Preview and Projections for the Weekend of August 12, 2005

By Edward Douglas -

Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend's new movies. Tune in every Tuesday for the latest look at the upcoming weekend, and then check back on Friday for any last minute updates and reviews.

This week’s column is dedicated to Kevin, a long-time friend of the Weekend Warrior, whose mother passed away late last week. Our deepest sympathies and condolences to Kevin and his family, and best wishes during this difficult time.

WEEKEND PROJECTIONS - final update 8.11.05

Looks like the dog days of summer hit us a bit early this year. August is typically the slowest month of the summer, as people tend to go away on vacation, and for whatever reason, studios still try to dump their weakest movies into theatres in hopes of finding even a little business. And that’s usually what they get. This weekend may seem daunting for four very different movies that will try to take on Wedding Crashers and The Dukes of Hazzard. At least one of them has the “benefits” of being a sequel, as Rob Schneider returns as the incompetent male prostitute from Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo. It being Schneider’s most popular character, it should get enough interest from his fans to knock The Dukes of Hazzard out of the top spot, mainly since word-of-mouth for the latter has been rather mixed. Other than that, neither the horror thriller The Skeleton Key, starring Kate Hudson, nor John Singleton’s Four Brothers, starring Mark Wahlberg, will have very much sway over audiences, who probably won’t find enough in either to make them mandatory theatre viewing. With no big name stars and even less awareness, the Miramax war drama The Great Raid, opening in just 800 theatres, may have problems even getting into the Top 10; expect it to make just a little over $2 million this weekend. Barring a breakout hit for Deuce Bigalow, expect this to be a very slow weekend at the movies.

DEUCE BIGALOW: EUROPEAN GIGOLO (Columbia Pictures)
Starring: Rob Schneider, Eddie Griffin, Jeroen Krabbé, Arija Bareikis, Oded Fehr, Til Schweig
Directed by: Mike Bigelow (feature debut; must have gotten this gig because of his name)
Genres: Comedy, Sequel
Rated R
Theatre Count: 3,127
Tagline: “Same Ho. New Lo.”

Deuce Bigalow (Rob Schneider), the world’s greatest gigolo, goes to Europe along with his pimp T.J. Hicks (Eddie Griffin), meeting a lot of interesting new clients on the way. (Really, that’s all you need to know).

Rob Schneider is back. Okay, you can get off the floor and stop laughing now. Let’s not forget all of those great moments that he had in Adam Sandler’s recent movies like 50 First Dates, and there was a time when Schneider was thought to be following in Sandler’s footsteps of success.

Back in 1999, five years after Schneider left “Saturday Night Live”, he still hadn’t found the success of some of his peers at the movies, that is until he took on the role of Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigolo, which had a small December opening, followed by a lot of business over the holidays. It ended up earning $65 million in theatres and then another $75 million (!) in video rentals. Since Deuce Bigalow, Schneider’s career has been up and down, mainly down, and he hasn’t had a hit on his own since The Animal four years ago. Of course, those were better days when the low-brow gross out comedy was king and Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo will do its best to make everyone forget how the world has changed in the last six years, starting with the seemingly obvious gag in the poster of Schneider sitting strategically in front of the Leaning Tower of Pisa. (I must have seen the poster five times before I finally got it.)

Although Schneider seemed to be on a roll with the success of The Animal, Schneider didn’t have nearly as much success a few years later with The Hot Chick. He needs this sequel to show that he still has enough to bring audiences into theatres, because he already has a number of high concept comedies in the works, including The Benchwarmers and Hard R.

His Deuce Bigelow co-star Eddie Griffin is also back, but Griffin’s career has been just as sporadic, finding success in 2001 and 2002 with Double Take and Undercover Brother that didn’t carry over to last year’s urban comedy My Baby’s Daddy with Anthony Anderson. Griffin’s ability to pull himself up by his bootstraps, like Schneider, is going to rely heavily on whether people really are looking for more of the low-brow chemistry they had in the first movie.

Schneider and Griffin
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Deuce Bigalow: Male Gigalo	12/10/99	2,154		$12.22	$5,673	$65.54
50 First Dates	2/13/04	3,591		$39.58	$11,098	$120.78
The Hot Chick	12/13/02	2,217		$7.40	$3,338	$33.86
The Animal	6/1/01	2,788		$19.61	$7,033	$55.76
My Baby's Daddy	1/9/04	1,447		$7.55	$5,217	$17.32
Undercover Brother	5/31/02	2,167		$12.04	$5,555	$38.23
The New Guy	5/10/02	2,687		$9.01	$3,352	$28.97
Double Take	1/12/01	1,631		$10.01	$6,137	$29.82

Unfortunately, with six years since the original movie, Deuce Bigelow falls into the category of a sequel that no one ever asked for like Analyze That. At least this pointless sequel looks relatively funny, which means it could do more like Austin Powers in the Spy Who Shagged Me, a sequel which far surpassed the original movie, which ended up getting a lot more play on video, cable and DVD, just like Deuce Bigalow. At least it’s not like they’re trying to make a sequel to a Jim Carrey movie without Jim Carrey, something that has never worked. Carrey had success with his own sequel to the high concept Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, but that came out just over a year after the original.

Some might try to throw this comedy sequel’s well-deserved R-rating in its face, but New Line’s Wedding Crashers did a great job disproving the jinx that has been made out of R-rated comedies after three R-rated bombs last year, including the similarly themed Eurotrip. At least Deuce Bigalow has a known star and is a sequel to his most popular film, and comedy has proven to be king this year and this summer. The trailer and commercials are all very funny, giving a pretty good idea of the low-brow gags, and it certainly seems like the type of laughs that America is looking for. (There’s even a rather political joke about Iraq!) It may have more competition for the adult comedy audience with things like Wedding Crashers and The Dukes of Hazzard still in theatres, but there should be enough business to allow it to squeak past Dukes into first place.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Austin Powers	5/2/97	2,187		$9.55	$4,367	$53.82
Son of the Mask	2/18/05	2,966		$9.10	$3,068	$17.01
The Mask	7/29/94	2,360	$1.87	$23.12	$9,797	$119.92
Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd	6/13/03	2,609		$10.85	$4,157	$26.21
Dumb and Dumber	12/16/94	2,447		$16.36	$6,686	$127.18
Analyze That	12/6/02	2,635		$11.03	$4,186	$31.82
Analyze This	3/5/99	2,518		$18.38	$7,299	$106.69
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle	7/30/04	2,135		$5.48	$2,567	$18.23
Eurotrip	2/20/04	2,512		$6.71	$2,672	$17.72

Why I Should See It: Rob Schneider and Eddie Griffin returning to the film that kick-started their careers with a comedy that doesn’t require too much thought.
Why Not: Between last week’s Dukes and next week’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin, do we really need another dumb comedy? Oh, and if you see it, Devin from CHUD will hate you, which is a fate far worse than death.

Bottom Line: In a year where comedy is king, can this regression to comedies past be accepted by the higher brow expectations of movie audiences? It may do decent business opening weekend just because there’s little else to see in theatres, but it’s likely to be killed by the release of Steve Carrell’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin next weekend. However it does, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo will make a huge difference in Schneider’s career if he doesn’t want to return to playing bit parts and comic relief in movies by his pal Adam Sandler.

Projection: $15 to 17 million on its way to $45 million.

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FOUR BROTHERS (Paramount Pictures)
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Tyrese Gibson, André Benjamin, Garrett Hedlund, Terrence Dashon Howard, Taraji P. Henson, Sofia Vergara, Josh Charles
Directed by: John Singleton (Boyz n the Hood, Baby Boy, Shaft, 2 Fast 2 Furious)
Genres: Action, Drama, Thriller
Rated R
Theatre Count: 2,533
Tagline: “They came home to bury mom...and her killer.”
Mini-Review: A mixed bag of humor, drama and action so full of cliches, as it steals liberally from so many crime and revenge thrillers, but fails to blend them in a way that's more than mildly entertaining. Mark Wahlberg tries to act like he's tough and he tries to act like he's black, but really, he's not that good an actor. Besides a decent but far too slight role for Terrence Howard, the film is a mess. Rating: 4 out of 10

Bobby Mercer (Mark Wahlberg) has returned home to Detroit after learning about his mother’s death, and along with his three adopted brothers, played by Tyrese Gibson, Andre Benjamin and Garrett Hedlund, they try to find her killers and make them pay.

Revenge thrillers were very popular last year between Kill Bill, The Punisher and the remake of Walking Tall, but that attitude seems to have softened up a bit in 2005 with lighter fluffier fare, like…um…Batman Begins, War of the Worlds and…okay, maybe it’s not so light, but now, John Singleton, the filmmaker who redefined black cinema with the urban gangster film Boyz n the Hood, is trying to keep the popular ‘70s genre alive by assembling an ensemble cast to create a crime drama which mixes equal parts action and comedy.

For the first time, Singleton teams with Mark Wahlberg, the former Boston-based rapper-turned-actor whose career has included huge blockbusters like Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes and dismal failures like the comedy Rock Star. Wahlberg has also worked with some of the quirkiest indie directors like Paul Thomas Anderson (Boogie Nights) and David O. Russell (I Heart Huckabees). Still, other than the films that teamed him with George Clooney like The Perfect Storm and Three Kings, Wahlberg has yet to prove himself as a strong box office draw, although Four Brothers may bear comparisons to Paramount’s 2003 hit remake of The Italian Job, which teamed him with a similar ensemble cast.

Two of Wahlberg’s brothers are played by well-known musical types in long-time Singleton alum and R ‘n’ B star Tyrese (Gibson) and one half of the hot rap duo Outkast, Andre (3000) Benjamin. These choices aren’t too surprising considering Singleton’s long-time reputation for directing rappers like Ice Cube and Tupac. Gibson has appeared in three of Singleton’s previous films including lead roles in Baby Boy and 2 Fast 2 Furious, while Benjamin is fairly new to films, having only appeared in the recent sequel Be Cool, in which many people thought that he stole the film. The fourth brother is played by Garrett Hedlund, who played Brad “Achilles” Pitt’s young cousin in Troy and had a key role in the football drama Friday Night Lights.

There are also a number of small roles for Singleton regulars like Terrence Howard, who starred in the Singleton produced indie Hustle & Flow, and Taraji Henson, who co-starred in that as well as in Baby Boy. The cast is rounded out with a bit of sex appeal from Sofia Vergara, the Spanish star of movies like Chasing Papi..

Unfortunately, the movie is being sold entirely based on the cast and Singleton’s involvement, with the posters simply showing the four actors without giving much of an impression what the movie is about. Four Brothers is probably not Singleton’s best film, maybe because he’s working so far away from his normal setting of southern L.A., and one has to wonder if the movie’s multi-cultural cast will be of much interest to Singleton’s primarily African-American fans. After all, how many black people take Marky Mark Wahlberg seriously after his attempts to rap? Although the Singleton produced Hustle & Flow was able to earn $8 million in half the number of theatres Four Brothers, it hasn’t been able to sustain its business despite critical raves.

By comparison, reviews for Four Brothers, are likely to be rough, since not everyone is going to dig the film’s mix of comedy and violence. In some ways, it’s reminiscent of the films of Guy Ritchie and Quentin Tarantino, but there’s not nearly as much buzz surrounding it. In general, marketing for the film has been slim and it’s doubtful that many people will know that it’s opening this weekend. The best it can hope for is that it’s able to bring Wahlberg and Singleton’s fans as well as some walk-up business.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
2 Fast 2 Furious	6/6/03	3,408		$50.47	$14,810	$127.08
Baby Boy	6/29/01	1,533	$3.08	$8.61	$5,614	$28.74
Shaft	6/16/00	2,337		$21.71	$9,290	$70.30
Boyz N the Hood	7/12/91	829		$10.02	$12,087	$56.19
I Heart Huckabees	10/1/04	785	$2.90	$2.90	$3,697	$12.78
The Italian Job	5/30/03	2,633		$19.46	$7,390	$105.63
The Truth About Charlie	10/25/02	753		$2.27	$3,015	$5.29
Rock Star	9/7/01	2,525		$6.02	$2,384	$16.99
Three Kings	10/1/99	2,942		$15.85	$5,387	$60.65
The Corruptor	3/12/99	1,804		$5.77	$3,198	$15.16
Boogie Nights	10/31/97	907	$4.07	$4.68	$5,160	$26.39
Be Cool	3/4/05	3,216		$23.45	$7,292	$55.81

Why I Should See It: Singleton is one of America’s premiere black directors, and he’s gathered a great and varied cast for his latest movie.
Why Not: The sum may not be greater than the parts when you’re working from a rather tired revenge drama plot.

Bottom Line: Unlike The Italian Job a few years back, there’s little about this ensemble cast or standard revenge thriller plot that will convince people to leave their air-conditioned homes to go see this in theatres. Fans of Singleton’s will likely give this a shot, but it’s doubtful that it will find much of an audience among mainstream moviegoers outside of the bigger cities.

Projection: $9 to 11 million on its way to a total of $28 to 30 million.

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THE GREAT RAID (Miramax Films)
Starring: Benjamin Bratt, James Franco, Connie Nielsen, Marton Csokas, Mark Consuelos, Joseph Fiennes
Directed by: John Dahl (Joy Ride, Rounders, Unforgettable)
Genres: Drama, War
Rated R
Theatre Count: 819
Tagline: “The most daring rescue mission of our time is a story that has never been told.”
MY REVIEW

In 1945, over 500 American prisoners-of-war were captured by the Japanese and held captive in a POW camp in the Phillipines for three years. Lieutenant Colonel Henry Mucci (Benjamin Bratt) and the 6^th Ranger Battalion were assigned to take on the daring mission to liberate them despite being inexperienced and severely undermanned. Meanwhile, in Manila, a nurse (Connie Nielsen) has joined the underground revolution to try to get aide for her captive lover (Joseph Fiennes).

While Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks didn’t invent the war film, there’s little question that they rejuvenated interest in them with their 1998 collaboration Saving Private Ryan, which did decent business in its summer release and then was nominated for 11 Oscars, of which it won 5. A few years later, they coproduced the hit HBO series “Band of Brothers,” which took another look at the United States’ involvement in Europe during WWII. Since Saving Private Ryan, there have been many WWII films that have tried to capitalize on its success, from Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor to Mel Gibson’s We Were Soldiers and the European produced Enemy at the Gates, but few of them have given coverage to the smaller battles in the Pacific Islands, particularly the Phillipines where tens of thousands of soldiers were forced to surrender to the Japanese. They were weeded down to a few thousand during the infamous Bataan Death March of 1942, and the remaining POWs were imprisoned at first, but then killed because the Japanese did not want their enemy to get them back.

It was an interesting story that hadn’t been told before, so with that in mind, The Great Raid was constructed from a number of stories found in two books, “The Great Raid of Cabanatuan” by William B. Breuer and “Ghost Soldiers” by Hampton Sides, and director John Dahl was brought on to helm it. Dahl might immediately seem like an odd choice to keep the war drama alive, since his previous films include the thriller Joy Ride and the poker film Rounders.

Oddly, the most well known member of Dahl’s immense ensemble cast would be James Franco, who played Harry Osborn in both Spider-Man movies, and has done a number of smaller films like City by the Sea. It’s unlikely that the younger fans who loved the superhero blockbusters will have much interest in this even if they’re aware that he’s in the movie. That’s because the most prominent star is Benjamin Bratt, whose resume is not quite as impressive, having last appeared in the slightly lower grossing Catwoman, as well as duds like Abandon and Red Planet. Bratt will probably always be better known as the former boyfriend of Julia Roberts. The two most prominent POWs in the film are Marton Csokas and Joseph Fiennes. Csokas also stars in David McKenzie’s indie drama Asylum released in major cities this weekend, but he’s best known for the role of Celeborn in the Lord of the Rings movies. In 1998, Joseph Fiennes played Shakespeare in Shakespeare in Love, ironic because it beat Saving Private Ryan for the Best Picture Oscar. Since then, he’s starred in a number of smaller independent films like Luther and last year’s The Merchant of Venice. The film also stars Danish actress Connie Nielsen, whose stunning beauty graced Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and the military drama Basic, playing one of the few female roles, which are often a rarity in war films.

The Cast
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Catwoman	7/23/04	3,117		$16.73	$5,367	$39.78
Abandon	10/18/02	2,341		$5.06	$2,163	$10.72
Red Planet	11/10/00	2,703		$8.72	$3,226	$17.47
City by the Sea	9/6/02	2,575		$8.94	$3,470	$22.43
Basic	3/28/03	2,876		$11.51	$4,003	$26.60
Joy Ride	10/5/01	2,497		$7.35	$2,944	$21.97
Rounders	9/11/98	2,176		$8.46	$3,888	$22.88

Like most war movies, this will be playing to the older male AMC or History Channel crowd, but it tends to focus more on the characters and story than the action and war scenes, something that may be a turn-off to anyone under 30. In that way, it’s very much like the 2002 war drama Hart’s War, which didn’t do very much business despite starring Bruce Willis and having a lot better promotion. That same year Mel Gibson’s We Were Soldiers did decently, but then John Woo’s WWII epic Windtalkers, starring Nicholas Cage, didn’t do so well. There is a chance that war movies aren’t nearly as popular now that America actually is at war, or that studios aren’t so willing to make them.

Even more worrying than the lack of name stars is the fact that the movie has been languishing in Miramax limbo for a number of years. Although there are people who can appreciate a good war movie, few of them will even know the movie exists, because its marketing has been fairly nonexistent. Not surprisingly, the film is getting a rather moderate release into only 800 theatres, but the soon-to-be-history Miramax is not going out of their way to promote it, despite running sneak previews for the movie in almost as many theatres this past Saturday. One would have had to see the commercials to even know they were happening and turnout was probably minimal.

War Movies
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Windtalkers	6/14/02	2,898		$14.52	$5,010	$40.91
We Were Soldiers	3/1/02	3,143		$20.21	$6,431	$78.12
Hart's War	2/15/02	2,459		$8.91	$3,622	$19.08
Enemy at the Gates	3/16/01	1,509		$13.81	$9,152	$51.40
Saving Private Ryan	7/24/98	2,463		$30.58	$12,416	$216.12

Why I Should See It: An interesting war story about an aspect of WWII that has not been covered in very many modern war films.
Why Not: A low-profile cast and moderate release won’t do much to help get it attention or awareness.

Bottom Line: While war dramas have had moderate success in the years since Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks’ Saving Private Ryan, this one is just getting too low-key a release with not enough marketing to find the older male audience that might be interested in seeing it. At least if it’s halfway decent, it could get some word-of-mouth business over the slow month of August.

Projection: Less than $2.5 million opening weekend on its way to around $8 million.

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THE SKELETON KEY (Universal Pictures)
Starring: Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, Peter Sarsgaard, John Hurt, Joy Bryant
Directed by: Iain Softley (Hackers, K-PAX)
Genres: Horror, Thriller
Rated PG-13
Theatre Count: 2,770
Tagline: “Fearing is Believing”
Mini-Review: Some interesting ideas and fun performances from Rowlands and Sarsgaard barely make up for the fact that this is a rather dull and mostly dumb ghost moive with very few ghosts and not many scares either. Sorry, but I don't believe either. Rating: 5 out of 10

Kate Hudson plays a nurse who travels down to Louisiana to take care of an elderly woman’s bed-ridden husband (Hurt) in a creepy old mansion. After being given a skeleton key that opens all the doors, she begins to explore the house, only to find a secret room within the mansion’s attic that contains various voodoo artifacts.

If there is only one thing more prevalent than remakes this year, it’s horror films. Although The Skeleton Key has the distinction of being written by The Ring’s Ehren Kruger and having its own take on horror by dealing with voodoo, it really doesn’t look like something that different from all the other recent haunted house movies. It doesn’t even look particularly scary.

Essentially, this is a movie to showcase the acting talent of Kate Hudson, as she tries to branch away from her normal romantic comedy fare. Hudson, of course, is the daughter of Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell, a pedigree that got her a lot of attention for her breakout role in Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous five years ago. After the disappointing desert-based war epic The Four Feathers, she found success with the romantic comedy How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days, but her next film Alex and Emma with Luke Wilson bombed, and her next romantic comedy Raising Helen, directed by Garry Marshall, only did slightly better. Maybe taking on a horror movie may be the thing the actress needs to be taken seriously again, at least as a viable box office draw, but she hasn’t been able to bring audiences in to see her romantic comedies, so it’s doubtful that changing gears like this might do that much better.

Kate Hudson andGena Rowlands
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Raising Helen	5/28/04	2,717		$10.98	$4,043	$37.49
Alex and Emma	6/20/03	2,310		$6.11	$2,645	$14.21
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days	2/7/03	2,923		$23.77	$8,134	$105.81
The Four Feathers	9/20/02	1,912		$6.86	$3,587	$18.31
Almost Famous	9/22/00	1,193	$3.22	$6.93	$5,809	$32.47
The Notebook	6/25/04	2,303		$13.46	$5,847	$79.67
Taking Lives	3/19/04	2,705		$11.46	$4,236	$32.68

At least Hudson has some great support in the form of Peter Sarsgaard, who has wowed critics with performances in Shattered Glass and Kinsey, as well as legendary actress Gena Rowlands, best known for her work with John Cassavetes, who made a bit of a comeback last year with Taking Lives and then The Notebook. It’s doubtful that either will do much to help bring people into the movie, although they could help heighten the film’s credibility as far as quality. The fact that it’s directed by the guy who did Kevin Spacey’s K-PAX is not particularly promising.

Unfortunately, the horror genre, especially this kind of haunted house horror thriller, is kind of played out. There have just been way too many movies with a similar tone and vibe, and where movies like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense and Nicole Kidman’s The Others found great success four or five years ago in the same late summer time period, jaded audiences want something new and different and something worth seeing in theatres, rather than waiting for on DVD. Of course, Universal is deliberately trying to draw comparisons between The Skeleon Key with those movies, as well as Ehren Kruger’s previous hit The Ring, it just doesn’t have the same great trailer and commercials that built excitement for those films. Also, both films delivered on the scares, which allowed them to get solid word-of-mouth business during the slower late-summer season. The Skeleton Key tries to offer something different with its voodoo angle, but it harks back to films from the late ‘80s like True Believer and Wes Craven’s The Serpent and the Rainbow, neither which did particularly well.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Dark Water	7/8/05	2,657		$9.94	$3,741	$24.41
The Ring Two	3/18/05	3,332		$35.07	$10,524	$75.89
Boogeyman	2/4/05	3,052		$19.02	$6,232	$46.36
Cold Creek Manor	9/19/03	2,035		$8.19	$4,025	$21.38
The Ring	10/18/02	1,981		$15.02	$7,580	$128.29
The Others	8/10/01	1,678		$14.09	$8,397	$96.08
The Sixth Sense	8/6/99	2,161		$26.68	$12,346	$293.50
True Believer	2/17/89	897		$2.60	$2,899	$8.71
The Serpent and the Rainbow	2/5/88	1,430		$5.85	$4,090	$19.60

Why I Should See It: Because you missed Dark Water?
Why Not: It looks too much like so many other movies, and Kate Hudson’s fans probably won’t have much interest in seeing her in something like this.

Bottom Line: The Skeleton Key is another case of a not-so-impressive horror film trying to capitalize on the success of past horror hits but getting overlooked because it looks too much like them. If Jennifer Connelly wasn’t enough to get people in to see Dark Water, which had a stronger premise and better marketing, then Kate Hudson won’t do much for this one either. This would probably have done better if released in the Fall.

Projection: $8 to 10 million on its way to $25 million.

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UNDER THE RADAR

Do you live in a major North American city? If so, there are a number of limited release movies worth checking out. And if you don't live in one of the cities in which these movies open, look for some of them to hit your area sometime in the next few months.

This week’s WARRIOR’S PICKS are ASYLUM (Paramount Classics) and A STATE OF MIND (Kino International). Director David McKenzie (Young Adam) teams with Patrick Marber (Closer) to adapt Patrick McGrath’s novel Asylum with Natasha Richardson playing the wife of a psychiatrist who has an affair with an asylum’s psychotic inmate (Marton Csokas). It also stars Hugh Bonneville and Ian McKellen. It opens in New York and L.A. on Friday. MY REVIEW Opening at the Film Forum in New York on Wednesday, A State of Mind is a documentary by Daniel Gordon about North Korea, as seen through the eyes of two young girls preparing themselves for the Mass Games, a dancing-gymnastics extravaganza to show their support for General Kim Jong Il and the communist way of life. MY REVIEW

Timothy Treadwell, an environmental warrior living in the wilds of Alaska, tries to protect the grizzly bears from poachers. Of course, that doesn’t stop those ingrateful bears from killing and eating him. Using Treadwell’s footage and interviews with close friends, filmmaker Werner Herzog assembled the documentary GRIZZLY MAN (Lions Gate Films) to tell his story. Opens in select cities. MY REVIEW

PRETTY PERSUASION (Samuel Goldwyn Films/Roadside Attractions) stars Evan Rachel Wood (Thirteen) as a manipulative 15-year-old who uses sex to get whatever she wants, even concocting a scheme to accuse a teacher of sexual harassment. Directed by Marcos Siega and co-starring James Woods, Selma Blair, Ron Livingston and Jane Krakowski, this cross between Heathers and Wild Things opens in New York and Los Angeles. Mini-Review: Yet another dark comedy about vacant teens, but besides the terrific performance by Evan Rachel Wood and James Woods as her over-the-top father, there's nothing new being added to the genre. Most of the film's problems come down to poor production values and weak direction. Rating: 5 out of 10

Opening Wednesday at New York’s Pioneer Theatre is the graphic horror film CHAOS (Dinsdale Releasing) about two girls who are kidnapped and brutally tortured after trying to score drugs. (Just Say No!) Also opening in New York is THE GOEBBELS EXPERIMENT (First Run Features), a documentary, narrated by Kenneth Brannagh, on the life of Hitler’s closest confidante Joseph Goebbels. From India, comes MANGAL PANDEY - THE RISING, the latest film starring Aamir Khan of the Oscar-nominated Lagaan. It’s an epic tale about the leader of the 1857 Indian Mutiny against the British colonials. It opens in New York and New Jersey just in time for India’s Independence Day weekend.

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THIS TIME LAST YEAR

After the success of Freddy vs. Jason in August 2003, two more big screen baddies faced off in Alien vs. Predator, an sci-fi action flick directed by Paul Anderson (Resident Evil). Anticipation was high for the film as it pulled in $38 million its opening weekend to take the top spot Following the formula of their 2000 hit, Disney released The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, once again starring Anne Hathaway and Julie Andrews, on Wednesday. After making around $14 million in it first two days, it placed a strong second over the weekend with $22 million, just slightly more than what The Princess Diaries grossed its opening weekend four years earlier. This would be the third Disney family hit in August after the previous year’s Freaky Friday with Lindsay Lohan. Based on the popular cartoon and card game, Yu-Gi-Oh!: The Movie defied the recent slump for traditional animated films to bring in just under $10 million opening weekend. In third place, the Michael Mann thriller Collateral, starring Tom Cruise, crossed the $50 million mark with strong word-of-mouth from its rather weak opening weekend. M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village took another big hit, dropping 57% from its previous weekend. Yeah, people didn’t like that one very much, did they?

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Next week, Steve Carell plays a human oddity in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Cillian Murphy and Rachel McAdams get Red Eye in the Wes Craven thriller, and Ewan McGregor is the carrier pigeon Valiant in the Disney animated film. Oh, and there’s something called Supercross: the Movie. No. I didn’t just make that up.

Copyright 2005 Edward Douglas