THE CHOSEN ONE:

HOT FUZZ (Rogue Pictures)
Starring Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Jim Broadbent, Paddy Considine, Steve Coogan, Timothy Dalton, Martin Freeman, Paul Freeman, Bill Nighy, Lucy Punch, Anne Reid, Billie Whitelaw, Stuart Wilson, Edward Woodward
Directed by Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead); Written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, "Spaced")
Genre: Comedy, Action, Horror
Rated R
Tagline: "Big Cops. Small Town. Moderate Violence."
Plot Summary: London police officer Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg) is promoted to sergeant of the idyll village of Sandford, way out in the country, where he's paired with the over-eager Danny (Nick Frost) and starts thinking that the bizarre deaths that have been taking place might not necessarily be the "accidents" that those around him claim.
Of Note: The makers of Shaun of the Dead are back with their latest comedy, this one spoofing police action movies.
REVIEW
INTERVIEW (with Simon Pegg, Edgar Wright and a couple words from Nick Frost)

Since this is the week's Chosen One but also a wide release, we'll combine the Analysis with the reasons why this is the greatest movie ever made. If you can't already tell, I'm pretty excited that the rest of the country finally gets to see the movie that I've already had the privilege of seeing twice and probably will see again, maybe even this weekend. Yes, I loved the movie that much. It's just as funny or more so than Shaun of the Dead, a movie that's become one of my personal favorites as well as that of many other people. It's also a very different movie as Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are playing different characters than their breakout movie. On the one hand, it's a spoof of all the serious police action movies made in the last thirty years, as well as an homage to creepy village thrillers of the' 70s, but it's also a very funny story in its own right with an amazing cast including returning faves like Bill Nighy, and a lot of talented dramatic actors playing against type like Jim Broadbent as the Sandford chief of police, Paddy Considine and former 007 Timothy Dalton.

I now have the unenviable task of trying to determine how much Hot Fuzz might make over the weekend when it opens in roughly 700 theatres, which is hard to do when you love a movie and know how much money it should make, but have to set more realistic expectations based on the fact that not everyone in the country might feel the same way.

Despite the great cast, Hot Fuzz doesn't have any real name draws that might bring American audiences into theatres, though it does have the benefits of the success that Shaun of the Dead found on DVD and cable after its theatrical release in September ‘04 where it only made $13 million, despite similar support from journalists and critics. (Currently, Hot Fuzz has 83% Fresh reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, compared to 89% Fresh for Shaun.) Simon Pegg, Nick Frost and director Edgar Wright have been making the rounds, introducing the movie throughout the country to show it as part of a touring "Fuzztival" giving those who live in major cities the chance to see the movie early along with movies that influenced and inspirited it. Of course, one would assume that this would add up to a lot of raves and positive word-of-mouth going into opening weekend, but it also means that a lot of Shaun's diehard fanbase may have already seen it. (According to an interview in Entertainment Weekly, Rogue Pictures' co-president said they were turning hundreds of people away from these events, so there's probably enough demand despite all the screenings.)

Hopefully, everyone who's seen it will go see it again or tell all their friends that they should go see it, but sadly, with fan-driven movies like this one, it doesn't always happen. Even the fact that the movie has been a huge hit in England, having opened in February to be the #1 movie in the UK for three weeks in a row, doesn't mean that the group's British humor will translate well to American shores.

The good thing is that while zombie movies were having a bit of a resurgence when Shaun was released, Hot Fuzz tackles a far more mainstream genre that more "normal" American moviegoers (i.e. non-zombie fans) can appreciate, that being the police action comedy, and in that sense, one should hope that the commercials and ads for Hot Fuzz might interest some of those fans who might never even have heard of Shaun. Police comedies have a long history at the box office and not just the buddy cop movies like Beverly Hills Cop or the Bad Boys movies (which are spoofed in Hot Fuzz) but going back to the ‘80s with movies like the Police Academy movies a few years ago with Broken Lizard's Super Troopers and the recent movie Reno 911!: Miami, based on the Comedy Central show. One has to expect that the last two movies were able to bring in some business from those unfamiliar with the group's previous work, so one can hope that the same can be said for Hot Fuzz.

Late April is not the best time to release a movie like this, not only because there are so many movies being dumped into theatres, but also because with movies like Spider-Man 3 around the corner, it's likely to hurt any chance of the movie having any sustained legs. Hot Fuzz does stand out from the pack and one has to hope that all of the promotion the guys have been doing will help, so one can expect that Hot Fuzz will indeed bring in more business per theatre than Shaun, even if the ceiling for the movie still seems to be around $20 million. (Not that it matters since the movie has already made back its production budget in its UK release alone.)

Comparisons:

FRACTURE (New Line)
Starring Anthony Hopkins, Ryan Gosling, David Strathairn, Billy Burke, Rosamund Pike, Embeth Davitz, Valerie Dillman
Directed by Gregory Hoblit (Frequency, Hart's War, Primal Fear, Fallen); Written by Daniel Pyne (Pacific Heights, The Sum of All Fears, The Manchurian Candidate), Glenn Gers (The Accountant)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: "If you look close enough, you'll find everyone has a weak spot."
Plot Summary: When structural engineer Ted Crawford (Anthony Hopkins) finds out his wife is cheating on him, he concocts the perfect murder and plays mind games with young ambitious lawyer Willie Beechum (Ryan Gosling) assigned by the D.A. (David Strathairn) to prosecute the case.
Of Note: Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling face-off in the fourth or fifth thriller of the month.
REVIEW (Coming Soon!)

Analysis: There was a time not too long ago when putting two big name stars or two talented and respected actors into a high concept thriller was guaranteed to get a lot of people into theatres. But enough about the day before Perfect Stranger opened (ba dum bum) and let's talk about the latest attempt, which pits recent Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling against a legendary screen veteran, Oscar winner and Knight of the Queen's Court, Sir Anthony Hopkins. Fracture is very much like the thrillers seen in the late ‘80s, ‘90s, and even in the last few years where you pair a hot young actor with a veteran in a similar way as when Tom Cruise faced Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men, Keanu took on Pacino in The Devil's Advocate, or Harrison Ford and Brad Pitt faced off in The Devil's Own (except this one doesn't have "devil" in the title.)

The movie has an impressive thriller pedigree even before you get to the two actors, because it's written by Daniel Pyne of Pacific Heights and The Manchurian Candidate and directed by Gregory Hoblit of Primal Fear and Frequency. The marketing is playing up the Primal Fear connection due to the similar plot, but fortunately, New Line doesn't have to rely solely on that since Fracture stars not one, not two, but three Oscar nominated actors who'll be known to general movie audiences.

Since it's age before beauty, let's talk about Sir Anthony Hopkins first, who's best known for playing Dr. Hannibal Lecter in three blockbuster movies based on Thomas Harris' novels, the first of them Silence of the Lambs, being a multiple Oscar winner and grossing $130 million back in 1991. Its sequel Hannibal directed by Ridley Scott made even more money ten years later, though the prequel Red Dragon dropped off quite a bit, maybe since it was directed by Brett Ratner. But Hopkins has done a lot more in his career than just playing Lecter, taking the lead role in Oliver Stone's Nixon and starring in some of the most dramatic films of the last quarter century. (You have to remember that Hopkins has been starring in movies going back to the late ‘60s.) That said, his non-Lecter starring roles haven't fared that well at the box office, and in recent years, many of his movies haven't even been given a wide release like 2003's The Human Stain with Nicole Kidman, Proof with Gwyneth Paltrow and The World's Fastest Indian, which all ended up making in the $5 to 7 million range. Last year, Hopkins starred in a couple ensemble dramas, All the King's Men and Bobby, which also got moderate releases and didn't make much money. The good thing is that Fracture takes Hopkins into more familiar territory, that of Instinct ($10.3 million opening) and The Edge ($7.7 million) though his appeal these days will be more to audiences over the age of 30.

On the other hand, Hopkins' 26-year-old co-star Ryan Gosling earned a lot of respect very quickly when he got into the Oscar race with his nomination for the little seen indie Half Nelson, especially since Gosling hadn't starred in too many movies before that. After appearing in Denzel Washington's Remember the Titans, Gosling's talents as an actor were first recognized for Henry Bean's Sundance favorite The Believer. It was delayed for over a year, but in 2002, Gosling also starred in Sandra Bullock's thriller Murder by Numbers, which didn't do that spectacularly. It wasn't until 2004 when Gosling starred in The Notebook (a huge hit for New Line) that he started getting serious attention as an actor and a heartthrob, though it didn't help his psychological thriller Stay do very well the following year. Despite Gosling's Oscar nomination, Half Nelson didn't even make $3 million in theatres, so one has to wonder whether the attention Gosling has gotten from that nomination will translate into more people checking him out Fracture. In that sense, it seems to very much Hopkins' movie despite him only appearing in the movie for twenty minutes or so. The movie's third Oscar nominee is David Strathairn, honored for playing Edward R. Murrow in George Clooney's Good Night, And Good Luck a few years ago, which immediately elevated people's knowledge of the actor despite his next movie, McG's We Are Marshall, failing to capitalize on that.

Fracture might suffer from some of the same problems seen last week by Perfect Stranger in that it has a great cast, but it looks like the kind of old school retro-thriller that audiences have seen so many times in the past. It's likely to be more of interest to older audiences looking for more dramatic fare rather than the non-stop scares of Vacancy, and while it will probably get decent reviews from older critics, there's likely to be enough mixed reviews to convince some moviegoers to wait until it shows up on DVD or cable. It certainly doesn't have the hipness factor as other movie and doesn't offer enough scares or thrills for the younger crowd to convince them to see this over other options in theatres.

Comparisons:

Why I Should See It: Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling are two of the finest actors of their respective generations.
Why Not: Too bad neither of them have appeared in the kinds of movies that might make any money at the box office.
Projections: $9 to 11 million opening weekend; $30 million total.

IN THE LAND OF WOMEN (Warner Bros.)
Starring Adam Brody, Kristen Stewart, Meg Ryan, Olympia Dukakis, Makenzie Vega, Clark Gregg, Elena Anaya
Written and directed by Jon Kasdan (debut from the son of the legendary Lawrence Kasdan, who has written for TV shows like Freaks and Geeks)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
Rated PG-13
Plot Summary: After breaking up with his actress girlfriend, California softcore porn writer Carter Webb (Adam Brody) goes to Detroit to visit his grandmother, and becomes involved with the Hardwickes, Sarah the mother (Meg Ryan) and her two daughters (Kristen Stewart, Makenzie Vega) who all fall in love with Carter in their own way.
Of Note: Lawrence (The Big Chill, Silverado) Kasdan's son and Jake (The TV Set) Kasdan's brother makes his directorial debut, getting a boost from a major studio.
Mini-Review: Just what we need. Another formula indie dramedy that tries to be Garden State, but winds up being merely garden variety, with Adam Brody playing one of those charming losers that women always seem to love, at least in movies. After a weak opening scene in which his character Carter Webb is kicked to the curb by his actress girlfriend, the rest of the movie is spent in the unnamed suburbs of Michigan where most of his time is spent with mother and daughter Hardwick, who both find a safe and friendly ear they can confide in with all of their worries and mundane secrets. From there, it's basically 85 minutes of gabbing and blather with lots of talking and very little being said, as every single predictable dramatic plot device is thrown into the mix. Cheating husband, breast cancer, high school confusion, and the precocious younger sister are all there to try to create a story where there is none. Like so many similar movies, it doesn't want to be comedy, it doesn't want to be drama, so ultimately, it fails at both. Ryan, who's looking her age, takes on the kind of role that someone like Diane Keaton or Annette Bening could excel at, but introspection aside, it's a flat performance that only comes across well when compared to her seemingly half-asleep co-star Kristen Stewart. It's even worse seeing a talented actress like Olympia Dukakis who embarasses herself as the token eccentric grandmother that uses senility and her imminent death to get uncomfortably ageist laughs. Essentially, this is 98 minutes of dull characters you can't possibly care about in situations that wouldn't be out of place on a WB drama like "Dawson's Creek," often resorting to Kasdan's hipper-than-though iPod playlist to try make up for its deficiencies in keeping the viewer entertained. Instead, it's a dull and pointless acting workshop exercise that's bound to leave the viewer unfulfilled and more than a little depressed. Rating: 4/10

Analysis: It's pretty embarrassing when a movie opens in wide release and I don't know a thing about it before writing this column. It's not that rare an occurrence, but it is something that causes all the Weekend Warrior's alarms and bells to go off full tilt, because if I don't know about the movie, who on earth will? Here we have a romantic drama from a first-time director that marks the return of Meg Ryan to movie screens after three years and the cynic in me has to imagine that most people won't know about the movie and everyone else won't really care.

The key selling point for the movie is likely to be 27-year-old star Adam Brody, best known for playing the lovably funny Seth Cohen on four seasons of the Fox drama "The O.C." He hasn't done that much movie work in his career, starring in the skateboarding comedy bomb Grind and having small roles in the '05 summer blockbuster Mr. & Mrs. Smith and last year's dark comedy Thank You for Smoking. This is his first starring role where his name and personality is being used to sell the movie in hopes that fans of the late FOX television show will give it a look.

More importantly, the movie marks the return of Meg Ryan after having ground her thriving career into the dust after cheating on her husband Dennis Quaid with, of all people, Russell Crowe, followed by a couple even worse movie decisions like Jane Campion's erotic thriller In the Cut and the boxing comedy Against the Ropes. Now, she may be hoping to revive her career like Demi Moore by taking a role opposite a younger man (though Moore didn't exactly bother doing it in a movie) and you have to wonder why Ryan is getting third billing when she clearly has more name recognition than either of her two younger co-stars. Maybe the producers and studio realize that Ryan has lost many of her dedicated fans and a smaller role in a movie like this won't do much to improve her status or that of the movie.

The third side of this love triangle is Kristen Stewart, who first got attention as Jodi Foster's hypoglycemic daughter in David Fincher's Panic Room, followed by the kiddie bomb Catch the Thief and most recently, Stewart starred in the Pang Brothers' much-delayed The Messengers. It's doubtful she has the kind of draw among younger audiences that the studio might be hoping, though fortunately, she won't have to do much of the heavy lifting in this.

The trailer and commercials make the movie look very much like a writer/director driven character drama ala Mike Binder's The Upside of Anger, Zach Braff's Garden State or Cameron Crowe's Elizabethtown. Usually, a movie like this by a first-time director would be given a limited release by Warner Independent, and in fact, the studio subdivision picked up the movie at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival. Somewhere amidst the movie's multiple release delays, it was decided that In the Land of Women would get a wide release by Warner Bros. proper, distributing what is essentially an indie movie, while letting Warner Independent do the publicity and marketing. (Put it this way, it has a MySpace page rather than a proper web site, and it has about 22,000 friends, presumably the young teen girls the movie's trying to reach.) The good thing about In the Land of Women is that it's acting as counter-programming to the slew of horror/thrillers and movies geared towards college-age and older males, and its PG-13 rating and Brody's appeal among teen girls might help make this a weekend sleeper. Obviously, the movie is going for a wider release in hopes that there will be enough women across the country looking for something other than horror and thrills. These days, women are just as interested in the horror genre as men, so women over 20 might be just as interested in the pairing of Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling in Fracture.

Either way, rolling a movie out into 2,000 theatres without much marketing is never a good idea as we've seen too many times and though Warner Bros. has a bit more clout than say someone like Chicago Releasing, there just doesn't seem to be much of a market for this movie that's getting dumped into the dog days of the spring season. Maybe it'll have some legs if it's any good.

Comparisons:

Why I Should See It: A great opportunity to see if the apple falls far from the tree and if Jon Kasdan is a filmmaker worth watching, while giving Adam Brody a chance to prove if he's leading man material.
Why Not: Because with a title like that, I'd expect it to be a porn flick, though this doesn't even offer any nudity. Damn chick flicks. Bah.
Projections: $6 to 8 million opening weekend; $22 million total.

VACANCY (Sony/Screen Gems)
Starring Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson, Frank Whaley, Ethan Embry
Directed by Nimród Antal (Kontroll); Written by Mark L. Smith (upcoming remake of The Stepfather)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rated R
Plot Summary: Amy and David Fox (Kate Beckinsale, Luke Wilson) are a married couple close to finalizing their divorce when their car breaks down on a deserted stretch of road, forcing them to stay at a creepy motel which is a front for a snuff film ring.
Of Note: Hungarian director Nimród Antal directs his first Hollywood feature film and Luke Wilson stars in his first horror film.
INTERVIEW (with Nimród Antal -- Coming Soon!)
REVIEW

Analysis: Last week's #1 movie was considered by many to be a spin on Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window and now less than a week later, we have a movie that has a similar plot as Hitchcock's Psycho, but being the fourth or fifth thriller of the month, Vacancy is likely to be competing against Disturbia for the top spot at the box office this weekend.

This high concept horror film is directed by Hungarian genre director Nimród Antal (Kontroll) and it stars the super-hot Kate Beckinsale and Luke Wilson as a couple who find themselves caught in a terror-filled situation when they're trapped at a motel in the middle of nowhere that's a front for a snuff film ring run by Frank Whaley's creepy owner.

The concept is likely to be the biggest draw for the movie, as is Beckinsale, who already has experience in genre films like the Underworld movies and in… honestly, I don't even want to say the name of the movie because I'm worried it might cause some sort of condition in readers, so I'll just say that it was named after one of Dracula's arch-enemies. By now, one would think that Beckinsale would be trying to get away from the genre, especially since starring with Adam Sandler in the comedy Click and knocking audiences dead with her performance as Ava Gardner in Martin Scorsese's The Aviator, but nope, the lovely Kate is appearing in a horror-slasher movie that usually would star younger and lesser-known actresses. Beckinsale does have a lot of younger male and female fans, so that will certainly help interest them in a horror movie that looks to offer lots of scares.

There may be one or two more well-liked actors who have had worse luck at the box office than Luke Wilson, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find them, because the only luck Wilson has had at the box office is bad and none. Of course, we all loved him in the early films of Wes Anderson like Bottle Rocket and The Royal Tenenbaums, but he took a different path than his brother Owen, making stranger choices, and that's left him starring in a lot of dogs and outright bombs. After playing the love interest in Reese Witherspoon's Legally Blonde and co-starring with Will Ferrell and Vince Vaughn in Old School, two movies that should have broken him out, Wilson had a string of box office bad luck from the romantic comedy Alex and Emma with Kate Hudson to the disappointing sequels to Legally Blonde and Charlie's Angels. Last year, he starred in the New Line family bomb Hoot, followed by My Super Ex-Girlfriend and Idiocracy, a movie that wasn't even given a proper release after being delayed for years. Wilson's only semi-successful movie in recent years was 2005's comedy The Family Stone, which had plenty of other actors carrying the weight. To add insult to injury, Wilson would often turn up in his buddy Will Ferrell's far more successful movies as he did recently in Blades of Glory. It's bad enough that Wilson can't seem to open a movie when he's the main star, but now he's resorted to appearing in horror movies like this one, and it's doubtful that having a "name star" would do more for this movie than if it had an untalented boy toy like (oh, just off the top of my head) Josh Duhamel.

The problem is that Vacancy is opening after two weekends of far more high profile horror movies and thrillers from Tarantino and Rodriguez's Grindhouse to last week's Disturbia, so the market is pretty saturated. On top of that, it's rated R, so it won't be able to bring in the teens the same way as the latter was able to do. Many horror fans might feel like they've already seen this before, but Sony's genre division Screen Gems, who tend to do well with movies like this, are trying to sell the movie more to general audiences that enjoy scares. Unfortunately, it's going to have to face four days of news about Disturbia's great opening weekend, so older audiences who gave it a pass last week might decide to check it out this weekend.

Screen Gems is giving the movie a far more moderate release than one would expect from the studio that tends to make up for lack of interest by slamming bad movies like The Fog into as many theatres as possible. Screen Gems also has a history of not screening their movies for critics to avoid negative reviews, but they've broken that trend and Vacancy has been getting fairly positive buzz from those who've seen it. Still, opening in just over 2,200 theatres (as of this writing) will make it hard for Vacancy to make a serious play for #1, though it should be a strong enough draw to surpass the Anthony Hopkins-Ryan Gosling drama Fracture.

Comparisons:

Next week, the month of April ends with a lot of dumped crap, including the long-delayed sci-fi thriller Next starring Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore, Blade scribe David Goyer's The Invisible, Jamie Kennedy's breakdancing comedy Kickin' It Old Skool and wrestler "Stone Cold" Steve Austin kills a lot of people in the action-thriller The Condemned.

Copyright 2007 Edward Douglas


Take on The Weekend Warrior in the box-office related movie games at:

Or enter the contests at the Warrior's other favorite haunt: