Preview and Projections for the Weekend of August 26, 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.

WEEKEND PROJECTIONS - final update 8.25.05

The weakest summer in years is almost over as August comes to a close, and the one saving grace this weekend is that there’s a new movie from Terry Gilliam, his first movie in six years! The Brothers Grimm stars Matt Damon and Heath Ledger as the adventuring duo who go from town-to-town fighting mock witches until they’re faced with a real magical challenge. If the movie is able to withstand Heath Ledger’s trademarked box office kiss-of-death and the bland reviews, it should do enough business to come out ahead of Steve Carell’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin this weekend. On the other hand, the Screen Gems horror film The Cave is being dumped into this weekend with very little fanfare and almost no advertising, so it may struggle to get into the Top 5. Likewise, Lions Gate releases Undiscovered, a musical love story costarring pop singer Ashlee Simpson that is so unbelievably bad that it’s going to make people miss the days of Mariah Carey’s Glitter. Needless to say, it will fall outside theTop 10 this weekend with just over $2 million. In general, this will be a slower weekend, as people begin to take their summer vacations before the season officially comes to an end.

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THE BROTHERS GRIMM (Dimension Films)
Starring: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Jonathan Pryce, Monica Bellucci, Lena Headey, Peter Stormare, Mackenzie Cook, Richard Ridings
Directed by: Terry Gilliam (Brazil, The Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Genres: Action, Adventure, Comedy
Rated PG-13
Theatre Count: 3,087
Tagline: “Eliminating Evil since 1812.”
MY REVIEW

It's Bavaria in the early 19^th Century, and Willhelm and Jacob Grimm (Damon and Ledger) are traveling hucksters who trick gullible and superstitious townspeople into paying them to rid their towns of witches. They’re making a good amount of money until they happen upon a situation that really does involve magic, something that they’re not quite equipped to deal with.

Terry Gilliam is back! You don’t know how happy that makes me, since I’ve been a lifelong fan of the quirky filmmaker who started out doing the animated shorts and directing Monty Python movies before moving onto his own fantastical films. Gilliam’s last film, an adaptation of Hunter S. Thompson’s drug-tinged road trip Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas with Johnny Depp, wasn’t received that well back in 1998, and since then, Gilliam seems to have been cursed. His attempt to make a movie about Don Quixote was plagued with problems (see the documentary Lost in La Mancha) and then he almost lost his financing for this film when MGM decided at the last minute to pull the plug. Fortunately, Bob and Harvey Weinstein came forward with the $88 million to make the movie for Dimension Films, but Gilliam then experienced more of the same creative clashes he’s had with so many other major studios, and rumors of problems between Gilliam and Bob Weinstein spread far and wide. Though the movie was shot in Prague two years ago, it got waylaid by the extensive post-production and effects as Gilliam went off to shoot the drama Tideland, and its release kept getting pushed back as he argued with the studio about the direction.

Despite the production problems, the premise behind The Brothers Grimm is right up Gilliam’s alley, since he’s made a career deconstructing and reinventing myths and legends right back to his early films like Jabberwocky and Time Bandits. Gilliam’s biggest hit to date was 1995’s Twelve Monkeys—that is, if you don’t count Monty Python and the Holy Grail, considered a comedy classic by many, which later spawned the hit Broadway musical “Spamalot.” Gilliam had already found a mainstream audience with The Fisher King at that point, but Twelve Monkeys added the killer pairing of Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt, both strong stars who had already had some box office success.

His stars for The Brothers Grimm are nothing to scoff at, since last year alone, Matt Damon starred in two successful sequels, Ocean’s Twelve and The Bourne Supremacy. There was a time when it didn’t seem like Damon was able to carry a film as a leading man or be a bankable box office commodity, but that quickly changed with the success of The Bourne Identity in 2001, which was quickly followed by his part in Steven Soderbergh’s remake of Ocean’s 11. Damon hasn’t had as much success doing comedy, as seen by the rather disappointing showing by the Farrelly Brothers’ Stuck on You in 2003, which saw Damon as conjoined twins with Greg Kinnear.

Unfortunately, his brother in this one is played by a bonafide box office curse in Heath Ledger, whose career has taken quite a tumble since he debuted in Mel Gibson’s The Patriot. The good-looking Aussie actor seemed to have a decent career in store when he had a minor hit with A Knight’s Tale in 2001, but ever since then, every single one of his films has bombed. After the remake of The Four Feathers performed poorly, Ledger reteamed with Knight’s Tale director Brian Helgeland for the religious thriller The Order. It bombed. A few months ago, he didn’t do much to help Stacy Peralta’s skateboard drama Lords of Dogtown do very much business either.

Matt Damon vs. Heath Ledger
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
The Bourne Supremacy	7/23/04	3,165		$52.52	$16,595	$170.45
The Bourne Identity	6/14/02	2,638		$27.12	$10,281	$121.38
Ocean's Twelve	12/10/04	3,290		$39.15	$11,901	$125.40
Ocean's 11	12/7/01	3,075		$38.11	$12,393	$183.13
Stuck on You	12/12/03	3,003		$9.41	$3,134	$33.45
Lords of Dogtown	6/3/05	1,865		$5.62	$3,015	$11.01
The Order	9/5/03	1,975		$4.44	$2,248	$7.66
The Four Feathers	9/20/02	1,912		$6.86	$3,587	$18.31
A Knight's Tale	5/11/01	2,980		$16.51	$5,541	$56.08
The Patriot	6/30/00	3,061	$9.32	$22.41	$7,321	$113.30

The boys will have to take on the evil menace of Monica Belluci, as she adds her legendary beauty to the picture as the evil Queen. Coming out of Italy’s thriving film industry, Belluci appeared in the two Matrix sequels and the Bruce Willis drama Tears from the Sun, and then, she played Jesus Christ’s Mom in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of The Christ. Since then, she’s been laying fairly low, although pictures of her as the Queen do make it look more appealing.

This is the third film of the year from screenwriter Ehren (The Ring) Kruger after The Ring Two and The Skeleton Key. Obviously, he has a talent for enticing audiences with his stories and characters, something that will be tested when filtered through Gilliam’s quirky non-mainstream sensibilities. Then again, recent successes like Pirates of the Caribbean, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and the aforementioned musical “Spamalot” seems to point that mainstream audiences are far more open to Gilliam’s quirky brand of humor then they might have been six years ago.

Other analysts will surely point to Gilliam’s past box office record--only two movies of his have grossed more than $40 million--as a sure sign that his latest film will falter in the late summer box office. Brothers Grimm is easily the director’s most mainstream film to date, and it has the full backing of Dimension Films, who pumped almost $30 million into promoting it. The trailer and commercials have been strong, focusing on the film’s action and effect, and they’ve been everywhere for the last few weeks, something which ultimately will pay off, since making people aware of the movie is the first barrier. Gilliam fans who’ve been waiting years for his return will want to see it as soon as they can, and he probably has more fans then he did ten years ago, since his two most popular films Twelve Monkeys and Fisher King have gotten a lot more fans from being seen on cable and DVD.

So far, the reviews have been fairly negative, as critics don’t feel that this is Gilliam’s best effort; some may be superimposing their own biases about the film based on their impressions that Gilliam’s vision was stifled by the studio. While the bad reviews might put off some of Gilliam’s fans, those looking for an entertaining fantasy epic should appreciate Gilliam’s take on the characters, and the fact that he’s made a big budget period action adventure in the vein of Pirates of the Caribbean or The Count of Monte Cristo. Despite the problems, Dimension is well aware that they have a solid movie and they’ll be getting the movie onto as many screens as possible opening weekend, rather than go for the platform release of Gilliam’s previous films.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas	5/22/98	1,126		$3.41	$3,028	$10.56
Twelve Monkeys	1/5/96	1,533	$0.37	$13.84	$9,028	$57.14
The Fisher King	9/27/91	1,214	$0.50	$7.07	$5,824	$41.80
The Passion of the Christ	2/27/04	3,043	$41.34	$83.85	$27,554	$370.27
Matrix Reloaded, The	5/16/03	3,603	$42.51	$91.77	$25,471	$281.91
Tears of the Sun	3/7/03	2,973		$17.06	$5,737	$43.63
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl	7/11/03	3,269	$24.00	$46.63	$14,264	$305.41
The Count of Monte Cristo	1/25/02	2,007		$11.38	$5,668	$54.23
The Musketeer	9/7/01	2,438		$10.31	$4,230	$27.05

Why I Should See It: Because it’s visionary director Terry Gilliam deconstructing fairy tales and folklore, something that he always has done better than any other director.
Why Not: Those looking for a straight action film or more of Gilliam’s socio-political commentary are going to be disappointed.

Bottom Line: Sure, these are the dog days of summer, and there’s plenty of reasons to be skeptical of a movie that took forever to get released, but The Brothers Grimm has a strong premise, and the many fans of Terry Gilliam and Matt Damon will come out opening weekend to see if this action-adventure-comedy is as good as the trailer and commercials.

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

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THE CAVE (Sony/Screen Gems)
Starring: Cole Hauser, Morris Chestnut, Eddie Cibrian, Rick Ravanello, Marcel Lures, Lena Headey, Piper Perabo
Directed by: Bruce Hunt (second unit director of The Matrix trilogy and Dark City)
Genres: Action, Horror, Sci-Fi
Rated PG-13
Theatre Count: 2,195
Tagline: “There are places man was never meant to go.” (Need I even make the joke that this movie may be one of them?)
Mini-Review: There are few good moment, but otherwise this surprisingly dull and unsurprisingly cliched action thriller steals liberally from so many other, better films. If you've seen "Alien vs. Predator", "Leviathan", "The Abyss", "Touching the Void" and of course, "Pitch Black", there's really no reason to see this movie. Rating: 4 out of 10

In the ruins of a 13^th Century Abbey in Romania, scientists discover a giant underground cave system, but when they disappear, a team of professional cave explorers led by brothers Jake (Cole Hauser) and Tyler are sent in with their crack unit to try to find them. There, they find a new species of deadly creatures. Let the slaughter begin.

There are movies that come along that you just know in your heart will bomb. Sometimes they surprise you and do far better than your expectations, but most of the time, they come out, go mostly unnoticed, and then disappear into oblivion, at least until some poor unfortunate cable channel picks up the rights and shows it over and over for months. While this sort of premise where a group of stupid explorers get systematically slaughtered by odd alien-like creatures has been a Hollywood standard thanks to the success of the Alien and Predator movies of the ‘80s and ‘90s, it’s getting harder to do anything original with the idea. David Twohy’s Pitch Black successfully replicated the formula while turning Vin Diesel into an action hero. The lack of weird creatures in its sequel, The Chronicles of Riddick, made people realize who the real stars of the movie were. Earlier this year, Uwe Boll used the odd and deadly creatures idea as part of his latest bad movie Alone in the Dark, a box office disaster waiting to happen, and the most recent “Project Greenlight” used a similar concept for the horror film Feast, which comes out in January. Either way, it’s obvious that horror fans love to see stupid humans being slaughtered, either by aliens or large creatures.

The most amazing thing about the cast is that it stars two of the actors whose last movies came out during the dog days last summer, Cole Hauser in the laughably bad thriller Paparazzi and Morris Chestnut in the similar horror-bull sequel, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid (See This Weekend Last Year). Apparently, Cole Hauser wanted to relive his glory days as part of the cast of Pitch Black, because essentially, this is exactly the same movie. He hasn’t done much to make a name for himself since then besides a role in the sequel 2 Fast 2 Furious. Chestnut made his debut in John Singleton’s Boyz n the Hood and had been a staple in urban romantic comedies like The Best Man and The Brothers, but in recent years, he’s tried to become more of an action star by starring in movies like Steven Seagel’s Half Past Dead, Anacondas, and this.

Director Bruce Hunt, has some impressive films listed in his resume, since he directed the Wachowski Brothers' second unit on their sci-fi epic The Matrix and its sequels, as well as performing the same duties on Alex Proyas’ Dark City, which predated The Matrix with a similar premise.

Unfortunately, Hunt’s first feature looks to be a dog. Even the title of the movie is bad. Seriously, would you go see a movie called The Cave? A catchier title might have been Cave Explorers Being Slaughtered By Creatures, but sadly, the new trend of PG-13 horror movies means that there won’t really be very much blood or gore either. Bah.

The question is how and why this ended up in the dog days of summer. Originally, the movie was supposed to come out in late April, which itself isn’t a great time to release a movie, but only weeks after the first trailer showed up, Screen Gems decided to move this to the late summer where most movies go to die. They then had the entire summer to promote the movie and make people aware of its existence, and they didn’t. There have been very few commercials and even the ever-present internet ads are scarce. Screen Gems did put tons of ads for the movie in various comic books…but that was back in March, when the movie was coming out in April. It’s almost like they expended their advertising budget and then moved it. That said, a few male horror fans might remember seeing the trailer and go to see it since bad horror movies are often as entertaining as good ones, but otherwise, no one else will see this when there are much stronger word-of-mouth thrillers like Red Eye and The Skeleton Key still in theatres.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count		Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid	8/27/04	2,905		$12.81	$4,410	$31.53
Half Past Dead	11/15/02	2,113		$7.82	$3,701	$15.36
Paparazzi	9/3/04	2,115		$7.86	$3,714	$15.71
2 Fast 2 Furious	6/6/03	3,408		$50.47	$14,810	$127.08
Pitch Black	2/18/00	1,832		$11.58	$6,321	$39.24
Alone in the Dark	1/28/05	2,124		$2.83	$1,334	$5.13
The Core	3/28/03	3,017		$12.05	$3,995	$31.11

Why I Should See It: Because you MUST find out how they get out of that cave. I mean, they’re trapped in there! With deadly creatures! I know I’m scared!
Why Not: Because they’ll probably still be trapped in there by the time the movie is released on DVD…in October.

Bottom Line: Although this type of action-horror film might be perfect for the slow month of August, there’s very little chance that this movie will get much attention against The Brothers Grimm and the horror movies already in theatres. It’s obviously been dumped into this late August weekend with very little promotion in hopes it will quickly be forgotten, and in that sense, it will be considered a success.

Projection: $6 to 7 million on its way to $15 million.

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UNDISCOVERED (Lions Gate Films)
Starring: Pell James, Steven Strait, Kip Pardue, Shannon Sossamon, Fisher Stevens, Carrie Fisher, Peter Weller, Stephen Moyer, Ashlee Simpson
Directed by: Meiert Avis (Far From Home)
Genres: Romance, Drama, Musical
Rated PG-13
Theatre Count: 1,304
Tagline: “They know each other by heart.”
MY REVIEW

Luke (Strait) and Brier (James) are two beautiful young people who have a chance encounter on a New York subway. Shortly later, they both go to L.A. to find fame, he as a rock star and her as an actress, but when they run into each other again, they have to decide whether their relationship is strong enough to withstand “the business.”

Okay, let’s get this out of the way. This movie stars Ashlee Simpson. Yes, that Ashlee Simpson. Unlike her small movie appearances in Raise Your Voice and Rob Schneider’s The Hot Chick (boy, all of the female co-stars from that dog are coming out of the woodwork, aren’t they?), she has a more prominent role in this film, maybe because her father was the executive producer or because Tara Reid was busy with her new E! show. In many ways, the whole purpose of this movie is to showcase Ashlee’s acting talents, much like her music was meant to showcase her singing talents. Now that you’ve gotten off the floor from laughing and dusted yourself off, we have to think about whether or not the fans Simpson kept after the Saturday Night Live and Orange Bowl lip-sync fiascos will have enough love for Ashlee to support her first major film.

Although she is prominently featured in the ads, Ashlee Simpson really has more of a supporting role in the movie, even if its used as an excuse to make a few music videos for her. Otherwise, there’s really not much starpower to speak of. Steven Strait, lead singer of the rock group Tribe, just appeared as Warren Peace in Disney’s minor family hit Sky High, but playing a rock singer is probably a more suitable role. While actress Pell James has supermodel looks, she hasn’t really done anything of note except for a smaller role in Uptown Girls, which leaves Kip Pardue as Luke’s brother. He has a number of films under his belt, particularly indies like Thirteen and Imaginary Heroes, but his most impressive credit was playing a major role in the Renny Harlin racing drama Driven. Honestly, not one of these young actors has any sort of following that might go see this movie because of them.

More well known is Shannon Sossamon, whose started her career opposite Heath Ledger—already a bad sign--in A Knight’s Tale, followed by leading roles in 40 Days and 40 Nights with Josh Hartnett, The Order, and Rules of Attraction. She’s barely recognizable as a Brazilian supermodel in this movie. The movie also stars Carrie Fisher AKA Star Wars’ Princess Leia, and Peter “RoboCop” Weller, neither doing much to save their careers.

Looking at recent movies about the music business does not really give much hope for Undiscovered. While “Ms. Fantastic” Jessica Alba scored a minor hit as dance choreographer Honey, pop singer Mariah Carey bombed with her first feature film Glitter, a movie that might have been mocked to this day if it weren’t for Gigli. Unfortunately, Undiscovered is cut from the same cloth as Glitter, being a bad movie with a pop singer whose career has hit a tailspin. The movie also looks a lot like other romantic films like A Lot Like Love, which bombed despite having Ashton Kutcher to save it, and From Justin to Kelly, a poorly conceived movie to showcase the stars of Fox’s reality show “American Idol.” At least, Kelly Clarkson has been able to recover from that movie with a number of decent albums. And then there’s the case of Crossroads, Brittney Spears’ first movie that did far better than it should have.

Director Meirt Avis made his name directing classic music videos by U2, Bruce Springsteen and others, which would make you think that he would know the music business, but apparently not, because he somehow went along with this travesty.

Distributor Lions Gate hasn’t had a particularly good year, and they’re not doing much better in promoting this one with the exception of those pesky internet banner ads and some talent search contest (possibly for Undiscovered 2?) Maybe a few young girls will want to see this movie for Ashlee, but most people--at least those who know about it--will avoid it like the plague. At least the plague had some interesting side effects; this movie doesn’t.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count		Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Sky High	7/29/05	2,905		$14.63	$5,037	$46.83
A Lot Like Love	4/22/05	2,502		$7.58	$3,028	$21.62
From Justin to Kelly	6/20/03	2,001		$2.72	$1,357	$4.92
Glitter	9/21/01	1,202		$2.50	$2,080	$4.24
Honey	12/5/03	1,942		$12.86	$6,620	$30.00
Crossroads	2/15/02	2,380		$17.01	$7,149	$37.19
Rock Star	9/7/01	2,525		$6.02	$2,384	$16.99

Why I Should See It: Because you missed Glitter when it was in theatres?
Why Not: Because there was a very good reason to miss Glitter in theatres.

Bottom Line: When a movie’s only selling point is a vacant pop star like Ashlee Simpson, there really is very little chance that it might succeed. The fact that this movie is getting a theatrical release, let alone one into over 1,000 theatres, floors me, but hey, maybe a few young female Ashlee fans will go see it before its screens are given to worthier fare.

Projection: Around $2 million opening weekend on its way to about $4 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 THE BAXTER (IFC Films) and THE MEMORY OF A KILLER (Sony Pictures Classics). The Baxter is the directorial debut of Michael Showalter of “The State”, “Stella” and Wet Hot American Summer, in which he plays tax accountant and chronic loser Elliot Sherman, who is worried about losing his fiancé, played by The 40-Year-Old Virgin’s Elizabeth Banks, to a former boyfriend. It opens in a bunch of theatres in New York this weekend and in Los Angeles on Sept. 2. MY REVIEW Meanwhile, The Memory of a Killer is a Belgian crime thriller from Erik Van Looy based on Jef Geeraerts’ novel “The Alzheimer Case” about two police detectives trying to track down an aging killer who has been leaving a trail of bodies of men associated with a pedophile ring. Mini-Review: This tense crime thriller proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that there's more to Belgium than just waffles and french fries. The intricacies of the plot and the amazing performance by Jan Decleir as an aging killer trying to keep his mind strong enough to avoid capture while finishing his last job makes this as strong as anything from Michael Mann or Christopher Nolan. It's a bit hard to follow at times and rather long, but still, quite riveting. Rating: 8 out of 10

FORMULA 17 (Strand Releasing) is a Tawainese comedy from director DJ Chen about a homosexual teen boy who goes into the city looking for love and adventure and ends up falling for a uncompromising playboy. ETERNAL (Here Films!, Regent Releasing) is a thriller about a Montreal police officer who tracks down his missing wife to a sadistic woman who kills other women to bathe in their blood and give her eternal life and beauty. Apparently, this film opening at the Village East in New York is based on a true story. ::shudder:: David Kendall, writer of The New Guy and director of various television shows, has his first feature film DIRTY DEEDS (Innovation Film Group), a raunchy teen comedy about a high school senior who has to complete a series of challenges over Homecoming Weekend. It opens in Los Angeles.

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THIS WEEKEND LAST YEAR

As August came to a close and summer winded down, four new movies opened in a weekend normally saved for the studio to dump their worst movies. With that in mind, it was surprising to see Miramax using the weekend to finally release Zhang Yimou’s Hero, a martial arts action film starring Jet Li and Maggie Cheung that had been sitting on their shelf for years after being nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar. Although the movie was available on import DVD for quite some time, interest to see it in theatres was still high enough to get it a moderately wide release into 2,000 theatres where it earned an astounding $18 million, taking the top spot with ease. Opening in 900 more theatres, Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid, the sequel to the Ice Cube and J-Lo horror film, opened decently with just under $13 million despite the original stars not appearing in it. It came in second over the Seth Green-Matthew Lillard comedy Without a Paddle, which held up respectfully in its second weekend with another $8.6 million in third place. By comparison, last week’s #1, Exorcist: The Beginning, dropped 61% in its second frame. Opening all the way at the bottom of the Top 10 was the Ben Kingsley serial killer thriller Suspect Zero, which pulled in only $3.4 million its opening weekend, doing only slightly better than Super Babies, the sequel to the family comedy Baby Geniuses. Both films received only moderate releases with no advance press screenings, which is never a good sign.

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Next week, Labor Day ends the summer with four new movies: Jason Statham is back in action in Transporter 2, while director Fernando Meireilles (City of God) adapts John Le Carre’s political thriller The Constant Gardener, Ray Bradbury’s A Sound of Thunder gets the big screen treatment, and Nick “Drumline” Cannon is the Underclassman.

Copyright 2005 Edward Douglas