Preview and Projections for the Weekend of November 23, 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.

Special thanks to William “shadowking” Reynolds for the assist this week.

WEEKEND PROJECTIONS - final update 11.22.05 (Happy Thanksgiving!)

Thanksgiving is here once again, and there are five (!) new movies, none of which will have much of an impact as Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire continues to roll along at the top. As a matter of fact, it’s doubtful that any of them will have much of an effect on November’s three strongest films, including the Johnny Cash biodrama Walk the Line and Disney’s Chicken Little, although the movie with the strongest chance at finding audience is probably Chris Columbus’ adaptation of the hit musical Rent. Reuniting most of the original cast with actress Rosario Dawson as a ringer, the movie musical should bring in many fans of the original stage play, which includes a lot of teen girls for some reason. Paramount will try to steal away some of the family audiences with their remake of the Lucille Ball comedy Yours, Mine and Ours, starring Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo, while Just Friends with Ryan Reynolds and The Ice Harvest, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton, will try to capitalize on the “Christmasy” elements of their stories, although the lighter comedy of the former will probably win out. Focus Features will also expand their adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice starring Keira Knightley, across the nation in hopes of it being a first choice for many women and girls. And then there’s R ‘n’ B superstar Usher appearing in the mobster comedy In the Mix. No comment on that one. In general, this weekend is looking like a lot of weaker movies opening in an attempt to try to target much of the same audience—young men and women—which ultimately, will hurt all of them.

TW	LW	Title	3-Day Weekend (in millions)	5-Day Box Office (in millions)	Change	# Of Theaters	Average	Week
1	1	Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire	$61.0	$82.0	-40%	3,858	$15,769	2
2	2	Walk the Line	$18.0	$25.3	-20%	3,138	$5,736	2
3	3	Chicken Little	$15.5	$20.6	5%	3,475	$4,460	4
4	New	Rent	$14.8	$20.7	N/A	2,433	$6,083	1
5	New	Yours, Mine and Ours	$14.3	$19.0	N/A	3,200	$4,469	1
6	New	Just Friends	$12.5	$16.9	N/A	2,505	$4,990	1
7	New	The Ice Harvest	$5.5	$7.5	N/A	1,550	$3,548	1
8	10	Pride & Prejudice	$4.8	$6.5	187%	1,299	$3,695	3
9	4	Zathura	$4.5	$6.1	-13%	2,620	$1,718	3
10	New	In the Mix	$4.3	$6.1	N/A	1,608	$2,674	1
			Est. Weekend Total $155.20	5-day Weekend Total $210.23	Est. Avg. Drop-Off 25%		Est. Average PTA $5,407

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THE ICE HARVEST (Focus Features)
Starring: John Cusack, Billy Bob Thornton, Connie Nielsen, Randy Quaid, Oliver Platt
Director: Harold Ramis (Caddyshack, National Lampoon’s Vacation, Ground Hog’s Day, Analyze This and That)
Screenwriter(s): Richard Russo, Robert Benton (Kramer vs. Kramer, Places in the Heart)
Genres: Crime, Drama, Comedy (sort of)
Rated R
Theatre Count: 1,550
Tagline: “Thick thieves. Thin ice.”
MY REVIEW

Charlie Arglist (John Cusack), an attorney for the less savory entrepreneurs of Wichita, Kansas, has just embezzled over $2 million from a local mob boss, along with his friend Vic Cavanaugh (Billy Bob Thornton), but his Christmas Eve attempts to get out of town with the money and Renata (Connie Nielsen), who runs a local strip club, are thwarted at every turn.

Since it’s Thanksgiving, studios begin to roll out their holiday-themed films, and The Ice Harvest is a strange one, because it does take place on Christmas Eve, but it’s more of a dark comedy based on classic film noir films in the vein of the movies of The Coen Brothers. There’s nothing strange about that except that up until recently, the Coens were more of a draw for the big city college art house types, so they’d always open in limited release first. Being directed by Harold Ramis might help, since the director is best known for his popular mainstream comedies of the last 25 years, including Caddy Shack, National Lampoon’s Vacation, and Groundhog Day. Most recently, he directed two comedies that teamed Billy Crystal and Robert De Niro, Analyze This and Analyze That, although the latter failed to match the former’s success.

The star of his film, John Cusack, is playing a seedier character than the nice guys he’s played in his 20-year plus career, mostly in romantic comedies from Say Anything to High Fidelity, Serendipity and his recent jaunt with actress Diane Lane in the romantic comedy Must Love Dogs. In recent years, he’s been involved in more diverse fare, such as the thriller Identity and the adaptation of John Grisham’s Runaway Jury two years ago. In general, Cusack’s films do decent business, and he certainly has a healthy 20 to 40-something fanbase thanks to the likeable characters he’s played over the years. The Ice Harvest may test their patience and loyalty, particularly of Cusack’s large female fanbase, since it’s a much grittier movie than something like Must Love Dogs, while also being much lower profile in some ways.

Fortunately, Cusack is once again teamed with Billy Bob Thornton, whom he starred with in Pushing Tin, the 1999 dark comedy directed by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire director Mike Newell, which also starred the future Mrs. Thornton, Angelina Jolie. That movie does have a small cult audience of fans, but it didn’t do well at the box office. Since then, both Thornton and Cusack have improved their Q ratings among movie fans with Thornton appearing in prominent indies like Monster’s Ball and the Coen Brothers’ The Man Who Wasn't There after earning a lot of respect for his directorial debut Sling Blade. His most recent success was his starring role in Terry Zwigoff’s holiday hit Bad Santa, a raunchy Christmas comedy that has paved the way for the second leg of his career, which continued into this past summer’s remake of Bad News Bears.

John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Must Love Dogs	7/29/05	2,505		$12.86	$5,132	$43.89
Identity	4/25/03	2,733		$16.23	$5,937	$51.48
Runaway Jury	10/17/03	2,815		$11.84	$4,205	$49.36
Serendipity	10/5/01	2,601		$13.31	$5,117	$50.26
High Fidelity	3/31/00	1,183		$6.43	$5,435	$27.04
Pushing Tin	4/23/99	1,283		$3.56	$2,775	$8.41
Bad News Bears	7/22/05	3,183		$11.38	$3,576	$32.87
Bad Santa	11/28/03	2,005	$4.51	$12.29	$6,131	$59.43
The Man Who Wasn't There	10/31/01	250	$2.29	$0.89	$3,575	$7.49
A Simple Plan	1/22/99	660	$3.65	$3.42	$5,182	$16.31

Cusack and Thornton are joined by a terrific supporting cast including character actor Oliver Platt, who has lately been appearing on one cancelled television show after the next, and who steals many scenes in Lasse Halström’s upcoming Casanova. The other two known stars are Danish actress Connie Nielsen, last seen in the war film The Great Raid, and Randy Quaid, another character actor who has been in many movies over the last few years.

Besides the strong cast, The Ice Harvest’s other strong plus is its Christmas setting, which will certainly bring back a lot of fond memories of Thornton’s holiday alternative Bad Santa, which is why Focus is releasing it over Thanksgiving, a great time for a holiday movie. Wisely, Focus has decided to play up that aspect of the movie, as well as selling it as a straight comedy from “the director of Caddyshack”, which is sure to be of interest to older males. That said, it’s a bit of a misrepresentation, since The Ice Harvest isn’t so much a comedy as a noir crime drama, and it’s not likely to win over audiences or critics as well as Bad Santa did a few years ago. The R-rating could also hurt, because it’s certainly not a family comedy with all its nudity, foul language and violence…again, like Bad Santa. It’s definitely more the type of movie that the hipper college crowd might enjoy, but that crowd is out of school and not as likely to go out as a group to see this movie.

Despite this being the type of movie that would do better in big cities and college towns, Focus Features is giving it a fairly wide release into over 1,400 theatres, although it’s unlikely that people will know much about the movie since Focus hasn’t been promoting it as much as their other movie, which expands wide this weekend, the Keira Knightley version of Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice. By comparison, The Ice Harvest has only gotten a few commercials and a deceptive promo ad run at the Loews theatre chain. Unlike Bad Santa, which continued to do well over the holidays, Ice Harvest will probably get most of its business opening week and not much after that, due to its limited audience.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Fargo	4/5/96	716	$9.62	$2.54	$3,547	$24.57
Analyze That	12/6/02	2,635		$11.03	$4,186	$31.82
Bedazzled	10/20/00	2,568		$13.11	$5,105	$37.84
Analyze This	3/5/99	2,518		$18.38	$7,299	$106.69
Groundhog Day	2/12/93	1,640		$14.65	$8,933	$70.83
The Ladykillers	3/26/04	1,583		$12.63	$7,981	$39.69
Intolerable Cruelty	10/10/03	2,564		$12.53	$4,885	$35.10

Why I Should See It: The director of some of the greatest comedies of the 20^th Century makes a dark Coen Brothers type comedy with a solid cast…can’t be that bad, right?
Why Not: It’s actually a dark and cynical crime drama, and not in the fun Bad Santa way, and it’s likely to turn off anyone misled by the trailer that it’s a light holiday comedy.

Bottom Line: While movies set during the holidays tend to do well over Thanksgiving weekend, mainly due to the mall shoppers out buying early holiday presents, the fact that this is a dark film noir crime-comedy geared towards adults, rather than something you might go see with the family, is ultimately going to hurt it. It just doesn’t have the raunchy laughs that helped Bad Santa do well in the same time frame two years ago.

Projection: $6 to 8 million over the course of the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, in large part due to the movie’s holiday theme, but it probably won’t make more than $15 million total.

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IN THE MIX (Lions Gate Films)
Starring: Usher, Chazz Palminteri, Emmanuelle Chriqui, Anthony Fazio, Matt Gerald, Robert Davi, Kevin Hart, Robert Costanzo, K.D. Aubert, Jennifer Echols, Page Kennedy, Misti Traya
Director: Ron Underwood (The Adventures of Pluto Nash. I think that says it all right there.)
Screenwriter(s): Jacqui Zambrano (“CSI”, “Just Cause”), Chanel Capra (Nora’s Hair Salon), Cara Dellaverson and Brian Rubenstein
Genres: Crime, Comedy
Rated PG-13
Theatre Count: 1,608
Tagline: “Everyone wants a piece of his action.”

R ‘n’ B superstar Usher plays a popular DJ who saves the life of a Mafia princess (“Entourage” star Emmanuelle Chriqui), and he’s rewarded by being given a full-time job protecting her.

There comes a time in the career of every pop star when they have to decide to make the leap into films. Usually, you would hope that they have a strong premise or vehicle to make that leap. Lance Bass of N-Sync didn’t. Neither did Mariah Carey. Tyrese Gibson was lucky enough to have John Singleton to help him make the transition. Usher wasn’t. That may be why his first film puts him firmly in the world of gangster comedy classics like Get Shorty, Analyze This and of course, Gigli.

It’s a bit surprising that the recording artist with one of the highest selling albums of 2004 wouldn’t pick his projects more carefully, but there you go. At least, he’s joined by actor/director Chaz Palminteri, who has forever gotten himself typecast as a gangster thanks to movies like this, and has a love interest in the form of “Entourage” star Emmanuelle Chriqui, although what they might help add to the mix probably won’t have anything to do with box office.

“ From the guy who brought you The Adventures of Pluto Nash” would probably not be the best way to sell this movie, which is probably why Lions Gate is playing down the direction of Ron Underwood, who helmed what might be the most famous bomb ever. Of course, Lions Gate will hope to bring in the urban audience that flocked to see some of this year’s other urban films, but this just doesn’t seem like the type of vehicle that makes sense for Usher’s audience, and there’s little chance that anyone not into Usher would be interested. Anyone who thinks that Usher’s popularity as a recording artist will do much to help this movie obviously has very little faith in the intelligence and taste of Usher fans. One only has to look back a few weeks to Get Rich or Die Tryin’ to see a classic case of recording sales not guaranteeing box office sales. Then again, far too many studios have ignored the fact that African-American audiences are able to tell what’s good and bad or otherwise, the recent remake of The Honeymooners starring popular urban comics Cedric the Entertainer and Mike Epps would never have been made.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Gigli	8/1/03	2,215		$3.75	$1,694	$6.07
On the Line	10/26/01	900		$2.31	$2,563	$4.36
Glitter	9/21/01	1,202		$2.50	$2,080	$4.24
Baby Boy	6/29/01	1,533	$3.08	$8.61	$5,614	$28.74
Gigli	8/1/03	2,215		$3.75	$1,694	$6.07

Why I Should See It: You’re one of Usher’s many female stalkers.
Why Not: Because even stalkers have their limits.

Bottom Line: Usher may be a fine singer with great charisma and personality, but boy, there’s no better way to quickly hurt your career than to make a bad movie. Just ask Mariah Carey. Then again, her music career quickly bounced back after Glitter and if Usher is lucky, this movie will probably be forgotten just as quickly.

Projection: $4 to 6 million over the five-day Thanksgiving weekend and a quick exit from theatres shortly after.

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JUST FRIENDS (New Line Films)
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Amy Smart, Chris Klein, Christopher Marquette, Stephen Root, Julie Hagerty
Director: Roger Kumble (Cruel Intentions, The Sweetest Thing)
Screenwriter: Adam “Tex” Davis (“Spring Break Lawyer”)
Genres: Comedy, Romance
Rated PG-13
Theatre Count: 2,505
Tagline: “He loves her. She loves him not.”
Mini-Review: Anyone who has ever been stuck in the "friend zone" should appreciate this hilarious and heart-warming romantic comedy that allows each of the cast to have their funny moments. Clearly, the winner is Anna Faris who steals the movie every time she's on screen, but it also moves Ryan Reynolds firmly into the role of romantic lead. For some guys, this movie is going to hit way too close to home, but they'll probably end up laughing the hardest. Rating: 8 out of 10

Chris Brander (Ryan Reynolds) is a successful L.A. music executive who winds up back in his hometown for the holidays when his plane breaks down nearby. Once there, memories return of him trying to pursue Jamie Palamino (Amy Smart), the girl of his dreams, who in high school always thought of him as her best friend, but never gave him a chance at romance. Before he knows it, he’s back pursuing again, having to face the competition from a much more worthy suitor (Chris Klein) as well as dealing with a psycho pop singer who has tagged along (Anna Faris).

The Thanksgiving weekend has long been known as a great time for family films, and comedy is always popular among families, which may be why this comedy set during Christmas time is trying to make a mark during one of the busiest weekends in months. It certainly has a decent comedy premise with a bit of a romantic slant, as well as one of the best comedic casts since New Line’s summer comedy hit Wedding Crashers.

Mostly, Just Friends will try to help Ryan Reynolds finally make the move into the realm of romantic lead that has suited comic actors so well, from Jack Black in Shallow Hall to Ben Stiller with Along Came Polly and Ashton Kutcher with Just Married. Of course, Jim Carrey and Adam Sandler made the move to romantic lead years ago, as well. The Vancouver born comic actor first got laughs on ABC’s sitcom “Two Guys and a Girl” before taking the title role in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder. After branching into action with last December’s Blade: Trinity and starring in the horror remake The Amityville Horror, Reynolds returned to his humorous roots with the indie restaurant comedy Waiting, which did far better than many expected. Just Friends is a bit more high profile being produced by a major studio, and it allows Reynolds to try his hand out at a romantic comedy in the vein of There’s Something About Mary. The film’s biggest sell has been the trailer which gets the most laughs from showing Reynolds in a fat suit as his nerdier high school persona that could never get the girl.

Ryan Reynolds and Amy Smart
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Waiting	10/7/05	1,652		$6.02	$3,645	$16.10
The Amityville Horror	4/15/05	3,323		$23.51	$7,074	$64.26
Blade: Trinity	12/10/04	2,912	$8.42	$16.06	$5,516	$52.40
Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle	7/30/04	2,135		$5.48	$2,567	$18.23
National Lampoon's Van Wilder	4/5/02	2,022		$7.30	$3,612	$21.01
The Butterfly Effect	1/23/04	2,605		$17.07	$6,551	$57.65
Rat Race	8/17/01	2,550		$11.66	$4,573	$56.09
Road Trip	5/19/00	2,530		$15.48	$6,119	$68.53

Of course, it’s a lot easier to get romantic when you have a gorgeous actress like Amy Smart playing opposite you. After breaking out as the love interest in the Todd Phillips’ 2000 summer comedy Road Trip, Smart starred in the ensemble comedy Rat Race, but then ended up taking on smaller roles and straight-to-video fare before returning in last year’s psychological thriller The Butterfly Effect opposite Ashton Kutcher. Reynolds is reunited with his second female co-star Anna Farris after appearing with her in Waiting, although she actually has a much stronger comedy career than either of the film’s two main stars, thanks to her starring role in all three (and the upcoming fourth) Scary Movies. She also had a memorable comedic role in Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, which was similar to her role as a psycho popstar in Just Friends; she actually steals many scenes in the role. Reynolds’ rival in the film is played by another actor from a popular comedy trilogy, although Chris Klein only appeared in the first American Pie movie, before moving on to the Farrelly Brothers’ comedy bomb Say It Ain’t So.

Just Friends has two comedy secret weapons in Christopher Marquette and Stephen Root. Marquette got many of the biggest laughs in the The Girl Next Door and the latter is a character actor who has been in everything from Office Space to last summer’s comedy hit Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. (Believe me, you’d recognize him if you saw him.) All of that adds up to a movie that offers big laughs, even if they’re not necessarily in the commercials.

Like The Ice Harvest, this comedy offers a bit of a Christmas theme since most of it takes place over the holiday, but New Line isn’t playing up that aspect of the movie, which would probably be the best way to get people in to see it over the weekend. The movie’s trailer was a lot of fun, but the more recent television commercials have not been great, selling the movie like a madcap comedy in the Farrelly Brothers vein, rather than as a sweet holiday romantic comedy with some funny slapstick comedy. It’s also targeting a younger audience, which is not a great move for the Thanksgiving weekend, which is more about seeing movies with the family. In general, the marketing behind the movie has not been as strong as some of the weekend’s other movies, particularly Rent, and that stands a better chance at getting the family audiences that are out in droves over Thanksgiving weekend. Then again, the movie is a real crowd-pleaser, and that’s likely to help it get the type of word-of-mouth that helped New Line’s Wedding Crashers become one of the top grossing films of the year.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
The Sweetest Thing	4/12/02	2,670		$9.43	$3,745	$24.43
Shallow Hal	11/9/01	2,771		$23.28	$23.28	$70.83
When Harry Met Sally	7/21/89	775	$3.28	$8.85	$11,419	$92.25
The Girl Next Door	4/9/04	2,148		$6.00	$2,795	$14.59
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story	6/18/04	2,694		$30.07	$11,162	$114.06
Say it Isn't So	3/23/01	1,974		$2.86	$1,450	$5.52
American Pie	7/9/99	2,507		$18.71	$19.93	$101.74
Scary Movie 2	7/6/01	3,220	$13.51	$20.50	$20.50	$71.28
Scary Movie	7/7/00	2,912		$42.35	$42.35	$157.00
There's Something About Mary	7/17/98	2,186	$4.06	$13.74	$6,285	$176.48

Why I Should See It: A feel good romantic comedy starring some of the funniest young comic actors should be a nice change for the holidays. Oh, and who will want to miss Ryan Reynolds in a fat suit or Anna Farris as a psycho popstar?
Why Not: Because anyone who sees the lame commercials probably won’t realize how funny the movie really is.

Bottom Line: While Just Friends is a solid comedy premise with a great cast, it’s probably not been marketed very well, so awareness is not as high as some of this year’s other breakout comedies. It also doesn’t seem like the type of comedy that would do well over the family-oriented Thanksgiving weekend, especially in a weekend full of movies geared towards the same audience.

Projection: $15 to 17 million over the extended Thanksgiving weekend on its way to roughly $40 million

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PRIDE & PREJUDICE (Focus Features)
Starring: Keira Knightley, Matthew MacFadyen, Brenda Blethyn, Donald Sutherland, Jena Malone, Judi Dench, Tom Hollander, Rosamund Pike, Talulah Riley, Penelope Wilton, Simon Woods
Director: Joe Wright (directorial debut)
Screenwriter: Deborah Moggach (mainly TV shows we’ve never heard of)
Genres: Comedy, Drama, Romance, Period
Rated PG
Theatre Count: 1,182
Tagline: “Sometimes the last person on earth you want to be with is the one person you can't be without.” (Awww..isn’t that romantic?)
Mini-Review: As someone who generally hates period pieces and was expecting to be in pain while sitting through this, this new version of an old stand-by is funny and entertaining througout.. Keira Knigthley really delivers as Elizabeth, as does her Mr. Darcy, Matthew McFayden. Rarely has there been stronger on-screen chemistry between the two. Brenda Blethyn and Donald Sutherland also offer a lot of laughs as her squabbling parents. Rating: 9 out of 10

In this adaptation of Jane Austen’s classic novel, Keira Knightley plays Elizabeth Bennett, a rebellious young woman who refuses to marry the wealthy man her mother (Brenda Blethyn) has picked for her, although it would save her family from poverty. Meanwhile, her four sisters deal with their own suitors, including the mysterious Mr. Darcy.

By now, there have been almost a dozen adaptations of Jane Austen’s most famous work, but this is the first one produced by Working Titles Films, who have brought us such classic British rom-coms as Bridget Jones's Diary, Love Actually and many more. Although this is being distributed by Universal’s ‘indie subsidiary’ Focus Features, this is indeed Working Title’s annual holiday release, their previous two being Love Actually and last year’s rom-com sequel Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason. Once again, they’ve assembled a stellar cast for the production, but the film’s success rests heavily on the shoulders of one of England’s recent younger exports who has yet to show her full potential, Miss Keira Knightley.

Of course, Knightley became more famous in this country for playing a different Miss Elizabeth, the one who ran around with Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean, a huge blockbuster in 2003. A few months later, Knightley appeared in Working Title’s Love Actually, which furthered her exposure in the States, although most of the movies she’s done since then have done little business. Maybe that’s because movies like Domino and The Jacket don’t play up to her strengths, while Pride & Prejudice will certainly appeal to those who liked seeing her in more romantic roles.

Like in Love Actually, Knightley has a great supporting cast, including living legend Donald Sutherland as her father, as well as two of England’s finest Dame Judi Dench and Brenda Blethyn, both of whom have earned Oscar accolades for previous roles. Rosamund Pike, who was a Bond girl in Die Another Day and starred in the recent Doom, leads the younger British cast, and Knightley’s Mr. Darcy is played by Matthew MacFadyen, who starred on the show known here as “MI-5.” The film also stars hot teen actress Jena Malone, who appeared briefly in Cold Mountain, and who has co-starred in indie dramas like Donnie Darko and others. Oddly, a number of the film’s stars also appear in another period piece getting a limited release this weekend, the Johnny Depp vehicle The Libertine. One of the standouts is Tom Hollander, who also appeared in the period piece Stage Beauty and will appear in both Pirate of the Caribbean sequels.

Pride & Prejudice is in good company with other Jane Austen adaptations, despite coming out almost ten years after Ang Lee’s Oscar worthy version of Sense and Sensibility, written and starring Emma Thompson, and nine years after Gwyneth Paltrow played Austen’s Emma. It’s also been ten years since one of the most famous recent versions of Pride and Prejudice, the 5-hour mini-series starring Colin Firth as Mr. Darcy. Earlier this year, Miramax released Bride & Prejudice, a musical Bollywood style adaptation of Jane Austen’s story by Ghurinder Chada, whose first film Bend It Like Beckham was many American’s first glimpse of Ms. Knightley.

The current version of Pride & Prejudice first opened almost two weeks ago in just over 200 theatres with an impressive opening weekend, making it into the Top 10 with $2.8 million. This past weekend, it earned another $2.1 million, remaining in the Top 10 with one of the smallest drop-offs. Thanksgiving weekend is probably a good time for it to expand nationwide, because there will be plenty of women going to the movie theatres, and its PG rating will certainly give it an advantage, since like Austen’s books, it has a devout following of young girls and their mothers. That said, it’s expanding into more theatres than Sense and Sensibility at the height of its Oscar fervor so one has to wonder if the popularity of Austen’s book is strong enough to maintain high per theatre averages in all of its new territories. The movie does have some heavy competition for the teen girl market both from the opening of Rent and the comedy Just Friends, and the fact that it’s already been playing in major markets for two weeks might keep it from doing that well.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Emma	8/30/96	725	$10.40	$3.06	$4,221	$22.20
Sense and Sensibility	2/9/96	952	$21.88	$2.40	$2,521	$42.99
Domino	10/14/05	2,233		$4.67	$2,101	$10.14
The Jacket	3/4/05	1,331		$2.72	$2,046	$6.30
King Arthur	7/9/04	3,086	$8.43	$15.19	$4,924	$51.80
Love Actually	11/7/03	576		$6.89	$11,955	$59.08
Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl	7/11/03	3,269	$24.00	$46.63	$14,264	$305.41
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason	11/12/04	530		$8.68	$16,385	$40.20
Bridget Jones's Diary	4/13/01	1,611		$10.73	$6,662	$71.50

Why I Should See It: This might be the best movie of Keira Knightley’s career, and one better suited for her strengths, not to mention being based on a literary classic.
Why Not: Hasn’t this been remade enough times already?

Bottom Line: With over $6 million under its belt in only ten days of limited release, Working Title Films’ latest offering may be one of their most accessible, if only because Jane Austen’s classic novel is so beloved among women and girls. Mothers and their daughters in the new places it opens are likely to continue this momentum over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Projection: Pride & Prejudice should earn another $5 to 7 million in its first five days in nationwide release, on its way to around $25 million total.

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RENT (Sony Pictures/Revolution Studios)
Starring: Rosario Dawson, Taye Diggs, Wilson Jermaine Heredia, Jesse L. Martin, Idina Menzel, Adam Pascal, Anthony Rapp, Tracie Thoms
Director: Chris Columbus (Home Alone, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Screenwriter(s): Chris Columbus (Goonies, Gremlins, Christmas with the Kranks), Steve Chbosky (The Four Corners of Nowhere)
Genres: Musical, Drama
Rated PG-13
Theatre Count: 2,443
Tagline: “No day but today”
MY REVIEW

Jonathan Larson’s hit Broadway musical is brought to the big screen with most of the original cast reprising their roles as HIV-positive friends living in poverty on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. There’s Mark (Anthony Rapp), the wannabe documentary filmmaker; Roger (Adam Pascal), the aspiring songwriter whose girlfriend committed suicide; Mimi (Rosario Dawson), the heroin-addicted stripper, and Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), the flamboyant transvestite.

In the post-Chicago world where Hollywood is looking to Broadway for their next big hit, Rent may be one of the most anticipated adaptations of the year, since it’s a musical with a hugely devout following of teen girls and gay men alike. Written by Jonathan Larson, who won a Pulitzer and a Tony Award after his death in 1996, this musical loosely based on the opera “La Boheme” is set in New York’s gritty Alphabet City during the early ‘90s, where poverty and AIDS ran rampant. Still running on Broadway today, it’s currently the eighth longest running show in Broadway history, having had over 4,000 performances to date, and its original cast album has become a huge seller in the last decade.

To bring the musical to the screen, the producers hired director Chris Columbus, best known for writing ‘80s family fare like Gremlins and Goonies and as a director of the Home Alone movies and the first two Harry Potters, another franchise with a huge diehard following. Critics and theatre lovers are certainly skeptical of Columbus pulling this off, since he’s so well known for lighter family fare, but as a fan of the original Broadway musical, Columbus went back to the source, bringing in most of the original cast who hadn’t appeared in the stage production for years.

One of only two exceptions was the role of junkie stripper Mimi, now played by Rosario Dawson, who actually has a nice string of box office hits under her belt. Ten years ago, while “Rent” was starting its run, Dawson made her big screen debut in Larry Clark’s controversial Kids, but her name was really put on the map by New York’s own Spike Lee, who gave her a prominent role in He Got Game opposite Denzel Washington, before working with her again in his 2002 film The 25^th Hour. Since then, she’s starred opposite Will Smith in the blockbuster sequel Men in Black II, with Eddie Murphy in The Adventures of Pluto Nash, and opposite The Rock in The Rundown. She also starred in Oliver Stone’s historic epic Alexander, another movie with homoerotic overtones that bombed last Thanksgiving. Earlier this year, she had a part in Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s Sin City, which is probably what she’s best known for right now.

Rent’s other known box office commodity is Taye Diggs, who actually started his career as part of the Broadway cast of “Rent” before going onto other ventures like movies and, most recently, television. For many years, Diggs was one of the top black leading men in romantic comedies like The Wood and The Best Man, but he’s tried to move to other genres not quite as successfully. Diggs’ most recent musical experience was playing the M.C. in the blockbuster movie musical Chicago, but this past year, he’s been seen on the critically acclaimed but not quite successful UPN television series “Kevin Hill.” If nothing else, Diggs will certainly help bring in the urban female audience, although his character is fairly minor compared to the other ones.

Of the rest of the cast who have done other things, Jesse L. Martin, who returns as Tom Collins, has found success on the show “Law and Order” and the other new replacement for the cast, Tracie Thoms, will be joining the cast of “Cold Case”. The other original members have done scattered projects most notably Adam Rapp and Idina Menzel, who became Mrs. Taye Diggs after appearing in the musical as the lesbian performance artist Maureen.

The success of Chicago certainly will help Rent if it gets anywhere near as much critical praise, but it’s more likely to have a smaller following like Joel Schumacher’s adaptation of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom of the Opera, which opened moderately last December, but then got decent business over the holidays. Like the stage show, it should have a significant audience of girls and young women, who have gotten into the catchy rock numbers that helped the new updated sell over 40,000 copies since its release two months ago.

Rent is opening in far more theatres and areas than either of its two musical predecessors. The problem is that outside of the larger cities, older audiences who are likely to go see musicals might not be so interested in the subject matter or the movie’s prominent lesbian and transsexual characters. Unfortunately, there’s still enough homophobia in Middle America and the Southern “Red States” that it’ll be hard for this movie to bring in the type of audiences that Chicago did. Still, it should do more than enough business in the bigger cities that it will make up for it, and it’s probably the best marketed films of those being released this weekend.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera	12/24/04	622	$2.32	$4.00	$6,434	$49.44
Chicago	2/7/03	1,841	$53.02	$10.79	$5,859	$170.68
Evita	1/10/97	704	$2.85	$8.38	$11,903	$50.02
Sin City	4/1/05	3,230		$29.12	$9,016	$73.59
Alexander	11/26/04	2,445	$8.15	$13.69	$5,598	$34.29
The Rundown	9/26/03	3,152		$18.53	$5,880	$47.59
25th Hour	1/10/03	490	$0.72	$2.83	$5,781	$13.08
Brown Sugar	10/11/02	1,372		$10.74	$7,827	$27.36
The Best Man	10/22/99	1,345		$9.03	$6,714	$33.29
The Wood	7/16/99	1,191		$8.52	$7,154	$25.05

Why I Should See It: The millions of people who saw the musical on Broadway and who bought the cast album can’t be wrong about this moving musical, can they?
Why Not: Who wants to see a musical about poor people afflicted with AIDS singing and dancing? (That was rhetorical, “Rentheads.”)

Bottom Line: Of all the new movies this weekend, Rent stands the best chance at bringing audiences into theatres, because it’s based on a popular musical that already has a built-in fanbase, and in general, movie musicals are largely accepted thanks to the success of their Broadway counterparts. While this one doesn’t have any huge box office stars, it does have the original Broadway cast, which might make all the difference to the fans who love the original.

Projection: $19 to 20 million over the five day Thanksgiving weekend on its way to around $50 million

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YOURS, MINE AND OURS (Paramount Pictures)
Starring: Dennis Quaid, Rene Russo and a bunch of kids
Director: Raja Gosnell (Big Mama’s House, Scooby Doo, Scooby Doo 2, Never Been Kissed)
Screenwriter(s): Ron Burch and David Kidd (Head Over Hills)
Genres: Comedy, Family, Remake, Romance
Rated PG
Theatre Count: 3,200
Tagline: “18 kids. 2 families. 1 force of nature.”

Write-up and analysis by William Reynolds.

In this remake of the 1968 Lucille Ball/Henry Fonda romantic comedy, single parents Frank (Dennis Quaid) and Helen (Rene Russo) plan to tie the knot... but with 18 children between them trying to sabotage the marriage, they discover that weddings ­ and families ­ can't be built in a day.

If a remake of a movie focusing on two parents dealing with a large number of children sounds familiar, it is. Two years ago, the very similarly themed Cheaper by the Dozen was remade, staring Steve Martin and Bonnie Hunt. While it seems like a perfect comparison, there are a few differences that leave Yours, Mine and Ours on the short end of the stick, the primary difference being the top to bottom star power of Cheaper by the Dozen in relation to the lack of any real star power from Yours, Mine and Ours.

Of course, Dennis Quaid's movie career stretches back to the late 70's and includes 40+ releases. From bit roles to star turns, from medieval fantasy to romantic comedy, he seems to have done a little bit of everything. Every time it seems like he is ready for a breakthrough to a higher level of stardom, poor movie choices have instead kept him on the second tier. He first broke into the mainstream in 1983 with both a starring role in Jaws 3-D and a co-starring role in The Right Stuff. The rest of the 80's and the early 90's primarily featured lower grossing efforts, but things started to turn in the mid 90's with a role as Julia Roberts' cheating husband in Something to Talk About and playing the father in another family comedy remake of The Parent Trap. In the same time frame he also played prominent roles in the bomb Wyatt Earp and the relative-to-expectations flop Dragonheart. Through the start of the 21^st Century, he has maintained the same mix of hits and bombs. Frequency and In Good Company both did moderately well, The Rookie was a hit and The Day After Tomorrow was a major blockbuster hit. On the other side, Flight of the Phoenix and The Alamo were both flat out bombs, but Quaid was able to garner significant critical credibility for his role in Todd Haynes’ Far From Heaven. So what does this type of erratic pattern indicate? It shows that the success of Dennis Quaid movies at the box office has to do with the appeal of the movie, and little to do with Mr. Quaid himself.

Dennis Quaid and Rene Russo
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
In Good Company	1/15/05	1,566	$0.50	$14.29	$9,125	$45.49
Flight of the Phoenix	12/18/04	2,604		$5.02	$1,928	$21.01
The Day After Tomorrow	5/29/04	3,425		$68.74	$20,070	$186.74
The Alamo	4/10/04	2,609		$9.12	$3,496	$22.41
Cold Creek Manor	9/20/03	2,035		$8.19	$4,025	$21.38
The Rookie	3/30/02	2,511		$16.02	$6,380	$75.60
The Parent Trap	7/30/98	2,247	$5.06	$11.15	$4,962	$66.31
2 For the Money	10/8/05	2,391		$8.70	$3,639	$22.86
Big Trouble	4/6/02	1,961		$3.55	$1,810	$7.26
The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle	7/1/00	2,458		$6.81	$2,771	$26.00
Buddy	6/6/97	2,113		$3.50	$1,656	$10.07

Rene Russo first appeared on screen as the love interest in the popular 1989 baseball comedy Major League, and then three years later, she got her big break into the mainstream, co-starring in Lethal Weapon 3 with Mel Gibson. In the following seven years she appeared in eight movies, seven of which grossed over 50 million dollars, but all of them featuring a top male star, as well. After The Thomas Crown Affair in 1999, she has not appeared in a film that has grossed over 40 million dollars. It seems safe to say that whatever draw she had through the 90's is gone now. Out of the 17 credited movies in her filmography, only two fall in a similar genre as the family targeted Yours, Mine and Ours, the animal comedy flop Buddy and the disastrous The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle.

The adult supporting cast is rounded out by the always likeable character actor Rip Torn, Linda Hunt, and Jerry O'Connell, whom kids may remember from Kangaroo Jack. The eighteen children in the film all seem to have very limited resumes. A few may know Sean Faris from the TV show "Reunion", remember Danielle Panabaker from Sky High, or recognize Miranda Cosgrove as one of the kids from School of Rock, but that's really kind of stretching things. There's no comparison to Cheaper by the Dozen's supporting star power of Hilary Duff, Ashton Kutcher (uncredited, but prominent in the advertising) and “Smallville” star Tom Welling. From top to bottom, Yours, Mine and Ours is missing the kind of star power that helped Cheaper by the Dozen become a breakout hit over Christmas in 2003. Director Raja Gosnell has done a few strong films like Scooby-Doo and it's sequel, and Big Momma's House. Even so, he's not a name that many in the mainstream will recognize.

Another minor bump in the road that Yours, Mine and Ours has to contend with is the upcoming sequel to Cheaper by the Dozen, which has already started advertising on TV, so people know it’s coming. Do people really want to see two similar movies in a relatively short time frame? Instead of going to "Yours", will they wait instead for the known quantity? (Editor’s comment: It might be good to note that Cheaper by the Dozen 2 stars two comic actors in Steve Martin and Eugene Levy, while this movie has none.)

Are there any positives for Yours, Mine and Ours? Sure. Parents trying to wrangle groups of kids, either their own or others, have proven popular at the box office over the last few years from Cheaper by the Dozen to Daddy Day Care to The Pacifier to Are We There Yet?; it’s a genre that draws, regardless of bad reviews or how bad a movie looks. Fortunately, another big positive in this case is the weekend it’s opening, because Thanksgiving weekend has traditionally been a boon for family films, both holdovers and new ones. The last two Thanksgiving weekends have had live action family movies like Christmas with the Kranks and The Haunted Mansion open, both totalling over 30 million for the 5-day period. If there's a weekend where a family movie with borderline appeal will succeed, it's Thanksgiving, but that does not mean it's guaranteed, as seen by family fare like the family sequel Babe: Pig in the City. (Update: Currently, the reviews for Yours, Mine and Ours are worse than any other movie, but still not nearly as bad as last year's Christmas with the Kranks, which was 4% Rotten according to RottenTomatoes.)

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
The Pacifier	3/4/05	3,131		$30.55	$9,758	$112.47
Are We There Yet?	1/21/05	2,709		$18.58	$6,857	$82.30
Cheaper By the Dozen	12/26/03	3,298	$8.18	$27.56	$8,356	$128.03
Daddy Day Care	5/9/03	3,370		$27.62	$8,197	$103.55
The Haunted Mansion	11/27/03	3,122	$9.50	$24.28	$7,777	$75.82
Babe: Pig in the City	11/26/98	2,384	$2.03	$6.16	$2,584	$18.32
Flubber	11/29/97	2,641	$8.74	$26.73	$10,121	$92.99

Why I Should See It: Because you think that lots of kids equals lots of laughs.
Why Not: There are better family options in the market right now, and the similar Cheaper by the Dozen sequel will be out soon enough.

Bottom Line: With the lack of any real draw, Yours, Mine and Ours is going to have a tough time overcoming the similarities to both the prior and the future Cheaper by the Dozen movies. Still, there will be some interested in this take on the genre, and it's opening on the right weekend to take advantage of that interest. Look for a decent open, but not a big breakout.

Projection: Around 18 million for the 5-day, with 12-15 million coming on the weekend. In total it should earn between 40 to 45 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 SYRIANA (Warner Bros. Pictures) and the documentary 39 POUNDS OF LOVE (HBO/Cinemax Films). The former is a political thriller, written and directed by Steven Gaghan (“Traffic”) and starring George Clooney and Matt Damon, about the oil industry and how it affects a varied cross-section of people from poor oil workers to Iranian heads of state. MY REVIEW (Coming Soon!)

Director Dani Menkin’s 39 Pounds of Love tells the story of Ami Ankilewitz, a severely paralyzed man from Israel, who takes a road trip across America in search of the doctor who told his mother when he was one years old that he wouldn’t live past the age of six. Mini-Review: Once you get over the shock of seeing Ami for the first time--his skeletal frame is jarring for sure--it's interesting to see how he lives his life, if you could call it a life, until he finally decides it's time to confront the doctor who said he only had five years to live. Thought this is not the best made documentary, Ami's journey is so riveting, that you can't help but be won over. Rating: 7 out of 10

Opening in New York and L.A. on Friday for a week-long Oscar consideration run is THE LIBERTINE (The Weinstein Co.) starring Johnny Depp as John Wilmot, the Earl of Rochester, who became known for his wanton ways, particularly when sponsoring pretty theatre actresses. Based on the play by Stephen Jeffreys, it tells the story of how the Earl falls for the feisty beauty Elizabeth Barry (Samantha Morton). It also stars producer John Malkovich as King Charles II, and Rosamund Pike and Tom Hollander, who both can be seen in Pride & Prejudice this week. MY REVIEW (Coming Soon!)

Vera Farmiga (“Touching Evil”) stars in Debra Granik’s DOWN TO THE BONE (Laemmle/Zeller Films), also opening in New York and L.A. on Friday, about the mother of two boys trying to keep her cocaine addiction a secret from them until she has to check herself into rehab. Based on Elizabeth Taylor’s best-selling novel MRS. PALFREY AT THE CLAREMONT (Jour de Fete), Dan Ireland’s comedy stars Joan Plowright as an elderly Scottish woman who moves into a London hotel where she befriends a young man who pretends to be her grandson. Opening in Los Angeles on Wednesday is STREETS OF LEGEND (Lions Gate Films), Joey Curtis’ realistic look at Los Angeles street racing trying to stay one step ahead of the police.

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THIS WEEKEND LAST YEAR

Last Thanksgiving, there were only two new movies, but neither was going to dethrone the Disney steamroller, as their holiday releases, the Jerry Bruckheimer produced Nicholas Cage actioneer National Treasure and Pixar’s animated superhero comedy The Incredibles, took first and second place with $32 and 23 million respectively. The Chris Columbus penned holiday comedy Christmas with the Kranks, starring Tim Allen and Jamie Lee Curtis, took third place with a strong $21 million opening weekend, settling for third place, followed by Robert Zemeckis and Tom Hanks’ holiday film The Polar Express with $19 million. The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie took a bit of a tumble down to fifth place with a second weekend of $17 million. The most interesting thing about those five movies was that for the first time, possibly ever, the top 5 movies over Thanksgiving weekend were rated PG, showing the strength that family films have during the holiday frame. Entering theatres in sixth place was the R-rated Alexander with Colin Farrell taking the lead role in the Oliver Stone historic epic and after bad reviews, it earned a disappointing $13.7 million opening weekend. Miramax Films expanded their 2004 Oscar favorite Finding Neverland nationwide into over 500 theatres. Starring Johnny Depp as Peter Pan author J.M. Barrie, the biodrama earned $4.6 million, an average of over $9,000 per theatre, paving the way for its run to the Oscars.

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Next week, it’s December, and Charlize Theron is in full-on action mode wearing next to nothing in Aeon Flux.

Copyright 2005 Edward Douglas

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