Preview and Projections for the Weekend of October 7, 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.

Before we start, it’s time once again for the Weekend Warrior’s favorite online movie game to start up over at EZ1 Productions, so if you have a few minutes a week to invest some fake money into the movie business, there’s still time to join in before the game starts for real.

WEEKEND PROJECTIONS - Final Update 10.06.05

It’s another lazy fall weekend with a lot of new movies but nothing particularly invigorating, so the fate of the top spot will be down to a romantic comedy based on a popular book taking on the first feature-length film starring an Oscar winning Claymation duo. While Cameron Diaz’s In Her Shoes, based on Jennifer Weiner’s book, may be able to win on Friday, expect Nick Park’s Wallace & Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit to make up the difference over the weekend when parents and kids will pick that over the other movies in theatres. The lack of school on Monday due to the Columbus Day holiday will also help the film greatly. A number of “late bloomers” fill up the rest of this week’s offering from Universal’s crime-drama set in the world of sports betting, Two for the Money, starring Matthew McConaughey and Al Pacino, and the gross-out restaurant comedy Waiting starring Ryan Reynolds and Anna Farris. The former will likely be the stronger draw towards older males, while the latter is a genre that has played itself out, so it will likely be targeting the bottom of the Top 10. The same might be said for Screen Gems’ musical drama The Gospel, opening in less than 1,000 theatres, which is targeting a rather focused audience of churchgoers, who may or may not know much about the movie’s existence. Either it will miss the Top 10 altogether or it will end up #1 and shock the nation much like Diary of a Mad Black Woman did earlier this year. (Update: It probably will do really well in select locations and poorly in others, so expect an opening weekend between $3 and 4 million.)

---

IN HER SHOES (20^th Century Fox)
Starring: Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, Shirley MacLaine, Mark Feuerstein, Brooke Smith, Francine Beers, Richard Burgi, Norman Lloyd, Eric Balfour, Andy Powers, Marcia Jean Kurtz, Anson Mount, Nicole Randall Johnson, Kateri DeMartino, Brandon Karrer, Ken Howard
Director: Curtis Hanson (L.A. Confidential, 8 Mile, Wonder Boys, The River Wild, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle)
Screenwriter: Susannah Grant (Erin Brockovich, 28 Days, Ever After)
Genres: Romantic Comedy, Drama
Rated R
Theatre Count: 2,808
Tagline: "Friends. Rivals. Sister."
MY REVIEW

Based on the novel by Jennifer Weiner, this is the story of two very different sisters, Maggie (Cameron Diaz) and Rose (Toni Collette), the former a party girl, the latter a sensible lawyer. The only thing they have in common is that they both have the same size feet, except that Rose is the one who can actually afford to buy shoes, which she never gets a chance to wear. After taking Maggie in, Rose gets into a fight with her, and the two sisters split apart, leading each to their own journey of self-discovery.

While this may seem like another chick flick ala The Banger Sisters or The First Wives’ Club, there’s a lot more behind this movie than just a fluffy feel-good story about sisters and women’s issues. Sure, there’s that, too, but being based on a bestselling women’s novel, this movie already has a built-in audience who know these characters and will want to see how they’re portrayed on screen. The fact is that the novel was strong enough to bring on two rather illustrious filmmakers, first Ridley Scott as a producer and then a director on the caliber of Curtis Hanson.

Still, the driving forces behind this adaptation are the three actresses, each of whom appeal to a different generation of women. Of course, Cameron Diaz is the best known of the cast, which is why the movie is mainly sold based on her name and star power. Since making her debut in Jim Carrey’s The Mask over ten years ago, Diaz has found a wide array of fans, mostly guys and younger girls from the Charlie’s Angels movies and from the Farrelly Brothers’ There’s Something About Mary. Surprisingly, this is her first live action film since the action sequel Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle failed to make the type of money expected, though it still made over $100 million in North American theatres, and it might give her a chance to do something a bit more serious that older women might appreciate. Before that, she appeared in Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-repelling Gangs of New York, and earlier that year, she starred in the gross-out comedy The Sweetest Thing, which many thought would be her breakout as a solo star. (It wasn’t.) Still, the blonde bombshell has made the most money from providing the voice for Princess Fiona in the two Shrek movies, the latter which became the third highest grossing film of all time just last summer. Diaz has done many comedies over the years, but this film gives her a chance to show off a more serious and dramatic side, which may be a great career move for her. Having not been seen (rather than heard) on screen for more than two years, Diaz has been more present in the tabloids, particularly when she started dating the much younger pop singer Justin Timberlake, which might actually make her more of a draw to women who read those rags interested in seeing her in a strong role.

Diaz’s sisterly counterpart is played by Toni Collette, best known as Haley Joel Osment’s weepy mother in M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth Sense, before playing another depressed mother in Hugh Grant’s About A Boy. With those two films under her belt, her pairing with Nia Vardalos in the inverse cross-dressing comedy Connie and Carla may have seemed like a strange choice. Because she looks different in every film she’s done, Collette may not be immediately recognized, but she does have the respect of cinemaphiles who knows she brings something to all of her roles, and her performance as Rose is a career high for the actress, for sure.

The Ladies
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle	6/27/03	3,459		$37.63	$10,880	$100.69
Gangs of New York	12/20/02	1,504		$9.12	$6,051	$77.81
The Sweetest Thing	4/12/02	2,670		$9.43	$3,745	$24.43
Connie and Carla	4/16/04	1,014		$3.25	$3,210	$8.05
About a Boy	5/17/02	1,207		$8.56	$7,090	$40.57
The Sixth Sense	8/6/99	2,161		$26.68	$12,346	$293.50
Bewitched	6/24/05	3,174		$20.13	$6,343	$62.52
Postcards From the Edge	9/14/90	1,013	$0.11	$7.87	$7,769	$38.27
Steel Magnolias	11/17/89	480		$5.43	$11,313	$81.00

These younger actresses are joined by a living legend in Shirley MacLaine, playing the sisters’ grandmother who lives in Florida. The 70-year-old Hollywood legend has been making movies for decades, receiving six Oscar nominations through her early career before finally winning one for 1983’s Terms of Endearment. Since then, she’s appeared in many films that appeal mainly to women including Postcards from the Edge and Steel Magnolias. She was last seen playing the Endora role in Nora Ephron’s film version of the television show Bewitched; that movie did decent business opening weekend but quickly tanked after than when people realized how bad it was. MacLaine also appears in the upcoming Rumor Has It, this time playing Jennifer Aniston’s grandmother.

Part of the key to the film’s success will rely on the direction of Curtis Hanson, who has established a great name and reputation for quality filmmaking for movies like L.A. Confidential, Eminem’s biodrama 8 Mile and the adaptation of Michael Chabon’s Wonder Boys. This is a bit of a departure, as it’s a movie featuring stronger actresses dealing with subjects mostly of interest to women. To help get the proper voice, Weiner’s novel was adapted by Susannah Grant, whose screenplay for Steven Soderbergh’s Erin Brockovich received a number of awards nominations that year. That movie, like this one, targeted women but was able to find a larger non-gender-specific audience due to its quality writing and acting.

Even though this is a busy weekend, there’s very little being offered for women over 30, which may be why September and October has often seen hits in the genre from The First Wives Club to last year’s Shall We Dance? Unfortunately, older women tend to not rush out to see movies, often waiting until second or third weekend, but they do tend to pay attention to reviews, which should be good. The film is opening in far more theatres than Shall We Dance or even Bridget Jones’s Diary, a great example of a women’s book turned into an equally successful movie, although it doesn’t have nearly as much buzz or awareness just yet.

To help this, Fox held three sneak preview screening for In Her Shoes over the last two weekends to try to build word-of-mouth. Unfortunately, there’s a good chance that the women who really wanted to see this movie may have already seen it.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
8 Mile	11/8/02	2,470		$51.24	$20,745	$116.13
Wonder Boys	2/25/00	1,253	$0.05	$5.81	$4,637	$19.22
L.A. Confidential	9/19/97	769		$5.21	$6,775	$64.62
Shall We Dance?	10/15/04	1,772		$11.78	$6,650	$57.89
The Banger Sisters	9/20/02	2,738		$10.04	$3,666	$30.31
Riding in Cars with Boys	10/19/01	2,770		$10.80	$3,899	$29.78
Bridget Jones's Diary	4/13/01	1,611		$10.73	$6,662	$71.50
First Wives Club	9/20/96	1,922		$18.91	$9,839	$105.49
Beaches	1/13/89	706	$1.04	$5.16	$7,309	$56.44

Why I Should See It: Toni Collette, Cameron Diaz and Shirley MacLaine give terrific career high performances.
Why Not: If you can’t relate to women or their matters whatsoever, there is little question that this is the pinnacle of “chick flicks" and you probably will be bored. (Just go see Into the Blue again.)

Bottom Line: As in past years, the fall is a great time to release a movie targeted towards older women, and this combination of great source material with a talented cast and respected director is a good sign that In Her Shoes will bring the women in this weekend and over the rest of the month as word gets around. A lot of its success may depend on reviews, but they shouldn’t be too bad.

Projection: $13 to 15 million opening weekend on its way to $50 million.

---

TWO FOR THE MONEY (Universal Pictures)
Starring: Al Pacino, Matthew McConaughey, Rene Russo, Jeremy Piven, Armand Assante, Jaime King
Director: D. J. Caruso (The Salton Sea, Taking Lives)
Screenwriter: Dan Gilroy (Freejack, Chasers)
Genres: Drama, Thriller
Rated R
Theatre Count: 2,389
Mini-Review: Basically, this is Boiler Room meets Wall Street crossed with every movie where Al Pacino plays a crooked mentor from Scent of a Woman to The Recruit. Pacino makes the most of it, pretty much stealing the movie with his snappy quips, but the chemistry with McConaughey, a real dead fish in this movie, is non-existent. By the end, the whole movie has resorted to formula, becoming so predictable and ludicrous, that you know where things are going, but don't really care. Rating: 5 out of 10

Mathew McConaughey is Brandon Lane, a former football star recruited by Walter Abraham (Al Pacino), the head of a sports consulting firm to help them set the line for their sports betting business. Lane’s ability to predict the outcome of games quickly turns him into a golden boy, but it soon becomes apparent that he’s bitten off more than he can chew when his abilities start to falter.

Possibly one of the country’s greatest living actors, 65-year-old Al Pacino continues to make all sorts of movies and find new audiences well into his 35^th year as an actor. Of course, he’ll forever be remembered for his early movies like The Godfather, Serpico and Dog Day Afternoon, but he’s still respected enough as an actor that he can do less artistic Hollywood-driven fare and usually bring in an audience, mostly older males. Two for the Money is right up Pacino’s alley, having him play a corrupt mentor pitted against a young up ‘n’ comer, something he did with Colin Farrell in 2003’s The Recruit, as well as in 1997’s The Devil’s Advocate with Keanu Reeves, both which earned over $50 million. He also found success and critical raves in Christopher Nolan’s 2002 thriller Insomnia, but in the last few years, he’s also starred in two huge box office bombs, S1m0ne and Gigli. The actor last appeared in the film version of Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice, which did decently in limited release, but failed to get him the Oscar nomination some expected.

This time, he has to mentor Matthew McConaughey, whose gone from dramatic supporting actor to romantic lead to bonafide action star, the last one with his two most recent films Reign of Fire and Sahara, based on the Clive Cussler novel. McConaughey’s charm and good looks might help bring in a few women along with the male target audience, which does give this a bit of an advantage over recent testosterone-laden fare. As an added bonus, the movie also stars Jeremy Piven, who has become extremely hot right now thanks to his stint as Hollywood super-agent Ari Gold on the HBO comedy “Entourage.”

In many ways, the film looks a lot like Boiler Room or Wall Street, in that the world of sports betting has become a bit like the stock exchange with so much riding on the games and so much corruption going on behind the scenes. This setting will mean that the movie’s main appeal will be to older guys, who may have some experience in sports betting, even if it’s only in more innocent variations like office pools and fantasy sports leagues. From the trailer, it doesn’t look like the movie will have very much action, and the rather standard rags-to-riches-and-back formula is pretty much given away if you’ve seen it.

Working against it is the fact that the film was produced by Morgan Creek, who don’t have a solid reputation, either for quality or for box office success with their only real claims to fame being The Exorcist movies. Other movies of theirs include American Outlaws, The In Crowd, Soldier and who can forget Juwanna Mann? Like I said…lack of quality. It’s a shame, since D. J. Caruso is actually a decent director, having cut his teeth on episodes of “The Shield” before helming the cult favorite The Salton Sea and last year’s Taking Lives with Angelina Jolie and Ethan Hawke.

Universal Picture has started a concentrated, albeit somewhat last minute, ad campaign during baseball and football games, targeting the audience most likely interested in the subject matter. Being the fall, more people stay home watching college football and baseball, particularly the playoffs, so it’s sure to help the awareness of the movie, although that’s the same crowd that would probably stay home to watch the game rather than go to the movies. This looks like so many other movies and not really like something that has to be seen in theatres, so it may not necessarily be a first choice compared to the other movies already in theatres.

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
The Recruit	1/31/03	2,376		$16.30	$6,861	$52.79
S1m0ne (Simone)	8/23/02	1,920		$3.81	$1,986	$9.68
Insomnia	5/24/02	2,610		$20.93	$9,988	$67.26
Devil's Advocate	10/17/97	2,161		$12.17	$5,632	$61.00
City Hall	2/16/96	1,815		$6.95	$3,829	$20.28
Sahara	4/8/05	3,154		$18.07	$5,729	$68.05
Reign of Fire	7/12/02	2,629		$15.63	$5,946	$43.06
How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days	2/7/03	2,923		$23.77	$8,134	$105.81
Confidence	4/25/03	1,871		$4.56	$2,439	$12.21
Boiler Room	2/18/00	1,335		$5.74	$4,300	$16.84

Why I Should See It: Al Pacino is at his best in this sort of drama-thriller, where he’s pitted against another strong actor.
Why Not: A movie about sports betting? Next you’re going to tell me that there are games based on how movies might do at the box office.

Bottom Line: It seems like a drama set in the world of sports betting might be something that could intrigue male sports fans, although the trailer makes it look like so many other movies while giving away much of the plot. While the combination of Pacino and McConaughey may be enough to bring them into theatres, this is exactly the type of movie that many will be fine waiting until it comes to DVD.

Projection: $7 to 9 million on its way to roughly $18 to 20 million total

---

WAITING… (Lions Gate Films)
Starring: Ryan Reynolds, Anna Faris, Justin Long, David Koechner, Kaitlin Doubleday, Alana Ubach, Vanessa Lengles, Chi McBride, Luis Guzmán, John Francis Daley, Robert Patrick Bennedict, Andy Milonakis
Director/Screenwriter: Rob McKittrick (debut)
Genres: Comedy
Rated R
Theatre Count: 1,652
Tagline: “No one’s going to make it big here.” (True Dat. Their other option is “This is not what I ordered,” which may have been overheard when the studio received the film.)
MY REVIEW

At the restaurant Shenanigan’s, the staff is so bored that they play all sorts of games with the customers and each other. One of the waiters (Justin Long) starts questioning whether he wants to spend the rest of his life in this environment, while a restaurant vet Monty (Ryan Reynolds) doesn’t care because he’s more concerned with partying and hitting on the underage waitresses.

Guaranteed to keep anyone from going to a restaurant for dinner after seeing it, this independently made movie is one that has been floating around for the last few years, which makes sense, since it’s the type of grossout comedy that permeated the industry for years after hit movies like Scary Movie and There’s Something About Mary which used similar gross-out tactics and sexual humor. These days, R-rated comedies are a bit more sophisticated and even somewhat romantic, which may be why Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year-Old Virgin have thrived in a slow summer season.

With that in mind, Waiting… seems like more of a throwback to the bad types of comedies, and its only saving grace might be its cast, which is made up of a number of stars that have found success in similar comedies. At the forefront of these is Vancouver’s Ryan Reynolds, who starred in the ABC sitcom “Two Guys and a Girl” before taking on the starring role in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder, released by Artisan Films before it was bought up by the Vancouver based Lions Gate Films. Since then, he’s brought humor to Blade: Trinity and took on a more serious role in the MGM remake of The Amityville Horror, but has yet to break out as a star who brings people into theatres.

Although this is being sold as Reynold’s movie, it’s really more about Justin Long, who first appeared in movies like Jeepers Creepers and Brittany Spears’ Crossroads, but found his greatest success when switching over to comedy with last year’s Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story. Of course, Anna Farris is best known as the recurring character of Cindy from the Scary Movie “trilogy,” and she also had a small comedic role in Sophia Coppola’s Lost in Translation. If that weren’t enough, the film also stars Luiz Guzman, a popular character actor seen in the films of Steven Soderbergh and Paul Thomas Anderson, and Andy Milonakis, a very recent star of his own MTV show, who is cut from the same cloth as Tom Green.

The problem is that awareness of this movie isn’t great, mainly since it’s been moving around the release schedule all year before winding up in this busy weekend, and the title isn’t one that jumps out and gets people’s interest. Lions Gate has been stepping things up with more television commercials on Comedy Central, where you would expect the most comedy fans would learn about it, but it just doesn’t seem like something that anyone might care about.

It reminds me a bit of Mike Judge’s Office Space, a hilarious movie that has become a huge cult comedy after leaving theatres where it did pitiful business, or more recent R-rated flops like Eurotrip or Harold and Kumar, in which Reynolds had a cameo. Then again, it could just be another Tomcats, and that’s something we just don’t need another one of…ever.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
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
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story	6/18/04	2,694		$30.07	$11,162	$114.06
Scary Movie 2	7/6/01	3,220	$13.51	$20.50	$6,367	$71.28
Scary Movie	7/7/00	2,912		$42.35	$14,543	$157.00
Eurotrip	2/20/04	2,512		$6.71	$2,672	$17.72
Tomcats	3/30/01	2,617		$6.41	$2,448	$13.56
Office Space	2/19/99	1,740		$4.23	$2,431	$10.82

Why I Should See It: Ryan Reynolds and Anna Farris return to their element with more irreverent comedy.
Why Not: Do we really want to know what waiters do to our food? I know I don’t.

Bottom Line: This is a low profile gross-out comedy that has been moved repeatedly before being dumped into a busy weekend with far too many stronger choices. Granted, none of them are comedies and there is room for one, but this seems like a return to the type of comedies that were everywhere after There’s Something About Mary and American Pie, and not on a par with the big comedies of the summer.

Projection: Between $3 and 4 million opening weekend on its way to $6 million.

---

WALLACE & GROMIT ­ THE CURSE OF THE WERE-RABBIT (DreamWorks Pictures)
Starring (voice): Peter Sallis, Helena Bonham Carter, Ralph Fiennes, Nicholas Smith, Liz Smith
Director: Nick Park (Chicken Run, “Wallace and Gromit” shorts), Steve Box (Stage Fright)
Screenwriter(s): Bob Baker, Nick Park, Steve Box (“Wallace and Gromit” shorts)
Genres: Animated, Comedy, Family
Rated G
Theatre Count: 3,645
Tagline: “Something wicked this way hops.”
Mini-Review: The genius of Nick Park is back in fine form with another wonderfully creative comedy that brings these lovable characters into the realms of "Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein." The animation and humor is simple and primitive, but it's all done so brilliantly with plenty of subtle innuendo that grown-ups will appreciate that you'll be smiling from ear-to-ear for the whole movie.Rating: 9 out of 10

Wallace the cheese-loving inventor and his dog Gromit are hired by Lady Tottington (voiced by Helena Bonham Carter) to put a stop to her plague of bunnies in time for the town’s annual Vegetable Competition, but their humane attempts to stop the rabbits backfire when one rabbit gets way too big to handle.

Twenty years ago, Nick Park created two characters who would define his professional career, and almost immediately, Wallace the inventor and his dog Gromit became popular favorites among people of all ages with its mix of Claymation and British humor. That same year, Park made another animated short called “Creature Comforts” with zoo animals talking about the conditions with both shorts playing various animation festivals in the States before being nominated for Oscars in the short animated film category in 1990. “Creature Comforts” ended up winning the award, but Park’s next two Wallace and Gromit shorts both won Oscars the years they were released.

In the late ‘90s, DreamWorks’ animated division began courting Park and Aardman Studios to do a feature-length Wallace and Gromit film, but instead, they decided to test out the possibilities of a Claymation feature film by releasing Aardman's Chicken Run, featuring the voice of Mel Gibson, a bonafide hit which earned $100 million in theatres over the summer of 2000. After that success, DreamWorks greenlit the Wallace and Gromit movie and Park went back to Aardman Studios to work on their first big screen adventure.

Park isn’t reinventing the wheel for the movie, using the same formula that made the animated shorts so much fun, including once again using Peter Sallis, who has given Wallace his inimitable voice for twenty years. He’s joined for this movie by two better-known actors with Helena Bonham Carter and Ralph Fiennes playing Lady Tottington and Victor Quartermain, Wallace’s love interest and rival respectively. Both of them have had recent box office hits, Carter appearing in her husband Tim Burton’s movies, including his own stop motion film Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride and Fiennes in Fernando Meirelles’ The Constant Gardener. You’re not likely to recognize either of their voices, since they’re both playing such exaggerated character that they’ve altered their voices quite a bit.

While The Curse of the Were-Rabbit doesn’t have quite the star power of a Mel Gibson or a Johnny Depp, Wallace and Gromit are fairly well known characters thanks to the success of their animated shorts, which DreamWorks recently re-released on DVD. The question of course is whether Wallace & Gromit are too British for young American audiences, something that deeply hurt Disney’s G-Rated Valiant a few months back. Parents will certainly feel safer bringing their youngest kids to the movie knowing that it’s innocent fun, which might not be said for Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, which some parents might feel is too dark or morbid for young kids. Being the only G-rated movie in some theatres will certainly help it, though, especially over the Columbus Day weekend where most kids won’t have school on Monday.

As an added bonus, DreamWorks is including a special animated short running before Wallace & Gromit called “A Christmas Caper,” starring the Madagascar penguins. This actually may play a large part in bringing parents and kids into theatres to see this considering the success of DreamWorks’ CGI film over the summer which helped pave the way for the recent popularity of penguins in that and in the G-rated nature documentary March of the Penguins.

Wallace & Gromit gets an exclusive release in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday before its nationwide opening on Friday. It doesn’t seem like those two days will make that much of a difference since most parents will probably bring their kids to see it over the weekend. Fortunately, the critics love Nick Park, and the reviews should be overwhelmingly positive, something that will inspire parents to bring their kids to the movies for some harmless fun this weekend.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Chicken Run	6/23/00	2,491	$0.10	$17.11	$6,869	$106.79
Tim Burton's Corpse Bride	9/16/05	3,204		$19.15	$5,975	$33.40
Valiant	8/19/05	2,014		$5.91	$2,937	$18.86
James and the Giant Peach	4/12/96	2,262		$7.54	$3,333	$29.82
Madagascar	5/27/05	4,131		$61.01	$14,769	$192.66

Why I Should See It: Consistently clever and funny, Wallace and Gromit are an institution, loved by grown-ups and kids alike.
Why Not: Who wants to watch grown men playing with clay for 90 minutes?

Bottom Line: While this may be a tougher sell for DreamWorks than Madagascar, Shrek or even Chicken Run, the popularity of the characters among older audiences and the G-rating will mean that it will be the type of harmless movie-going that will allow parents to keep their young

Projection: $14 to 17 million opening weekend on its way to $50 million

---

THE GOSPEL (Sony/Screen Gems)
Starring: Clifton Powell, Yolanda Adams, Dwayne Boyd, Idris Elba, Frank Taylor, Nona Gaye, Omar Gooding, Tamyra Gray, Fred Hammond, Keshia Knight Pulliam, Boris Kodjoe, Donnie McClurkin, Martha Munizzi, Michael J. Pagan, John Fitzgerald Page, Brandon Thaxton, Hezekiah Walker, Delores Winans, Aloma Wright
Director/Screenwriter: Rob Hardy (Chocolate City, Trois, Trois 2: Pandora’s Box)
Genres: Music, Drama
Rated PG
Theatre Count: 969
Tagline: "See it! Live it! Spread it!" (...or don't)

When his preacher father gets sick, a successful R&B singer (Clifton Powell), who turned his back on the church, returns home to try to save his father’s congregation from the “new vision” being introduced by a childhood nemesis.

Honestly, you probably know as much or more about this one than I do. Apparently, this is a religious film about the inner workings of the church, featuring a bunch of famous gospel singers, none of whom I’ve heard of, and a lot of gospel music, which I know almost nothing about. Obviously, this was picked up by Screen Gems in an attempt to capitalize on the success of Diary of a Mad Black Woman earlier this year, but without the built-in fanbase of Tyler Perry’s hugely successful stageplays or a star on the caliber of Kimberly Elise, not to mention a weak marketing campaign, it’s unlikely that it will find much of an audience outside of its target audience, if even that.

Related Comparisons
Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Fighting Temptations	9/19/03	2,026		$11.76	$5,804	$30.24
Diary of a Mad Black Woman	2/25/05	1,483		$21.91	$14,771	$50.38
Woman Thou Art Loosed	10/1/04	408		$2.33	$5,700	$6.88
The Passion of the Christ	2/27/04	3,043	$41.34	$83.85	$27,554	$370.27
Honey	12/5/03	1,942		$12.86	$6,620	$30.00
Glitter	9/21/01	1,202		$2.50	$2,080	$4.24
The Preacher's Wife	12/13/96	1,783		$7.65	$4,291	$48.10

Why I Should See It: You like gospel music?
Why Not: You don’t like gospel music?

Bottom Line: I got nothing here. I underestimated Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and I’m so out of touch with the audience who might want to see this that I don’t feel like even warranting a guess.

Projection: It will be open in roughly 900 theatres this weekend and make some amount of money.(Update: Still hate to even hazard a guess, but this might actually make slightly more than $3 million.)

---

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 GOOD NIGHT, AND GOOD LUCK. (Warner Independent Pictures) and Noah Baumbach’s THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (Samuel Goldwyn Pictures). Actor George Clooney directs his second film, Good Night, and Good Luck., about news anchorman Edward R. Murrow (David Straitharn) and his on-air attacks on Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witchhunt for Communists during the late ‘50s. Mixing actual newsreel footage from the era with live performances from Strathairn--an early Oscar contender--Clooney, Robert Downey Jr. and others, all in black-and-white, it’s an amazing time capsule look at a specific period in television news history. MY REVIEW Noah Baumbach, co-writer of Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic, directs his third film, The Squid and The Whale, starring Jesse Eisenberg as a teenager torn up by the separation of his writer parents, played by Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney. This terrific indie family comedy opens in New York on Wednesday and in Los Angeles next week. MY REVIEW

The German film BEFORE THE FALL(NAPOLA) (Picture This! Entertainment), opening in New York this weekend, is a drama about the friendship between two students, one a boxer and one a meek writer, who struggle their way through a tough, elite school for Nazi officers. Mini-Review: Acting almost as a prequel to the far superior Downfall, this is another powerful German film that doesn't try to gloss over the atrocities commited by the Nazis, while still showing that there were humans caught up in the madness. For the most part, it's a fine film about friendship under trying circumstances, but towards the end, it just tries too hard to be melodramatic. Rating: 8 out of 10

Mark Millgard’s DANDELION (Ruth Pictures) is the tale of a Washington teenager whose father commits a crime which affects the teen’s ability to have a happy life until an old girlfriend (Hustle and Flow’s Taryn Manning) returns to town to rekindle a burgeoning romance. Mini-Review: Although this indie coming-of-age drama is rather slow, the writing and performances are all quite good, especially newcomer Vincent Kartheiser, Taryn Manning, and Mare Winningham. It's a fine first effort from Mark Millgard, who offers enough of a unique voice to make this better than some of the similar films that have come out in the last year. Rating: 7 out of 10

Opening in L.A. is SACRED STAGE (First Run Features), a documentary by Joshua Waltezky centering on the Mariinsky opera and ballet theatre in St. Petersburg, which has survived through wars, revolution and the fall of communism. Also, San Francisco gets THE OVERTURE (Kino International), a drama about the life of Thai musician Luang Pradit Pairoh, who became a musical legend due to his mastery of an instrument called the ranard-ek.

---

THIS TIME LAST YEAR

Although three new movies arrived in theatres this weekend last year, none were able to dethrone Shark Tale, DreamWorks’ computer animated comedy, which stayed on top of the box office charts with over $31 million in its second weekend, bringing its total over $84 million. Friday Night Lights with Billy Bob Thornton made a valiant attempt, earning over $20 million in less than 2,700 theatres for second place. The pairing of Queen Latifah and Jimmy Fallon wasn’t as strong a comedy draw as 20^th Century Fox hoped, though, as Taxi, based on the popular French series by Luc Besson, only earned $12 million its opening weekend in over 3,000 theatres. It ended up fourth behind last week’s firefighter drama Ladder 49 with John Travolta and Joaquin Phoenix. Hillary Duff, who had a minor hit months before with A Cinderella Story didn’t have as much luck with her musical drama Raise Your Voice, which earned just $4 million its opening weekend, a miserable per-theater average of roughly $1,600 per theatre. Walter Salles’ The Motorcycle Diaries, starring Gael Garcia Bernal as Che Guevara, got into the Top 10 at #9 with $1.5 million, while still playing in only 167 theatres.

---

Next week, beware of The Fog in an eerie remake of John Carpenter’s horror classic, and if you were to listen to critics, you may also want to beware of Tony Scott’s Domino and Cameron Crowe’s Elizabethtown. Also.... Four Effin' Years!

Copyright 2005 Edward Douglas