed, although they face all sorts of horrors along the way. This serious version of "The Band's Visit" opens in New York on Friday and in L.A. on December 28.

Look (Captured Films) - Adam Rifkin, writer of family films Underdog (again!!!) and Zoom makes his directorial debut with this serious drama shot entirely using the 30 million post-9/11 security cameras to tell five private stories as seen through the eye of these covert cameras. It opens in select cities.

Youth Without Youth (Sony Pictures Classics) - Tim Roth and Romanian hottie Alexandria Maria Lara (Downfall) star in Francis Ford Coppola's first movie in ten years, based on Romanian philosopher Mircea Eliade's existentialist novella about a 70-year-old man who becomes younger after being struck by lightning. It opens in New York and L.A.

Interview with Francis Ford Coppola

An Exclusive Clip from the Movie

A Walk Into the Sea (Arthouse) - Esther Robinson's documentary about her uncle Danny Williams, a filmmaker and editor who was Andy Warhol's collaborator and lover and whose work in the Warhol camp has mostly been ignored before he disappeared at the age of 27. This doc which includes the entire film "Factory" opens at the Cinema Village in New York City on Friday.

Next week is a DOOZY and a HALF! If it weren't bad enough that it's the last weekend before Christmas, we get five new movies starring four and two half box office stars. Yes, it's Nicholas Cage, Johnny Depp, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, John C. Reilly and Hilary Swank fighting it out in the box office match-up of the year! Cage has the family action sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets (Disney), while Johnny Depp reteams with Tim Burton for the horror-musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (DreamWorks). Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts take on the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in Charlie Wilson's War (Universal), John C. Reilly takes on the music biz in the comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story (Sony), and Hilary Swank takes on the ghost of Gerard Butler in the romantic dramedy P.S I Love You (Warner Bros). Supposedly, this week's Chosen One The Kite Runner (Paramount Vantage) may also go wide. You may as well take the money you were going to use for Christmas presents and plan to spend them at the movies.

Copyright 2007 Edward Douglas