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The Weekend Warrior
Your Weekly Guide to New Movies for
April 6, 2007
By Edward Douglas -
Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend
Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend's new movies, now celebrating
FOUR FRICKIN' YEARS right here on ComingSoon.net!
(Usually, I'd write something, but there's way too many movies to write
about already.) Tune in every Tuesday for the latest look at the upcoming
weekend, and then
check
back on
Friday for final projections based on actual theatre counts.
(If you have anything to say about anything
written in this column, feedback and Email is always welcome, and almost always
responded to.)
THE WEEKEND PREDICTIONS: (final predictions 4.5.07)
|
TW |
LW |
Title |
Weekend (in millions) |
Change |
# Of Theaters |
Average |
Week |
|
1 |
New |
Grindhouse |
$25.8 |
N/A |
2,680 |
$9832 |
1 |
|
2 |
New |
Are We Done Yet? |
$20.3* |
N/A |
2,877 |
$7,056 |
1 |
|
3 |
1 |
Blades of Glory |
$18.8 |
-44% |
3,410 |
$5,513 |
2 |
|
4 |
2 |
Meet the Robinsons |
$16.8 |
-33% |
3,435 |
$4,891 |
2 |
|
5 |
New |
The Reaping |
$8.3 |
N/A |
2,603 |
$3,189 |
1 |
|
6 |
New |
Firehouse Dog |
$7.2* |
N/A |
2,566 |
$2,806 |
1 |
|
7 |
3 |
300 |
$6.5 |
-43% |
2,674 |
$2,431 |
5 |
|
8 |
5 |
Wild Hogs |
$5.5 |
-38% |
2,825 |
$1,947 |
6 |
|
9 |
4 |
TMNT |
$4.8 |
-48% |
2,811 |
$1,708 |
3 |
|
10 |
6 |
Shooter |
$4.7 |
-44% |
2,353 |
$1,997 |
3 |
| |
|
|
Est. Weekend Total
$118.70 |
Est. Avg. Drop-Off
-42% |
|
Est. Average PTA
$4,137 |
|
It's Easter weekend, which means there'll be such an enormous amount of business
on Good Friday that it's likely to take everyone off-guard, but only two of the
four new movies are likely to stand out, while the other two will probably get
lost in the shuffle.
The big release this weekend marks the return of filmmakers Robert Rodriguez
and Quentin Tarantino, joining together for the B-movie double feature Grindhouse,
each presenting their own full-length feature, Rodriguez with the zombie
movie "Planet Terror" and Tarantino with the road killer flick "Death Proof." Add
the trailers and extras by the likes of Rob Zombie and Eli Roth and you have
an event movie that every horror fan and guy from 15 to 40 will be lining
up for, and though the hard R and three-hour plus running time might hurt
the number of places willing to screen it, expect a solid #1 placement as
it becomes the movie to see this weekend.
Wednesday sees the release of two new family films, trying to get a jumpstart
on the holiday weekend, with Ice Cube starring in the third comedy sequel of
his career Are We Done Yet?, which continues the story began in his 2005
hit Are We There Yet? With a strong high concept premise and few other
movies targeting African-American family audiences, it should do well enough
to avoid the family sequel jinx that has hit so many similar movies. (I'm talking
to you Cheaper by the Dozen 2!) Then there's Fox's poor Firehouse Dog,
which will try to get any young kids, specifically girls, who might not be interested
in any of the other fine family choices in theatres, though it's likely to be
overshadowed by the Ice Cube movie and Disney's Meet the Robinsons. (*UPDATE:
Based on Wednesday opening numbers, neither of the new offerings are going to
fare
nearly as well as we predicted with the Ice Cube movie likely to wind up closer
to $15 million over the three days and Firehouse Dog closer
to $5 million or less.)
Likewise, the supernatural thriller The Reaping starring two-time
Oscar-winner Hillary Swank is going to have trouble getting audiences away
from the higher profile Grindhouse, even if it opens one day earlier
on Thursday. It's probably going to have to settle for sloppy seconds as
it struggles to break into the Top 5. Also, Richard Gere's true crime drama The
Hoax opens in
375 theatres where it's likely to make $1.5 million or so.
The first week of April last year wasn't Easter, but Fox's Ice Age:
The Meltdown remained well above the new competition, although Sony's
well-timed baseball comedy The Benchwarmers, teaming Rob Schneider,
David Spade and Jon Heder had a decent showing of $19.7 million in second
place. Antonio Banderas' Take the Lead opened at third with $12
million, while the Josh Hartnett-Lucy Liu crime drama Lucky Number Slevin opened
at #5 with $7 million. Monique's comedy Phat Girlz belly-flopped
with just over $3 million and the Top 10 wound up with $98 million, a number
that should be easily topped thanks to the Easter holiday and the bump
provided by Good Friday.
THE CHOSEN ONE:
 THE HOAX (Miramax)
Starring Richard Gere, Alfred Molina, Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis, Julie Delpy,
Stanley Tucci, Eli Wallach
Directed by Lasse Hallström (The Cider House Rules, Casanova, What's
Eating Gilbert Grape?, Chocolat, An Unfinished Life, The
Shipping News); Written by William Wheeler (The Prime Gig)
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."
Story: After having his book dropped by his publisher, Clifford Irving (Richard
Gere) hatches a scheme to convince them that he is co-writing an autobiography
with the eccentric Howard Hughes, who hasn't been seen in years. Along with his
friend and partner-in-crime Dick Suskind (Alfred Molina), Clifford finds a way
to convince everyone that this book is real, while taking over a million dollars
in advances, even as Howard Hughes reemerges to denounce all of Irving's claims.
Originally, this week's Chosen One was going to be Andrea Arnold's Red
Road, but since that was moved to next week, the best of the rest is
this crime drama from the prolific Lasse Hallström, who changes gears again
from his last movie, the whimsical Casanova, to enter territory that
he hasn't really attempted to this point.
Coming hot on the heels of David Fincher's movie based on the bestselling Zodiac,
he takes on the book written by the mysterious Clifford
Irving based on the true story of how he hoaxed the world with an autobiography
of Howard Hughes that was completely fabricated. It's a great role for
Richard Gere who gets to show the much younger Leonardo DiCaprio how it's
done in terms of doing a mean impression of Howard Hughes as well as conning
a shrewd publishing company that shouldn't be so easily conned. He gets
some great support from Alfred Molina, who's very funny in the movie, as
well as Hope Davis as his editor, Marcia Gay Harden as his Swedish wife
(complete with accent) and Julie Delpy as a very hot, rich woman with whom
Irving has an affair.
Sure, this is one of those true-crime dramas that require a lot of suspension
of disbelief, like that Richard Gere is in his '40s and that he could pull
a hottie like Julie Delpy, but it's an entertaining movie that starts like Shattered
Glass and eventually turns into A Beautiful Mind. Either way,
it's capably written, directed and acted, another fine feather in Lasse
Hallström's directorial cap.
It opens on Friday in 385 theatres in select cities with a national expansion
on April 13, and it's recommended if you like movies like Shattered Glass, The
Aviator, Catch Me If You Can, Zodiac, A Beautiful Mind or The
Paper.
 ARE WE DONE YET? (Sony)
Starring Ice Cube, Nia Long, John C. McGinley, Aleisha Allen, Philip Daniel Bolden
Directed by Steve Carr (Next Friday, Dr. Dolittle 2, Daddy Day
Care, Rebound); Written by Hank Nelken (Saving Silverman, upcoming Mama's
Boy)
Genre: Comedy, Family
Rated PG
Tagline: "New house. New family. What could possibly wrong?"
Plot Summary: Ice Cube's Nick Persons is now married to Suzanne (Nia Long)
after having driven her kids to see her but he decides that he wants to move
out of the city into a house in the country with his new family. They end up
buying a house that's a real fixer-upper, but it ends up costing them a lot more
mercy as they're put at the mercy of a crazy contractor (John C. McGinley).
Of Note: The cast of Are We There Yet? reunite for the sequel to their
hit 2005 family comedy.
Analysis: As the fourth family film to hit theatres in three weeks, Ice Cube's
latest comedy continues his run of sequels to hit comedies after having success
with the Friday franchise and with 2002's Barbershop. The
big difference is that Are We Done Yet? is the sequel to Ice Cube's
first and only family film, and family sequels tends to be the exception to the
rule when it comes to finding more box office success than the original. (Other
exceptions being movies like XXX: State of the Union where you have Ice
Cube replacing the far more popular star of the original movie.)
Are We There Yet? opened in late January 2005 at a time when the only
other family film in theatres was Warner Bros.' Racing Stripes. Opening
against the remake of Assault on Precinct 13, a movie that would appeal
to Ice Cube's normal fans, the Sony comedy pitted the former gangster rapper
against two precocious kids, and while it was something that was being
done a lot in recent years, it was new territory for Ice Cube. It did respectably
its opening weekend, making $18.5 million but then sustained that business
over the next few weeks to wind up with $82 million in total box office receipts.
It couldn't have come at a better time for Cube since his career as an action
star was already in question after flops like Torque and All About
the Benjamins, and the movie helped get him a new, younger audience,
as well as playing up to the fans of his previous comedies.
Are We Done Yet? is Cube's first movie since the failed XXX sequel,
bringing him back into the spotlight after a bit of a break, and like Are
We There Yet?, it has the type of high concept premise, dealing with
home and house renovations, that movie audiences will be able to relate
to. (Essentially, it's an updating of the '80s Tom Hanks movie The Money
Pit mixed with Chevy Chase's Funny Farm.) The familiar premise
will certainly help the movie avoid the jinx suffered by family sequels,
as seen most recently by Steve Martin's Cheaper by the Dozen 2,
though it's likely to be more like Barbershop 2 than Next Friday,
in that it should open slightly better than the original movie but not
doing as well in terms of legs.
Director Steve Carr is no stranger to working with African-American comics,
kids sequels or Ice Cube for that matter, having gotten his start on Cube's
comedy sequel Next Friday, followed by Eddie Murphy's Dr. Dolittle
2 and then the family movies Daddy Day Care and Rebound,
which involved Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence watching kids. The big comedy
addition to the cast for the sequel is that of John C. McGinley, best known
as the snide Dr. Cox from the NBC sitcom "Scrubs," and who just played a
key role in the recent hit comedy Wild Hogs.
Cube's movie should do well among African-American family audiences, a demographic
that hasn't been sated with recent releases, and it couldn't have a better
weekend to open because in the past, Easter has been a great weekend for
comedies geared towards African-American audiences like Cedric the Entertainer's Johnson
Family Vacation in 2004 and Bernie Mac's Guess Who the following
year. Sony's opening Ice Cube's sequel in fewer theatres than those movies,
fully realizing that much of the audience that saw the original movie will
have more choices this time. Opening on Wednesday, it could bring in a bit
of advance business in its first two days, but it's likely to have its biggest
day on Good Friday as kids have off school and parents try to find something
to see as a family. One shouldn't be too surprised if some teens wind up
buying tickets for this comedy in order to sneak into Grindhouse come
Friday, too.
Comparisons:
|
Title |
Release Date |
Theater Count |
Previous Box Office (in millions) |
Weekend Box Office (in millions) |
Average |
Total Box Office |
|
Are We There Yet? |
1/21/05 |
2,709 |
|
$18.58 |
$6,857 |
$82.30 |
|
Barbershop 2: Back in Business |
2/6/04 |
2,711 |
|
$24.24 |
$8,942 |
$64.96 |
|
Barbershop |
9/13/02 |
1,605 |
|
$20.63 |
$12,852 |
$75.07 |
|
Friday After Next |
11/22/02 |
1,616 |
|
$13.01 |
$8,052 |
$32.87 |
|
Next Friday |
1/14/00 |
1,103 |
$4.45 |
$14.44 |
$13,092 |
$57.18 |
|
Friday |
4/28/95 |
865 |
$1.52 |
$6.59 |
$7,618 |
$27.39 |
|
Johnson Family Vacation |
4/9/04 |
1,317 |
$2.44 |
$9.38 |
$7,119 |
$31.18 |
|
Guess Who |
3/25/05 |
3,147 |
|
$20.67 |
$6,569 |
$67.96 |
|
Cheaper by the Dozen 2 |
12/23/05 |
3,175 |
$5.28 |
$15.34 |
$4,832 |
$82.41 |
|
Cheaper By the Dozen |
12/26/03 |
3,298 |
$8.18 |
$27.56 |
$8,356 |
$128.03 |
|
The Pacifier |
3/4/05 |
3,131 |
|
$30.55 |
$9,758 |
$113.01 |
|
Daddy Day Care |
5/9/03 |
3,370 |
|
$27.62 |
$8,197 |
$103.55 |
|
Dr. Dolittle 2 |
6/22/01 |
3,049 |
|
$25.04 |
$8,212 |
$112.89 |
Why I Should See It: Putting an ex-gangster rapper into funny situations
with kids is pure comedy gold and this has a premise that many guys can relate
to.
Why Not: You'll spend the movie wondering why Ice Cube doesn't seem
as scary or dangerous as he was back in his NWA days, though Ice Cube doing
physical comedy is pretty scary.
Projections: $6 to 8 million on Wednesday and Thursday and another $19 to
21 million over the weekend; Probably around $65 million total. (UPDATE: The
family sequel jinx has struck again and Are We Done Yet is more likely to come
close to the weekend number for its first five days and probably under $50 million
total.)
 FIREHOUSE DOG (20th Century
Fox)
Starring Josh Hutcherson, Bruce Greenwood, Bree Turner, Dash Mihok, Steven Culp
Directed by Todd Holland (director of TV shows like "Malcolm in the Middle", "Wonderfalls" and
others) Written by Claire-Dee Lim (debut), Mike Werb Curious George, The
Mask) and Michael Collery (Face/Off)
Genre: Comedy, Family
Rated PG
Plot Summary: Rexxx, one of Hollywood's top canine stars, gets lost when
separated from his trainer, and he winds up becoming the mascot of a run-down
fire station and with the help of a young boy and his father, the fire chief,
they try to get the station back up and running.
Analysis: Adding to the number of family films already in theatres,
here comes the latest from Fox and Regency that's hoping to capitalize on
kids' love for dogs and hoping that there's enough love out there for Firehouse
Dog to overcome the number of other choices for parents and kids over
the Easter weekend and the school spring break that follows.
Although dog stars like Benji and Lassie have become a bit passé, it almost
became mandatory for the spring/winter season to have at least one dog movie
every year since 2000's My Dog Skip. The biggest success stories in
this family sub-genre has been Disney's pair of Arctic dog movies, Eight
Below and Snow Dogs, but other movies like the Fox-Walden Media
adaptation of Because of Winn-Dixie and the 2003 talking dog movie Good
Boy! have done reasonable business in the $30 million range.
The latest dog movie stars Josh Hutcherson, one of the hotter child actors
at the moment, following appearances in the recent Disney hit Bridge to
Terabithia and in the 2005 family action-adventure Zathura. He
also played Robin Williams' son in last year's family road comedy RV and
Will Ferrell's son in Kicking and Screaming, before starring in the
little seen indie Little Manhattan. He does have a bit of a fanclub
of 'tween girls who wouldn't have a problem going to see a movie about a
cute dog that does tricks in order to see Josh, but the audience for the
movie will likely be younger.
Except for Ben Stiller's Night at the Museum, 20th Century
Fox hasn't had much luck with movies for kids in recent years, especially
when lacking big stars. Neither Flicka nor Aquamarine did
very well last year, and Firehouse Dog was produced by Regency Entertainment,
who don't have the experience with family films, but they also haven't had
very good track records at the box office. (The one major exception being
2005's Mr. and Mrs. Smith starring Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.)
Mysteriously, Fox decided to open this on Wednesday, the same day as Ice
Cube's Are We Done Yet?, though it probably will do most of its
business on Good Friday when schools are out across the country and parents
will be looking to take their kids to see something. Of course, they're
just as likely to take them to any of the other five family movies in theatres,
though there's a certain innocence that dog movies offer that always make
them viable choices especially for parents with smaller kids. Unlike Are
We Done Yet? and movies like TMNT, the movie probably won't
be of interest to anyone over 13.
Then again, maybe Firehouse Dog will be helped in the same way that Good
Boy! was helped when it opened against Quentin Tarantino's Kill
Bill Vol. 1, after the director went on TV and suggested that teenagers
who couldn't get into his R-rated movie should buy tickets to the dog movie
and sneak into his. Might history repeat itself?
Comparisons:
|
Title |
Release Date |
Theater Count |
Weekend Box Office (in millions) |
Average |
Total Box Office |
|
Eight Below |
2/17/06 |
3,066 |
$20.19 |
$6,585 |
$81.59 |
|
Because of Winn-Dixie |
2/18/05 |
3,188 |
$13.22 |
$4,146 |
$32.65 |
|
Benji: Off the Leash! |
8/20/04 |
877 |
$1.51 |
$1,724 |
$3.79 |
|
Good Boy! |
10/10/03 |
3,225 |
$13.11 |
$4,064 |
$37.57 |
|
Snow Dogs |
1/18/02 |
2,302 |
$23.71 |
$10,299 |
$81.15 |
|
See Spot Run |
3/2/01 |
2,656 |
$9.72 |
$3,658 |
$33.36 |
|
My Dog Skip |
3/3/00 |
2,331 |
$5.86 |
$2,514 |
$34.10 |
|
RV |
4/28/06 |
3,639 |
$16.41 |
$4,511 |
$71.45 |
|
Zathura |
11/11/05 |
3,223 |
$13.43 |
$4,166 |
$28.05 |
|
Flicka |
10/20/06 |
2,877 |
$7.70 |
$2,678 |
$21.00 |
|
Aquamarine |
3/3/06 |
2,512 |
$7.48 |
$2,979 |
$18.60 |
Why I Should See It: It's a dog that does tricks like riding a skateboard… Wow!
Why Not: I'm kind of a cat person myself.
Projections: $2 to 3 million on Wednesday and Thursday and another $7 to
9 million over the weekend, ending up with around $28 million total. (UPDATE:
Like Are We Done Yet?, we overestimated this family dog movie,
and it's going
to be lucky to make $7 million over its first five days.)
 THE REAPING (Warner
Bros.)
Starring Hilary Swank, David Morrissey, Idris Elba, AnnaSophia Robb, Stephen
Rea
Directed by Stephen Hopkins (Predator 2, Lost in Space, Judgment
Night, The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, episodes of "24"); Written
by Carey and Chad Hayes (House of Wax)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: "What Hath God Wrought?" (And for that matter, what has Joel
Silver wrought?)
Plot Summary: A former Christian missionary (Hilary Swank) who now debunks
supernatural phenomena is called to a small town in Louisiana which seems to
have been struck by a series of bizarre incidents resembling the ten biblical
plagues which seem to revolve around a young girl (AnnaSophia Robb).
Analysis: There was a time when Joel Silver's production company Dark Castle
Entertainment could do no wrong, releasing a horror movie every year after beginning
life with remakes of B-horror director William Castle's movies from the '50s
and '60s like House on Haunted Hill and Thirteen Ghosts. Things
started to peter out as they started getting away from the Castle films with
2002's Ghost Ship, which inadvertently opened against Eminem's 8 Mile.
They had better success with Gothika, which starred actress Halle Berry
less than a year after winning her Oscar for Monster's Ball, but didn't
do so well with their 2005 remake of House of Wax starring Elisha Cuthbert
and Paris Hilton.
They're back into the similar pattern of thinking as Gothika with
their latest, which puts two-time Oscar winner Hilary Swank into a supernatural
thriller with ties to the bible and religion, a subject that has been of
great interest to older horror fans going back to the '70s horror classic The
Exorcist. The premise takes ideas from the ten plagues that hit Egypt
in the Old Testament story of Exodus, that was most famously captured on
film in the biblical epic The Ten Commandments.
Hilary Swank is certainly a well-respected actress, but she hasn't done much
to prove her box office value even after winning her second Oscar. Her latest
movie, Freedom Writers, should have been a home run on a par with Save
the Last Dance, but instead it wound up with roughly $35 million. Her previous
attempt at genre fare was the 2003 sci-fi film The Core, released in a
similar timeframe after being repeatedly delayed, and that was a disastrous bomb.
In between the two, she won her second Oscar for Clint Eastwood's Million
Dollar Baby, but some might suggest that the film's success had as much to
do with Eastwood as Swank. Somehow, it doesn't seem likely that the fans of Swank's
quality film work might be interested in what looks like a schlocky supernatural
thriller.
What's odd is that the movie was originally in the "creepy child" genre of
horror thrillers like The Omen and Bless the Child, but the
most recent commercials and trailer are playing down the role played by AnnaSophia
Robb as the child responsible for what's happening to the town. Robb (or
as I like to call her "Dakota Fanning Lite") is another popular child actress,
who recently starred in Disney's hit film Bridge to Terabithia (with Firehouse
Dog's Josh Hutcherson) and before that in the dog movie Because of
Winn-Dixie and as Violet Beauregarde in Tim Burton's Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory. Being the star of so many family movies won't help
much here, since none of her younger fans will be able to get into this,
which is probably why her part's being played down.
There's a certain point where you have to wonder if a movie is jinxed, and The
Reaping is one of those movies, having barely survived Hurricane Katrina
hitting New Orleans (and that's after the set of the Carey Brothers' House
of Wax was struck by fire years earlier). You also have to wonder what's
going on when a movie is moved as many times as this one was. Silver and
the cast of The Reaping were at San Diego Comic-Con in July pushing
the movie, when it was supposed to be released the following month. It was
then moved to November, then shifted back to 2007, and you have to start
pondering how much confidence the studio must have in a movie written by
the guys who wrote House of Wax and directed by the man behind Lost
in Space? It's certainly not like Warner Bros. has used that extra time
to build up awareness, and the biggest problem facing The Reaping (besides
lack of awareness) is that it's an R-rated horror thriller opening against
the much higher-profile double feature from Tarantino and Rodriguez. One
would think that The Reaping could clean up if it was rated PG-13,
but it's R-rated, which means it won't even get the business of the teens
buying tickets for the movie to try to sneak into Grindhouse.
Warner Bros. will open it on Thursday in hopes of making a few million dollars
before Grindhouse grabs all of its potential business, but it'll just
mean there'll be one extra day of bad word-of-mouth for the movie killings its
chances at doing much business after Friday.
Comparisons:
|
Title |
Release Date |
Theater Count |
Previous Box Office (in millions) |
Weekend Box Office (in millions) |
Average |
Total Box Office |
|
Freedom Writers |
1/5/07 |
1,360 |
|
$9.40 |
$6,916 |
$36.51 |
|
Million Dollar Baby |
12/17/04 |
2,010 |
$9.31 |
$12.27 |
$6,102 |
$100.42 |
|
The Core |
3/28/03 |
3,017 |
|
$12.05 |
$3,995 |
$31.11 |
|
Insomnia |
5/24/02 |
2,610 |
|
$20.93 |
$9,988 |
$67.26 |
|
House of Wax |
5/6/05 |
3,111 |
|
$12.08 |
$3,882 |
$32.05 |
|
Gothika |
11/21/03 |
2,382 |
|
$19.29 |
$8,097 |
$58.95 |
|
Ghost Ship |
10/25/02 |
2,787 |
|
$11.50 |
$4,128 |
$30.08 |
|
The Omen |
6/6/06 |
2,660 |
$20.20 |
$16.03 |
$5,886 |
$54.61 |
|
The Exorcism of Emily Rose |
9/9/05 |
2,981 |
|
$30.05 |
$10,082 |
$72.13 |
|
The Skeleton Key |
8/12/05 |
2,771 |
|
$16.06 |
$5,795 |
$47.47 |
|
Bless the Child |
8/11/00 |
2,754 |
|
$9.41 |
$3,417 |
$29.33 |
|
Stigmata |
9/10/99 |
2,899 |
|
$18.31 |
$6,316 |
$50.03 |
Why I Should See It: Dark Castle has a strong rep for horror, and The
Reaping has a premise of biblical proportions.
Why Not: There's gotta be a reason this was delayed so many times and
it's probably not because the movie was so good that Warner Bros. wanted to save
it to open against a much stronger movie like Grindhouse.
Projections: $2 to 3 million on Thursday and another $7 to 9 million over
the weekend; $20 to 22 million total.
 GRINDHOUSE (Dimension
Films/The Weinstein Company)
Starring Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan
Ladd, Rose McGowan, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Marley Shelton, Tracie Thoms,
Mary Elizabeth
Winstead, Michael Bacall, Eli Roth, Omar Doom in "Death Proof"; Rose McGowan,
Freddy Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Michael Parks, Josh Brolin, Michael Biehn, Carlos
Gallardo, Tom Savini, Naveen Andrews, Marley Shelton, The Crazy Babysitter Twins,
Stacy Ferguson in "Planet Terror"
Written and directed by Robert Rodriguez ("Planet Terror" segment) and Quentin
Tarantino ("Death Proof" segment) with Edgar Wright, Eli Roth and Rob Zombie
Genre: Action, Crime, Horror, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: "The sleaze-filled saga of an exploitation double feature."
Plot Summary: In Robert Rodriguez's "Planet Terror", go-go dancer Cherry
Darling (Rose McGowan) and her ex-boyfriend Ray (Freddy Rodriguez) must fight
off infected mutants when a government military experiment goes awry. In Quentin
Tarantino's "Death Proof", a former stunt driver (Kurt Russell) terrorizes pretty
women on the road until he messes with the wrong group of women.
Of Note: Long-time pals Rodriguez and Tarantino join together to create a
duo of B-horror films in the tradition of the movies of their youth.
REVIEW
Analysis: For those sleeping under a rock, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino
are back, each after a two-year hiatus since collaborating on the adaptation
of Frank Miller's Sin City. This time, they're creating an even more ambitious
night of movies, trailers and ads meant to pay homage to the B-movie theatre
experiences of their youth. It's definitely going out on a limb that their fans
are willing to go along on this ride with them, but fortunately, their fanbases
are devout enough to check out anything they do. Also doing movies in the horror-thriller
genre is almost a no-brainer these days (just look at how many horror movies
are coming up in April alone).
Grindhouse is not something we see often, that being a double feature
offering two movies for the price of one. Rodriguez is using the opportunity
to make a zombie-like movie called "Planet Terror" that owes something
to the movies of George Romero, and shouldn't be too hard to sell with the
success of movies like Dawn of the Dead, while Tarantino is going
for a road killer movie not unlike the original The Hitcher or Steven
Spielberg's Dual or more recent movies like Joy Ride or Highwaymen,
but he'll infuse it with his trademark dialogue and style. The guys also
called upon their friends to create mock trailers to run in between the two
movies, including one by rocker Rob Zombie, whose The Devil's Rejects was
inspired by the same '70s B exploitation movies, while Hostel director
Eli Roth and Shaun of the Dead director Edgar Wright use the opportunity
to mock the bad movie trailers of the day. These will add to the experience
as well as bring in their respective fans.
Tarantino and Rodriguez have been friends for over ten years with both
of them directing segments of the failed anthology Four Rooms before
teaming for the 1996 thriller From Dusk Till Dawn, which very well
could be seen as a precursor for Grindhouse. Rodriguez directed
Tarantino's script giving Tarantino a key role opposite George Clooney.
It did as well as Rodriguez's Desperado, which wasn't huge, but
it did help build his reputation. Rodriguez continued in the horror genre
until starting up his successful Spy Kids family franchise, while
Tarantino followed his '97 Pulp Fiction follow-up Jackie Brown with
a six-year hiatus while he produced and attached his name to lots of horror/genre
movies including a number of imported martial arts flicks. Tarantino returned
in October '03 with the highly-anticipated two-part revenge flick Kill
Bill, released just a month after Rodriguez wrapped up his Mariachi trilogy
with Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which made nearly as much opening
weekend as Desperado made in its theatrical run. With both directors
pulling in $20 million openings with their R-rated films, they had carte
blanche at Miramax/Dimension, and their next collaboration had Tarantino
directing a segment of Rodriguez's work with Frank Miller to adapt the
latter's crime comic series Sin City.
Tarantino has yet to have another hit on the scale of 1994's Pulp Fiction,
at least in terms of total gross and awards recognition, but both he and
Rodriguez have a diehard fanbase, mostly made-up of college-age and older
guys thanks to their string of genre-influenced movies. It's likely that Grindhouse will
appeal more to that audience than the older moviegoers that went to see Pulp
Fiction and Jackie Brown, which had far wider demographic appeal.
Having been two years since Sin City and three since Kill Bill,
there's a lot of anticipation among their fans, and that number is likely
to have increased thanks to DVDs. Heck, guys who were teens that were too
young to get into Kill Bill and Sin City are likely to be old
enough to see Grindhouse in theatres, which will be the preferred
method of seeing it.
Between the two movies, there's a huge ensemble cast that runs the gamut
with "Planet Terror" starring "Six Feet Under" star Freddy Rodriguez and
Rose McGowan and smaller roles for Bruce Willis and Naveen Andrews (from "Lost").
After the HBO show "Six Feet Under" wrapped, Rodriguez started appearing
in movie, but hasn't had very much success with back-to-back duds Dreamer and Poseidon.
McGowan starred on the WB show "Charmed" for five years, which cut into
the number of movies she's been making, but Grindhouse is right
up her alley, since she previously starred in thrillers like Jawbreaker and
more recently in Brian de Palma's crime-thriller The Black Dahlia.
(Robert Rodriguez has been dating McGowan since making the movie, so obviously,
things are already working out with this experiment.)
 Tarantino's "Death Proof" stars former teen star Kurt Russell as Stuntman
Mike, a killer who uses his car to terrorize women. It's a different role
for Russell that plays up to his genre background from when he played Snake
Pliskin in John Carpenter's '80s classic Escape from New York and
his later cult favorite Big Trouble in Little China. Like Rodriguez,
his last two movies were the dogs Dreamer and Poseidon, which
means, that yes, Grindhouse stars two actors from the cast of the
two movies.
The hot women Stuntman Mike terrorizes includes McGowan (again, but in a
blonde wig), Jordan Ladd (who starred in Eli Roth's Cabin Fever),
Vanessa Ferlito (from "CSI: New York") and Sydney Tamiia Poitier, daugher
of the Oscar-winning actor who has appeared on shows like "Joan of Arcadia" and "Veronica
Mars." Tarantino's segment also stars the ultra-hot Rosario Dawson, who makes
her trifecta with this, having previously appeared in fanboy favorites like Sin
City and Clerks II. Tarantino's segment reunites Dawson with Tracie
Thom from the musical Rent (who knew that Tarantino was such a fan?)
and they're joined by stuntwoman Zoe Bell, who acted as Uma Thurman's stunt
double in Kill Bill and was featured in the documentary Double
Dare.
This is clearly an event movie that has a lot of people excited and interested,
though those with weaker constitutions might be disturbed by the amount of
gore and violence in the movies, going way beyond the limit of many modern
horror movies, to the point where Tarantino and Rodriguez were nearly facing
an NC-17 rating. It's good to bear in mind that this is the first movie from
either filmmaker released by the one-and-a-half year old distribution company
formed by the Weinsteins after separating from Disney, so this won't have
the Disney clout in getting theatres and screens like Sin City and Kill
Bill did. Then again, Dimension dominated last Easter with Scary Movie
4, which didn't have any problems getting enough theatres to set a new
opening record for that franchise.
The three-hour-plus running time might pose the biggest problem, not only
because it will be hard to convince moviegoers to sit through such a long
experience, but also because most theatres will only be able to screen the
movie four times per day with each print, minimizing the number of showings
and the amount the movie can make. Running time wasn't a problem for Peter
Jackson's The Lord of the Rings movies, though that franchise was
so huge by the third movie that theatres put it in more rooms to meet the
demand. It's likely that Dimension Films will ship out enough prints to meet
the demand, but you have to wonder how many exhibitors/theatres will refuse
to show the movie due to the amount of violence.
Grindhouse is a new idea that doesn't have the built-in audience of
something like Sin City, and because it's likely to open in less theatres
than the Kill Bill movies, it will probably end up making somewhere
below Sin City its opening weekend. Although it should get a lot of
business over the weekend, it's really going to be seen as more of a novelty
event movie, so one shouldn't expect that it will have that much business
after its opening weekend.
Comparisons:
|
Title |
Release Date |
Theater Count |
Weekend Box Office (in millions) |
Average |
Total Box Office |
|
Sin City |
4/1/05 |
3,230 |
$29.12 |
$9,016 |
$74.10 |
|
Kill Bill Vol. 2 |
4/16/04 |
2,971 |
$25.10 |
$8,450 |
$66.21 |
|
Kill Bill Vol. 1 |
10/10/03 |
3,102 |
$22.09 |
$7,121 |
$69.82 |
|
Once Upon a Time in Mexico |
9/12/03 |
3,282 |
$23.42 |
$7,137 |
$55.85 |
|
From Dusk Till Dawn |
1/19/96 |
2,004 |
$10.24 |
$5,110 |
$25.07 |
|
Desperado |
8/25/95 |
2,027 |
$7.91 |
$3,902 |
$25.53 |
|
George A. Romero's Land of the Dead |
6/24/05 |
2,249 |
$10.22 |
$4,545 |
$20.43 |
|
Dawn of the Dead |
3/19/04 |
2,745 |
$26.72 |
$9,735 |
$58.89 |
|
Highwaymen |
2/13/04 |
111 |
$0.22 |
$1,952 |
$0.37 |
|
Hostel |
1/6/06 |
2,195 |
$19.56 |
$8,909 |
$47.27 |
|
The Devil's Rejects |
7/22/05 |
1,757 |
$7.07 |
$4,022 |
$16.90 |
Why I Should See It: Two of Hollywood's visionary bad boys deliver their
first movies in two years with their tributes to the B-movies that inspired them
and you'll get two movies for the price of one.
Why Not: There are parts that are pretty disgusting and some people
might not feel like paying money to see movies like Rodriguez's "Planet
Terror" which is deliberately bad in places.
Projections: $25 to 27 million opening weekend; $65 million total.
BLACK BOOK (Sony
Classics)
Starring Carice van Houten, Sebastian Koch, Thom Hoffman, Halina Reijn, Waldemar
Kobus, Derek de Lint
Directed by Paul Verhoeven (Robocop, Basic Instinct, Total Recall, Starship
Troopers, Soldier of Orange, The 4th Man, Hollow
Man); Written by Gerarde Soeteman (Soldier of Orange, The 4th Man),
Paul Verhoeven (Soldier of Orange)
Genre: Action, Drama, Romance, War
Rated R
Plot Summary: Singer Rachel Stein (Carice van Houten) has been in hiding
from the Nazis after their occupation of Holland, but when she loses everything
in a set-up to try to find Jews in hiding, she becomes involved with the Dutch
resistance, dying her hair blonde and acting as a spy by cozying up with the
head of operations, Ludwig Müntze (Sebastian Koch).
Of Note: Filmmaker Paul Verhoeven returns to his Dutch roots with his first
movie set during World War II since 1978's Soldier of Orange.
It opens in New York and Los Angeles on Wednesday.
INTERVIEW (with
Paul Verhoeven)
REVIEW
THE TV SET (THINKFilm)
Starring David Duchovny, Sigourney Weaver, Ioan Gruffudd, Judy Greer, Justine
Bateman, Lindsay Sloane, Fran Kranz, Willie Garson, Philip Baker Hall
Written and directed by Jake Kasdan (Zero Effect, producer/director of "Freaks
and Geeks")
Genre: Comedy
Rated R
Plot Summary: Writer Mike Klein (David Duchovny) has just sold his script
for "The Wexler Chronicles" to PDN and he's preparing to make the pilot, but
he has to deal with the brash network president Lenny (Sigourney Weaver) who
keeps wanting to change things. Even Mike's ally Richard (Ioan Gruffudd), a British
TV producer brought to the network to improve ratings, can't help him when it
comes to Lenny.
Of Note: TV producer Jake Kasdan takes on the TV industry in an all-star
parody of how perfectly good TV shows get ruined by the system.
It's opening in New York and L.A. on Friday.
Mini-Review: There's something cool about the fact that this satire of
the television industry was created by someone who probably has seen a lot of
this sort of thing first-hand. In that respect, The TV Set is a fun movie,
even if a lot of the jokes and humor are kind of obvious and will be familiar
to anyone who's seen Lisa Kudrow's HBO sitcom or Trio's "Pilot Season." For the
most part, the movie relies on Sigourney Weaver as the clueless exec who turns
to her 14-year-old daughter before making decisions, and it's not really a strong
enough movie character or performance to drive the movie. Otherwise, David Duchovny
isn't bad as the put-upon writer of the series who's close to a nervous breakdown
and casting TV vet Justine Bateman as his pregnant wife is near-genius. The real
driving force of the movie though is Fran Kranz, who is absolutely hilarious
as the terrible actor who gets the lead role in Mike's pilot, pretty much sabotaging
every scene and making things harder. The way Kranz is able to act like he's
a bad actor offers some of the movie's best laughs, but still, with all the inherent
humor in the television industry, this movie could and should have been a lot
funnier. Rating: 6.5/10
OTHER LIMITED RELEASES:
WHOLE NEW THING (Picture
This Entertainment) A 13 year old home schooled by his parents in Nova
Scotia gets a crush on his English teacher in Ammon (Fishing Trip)
Buchbinder's second feature film, which opens at New York's Quad Cinema on
Friday.
Next week, it's Friday the 13th and
no, there isn't a new movie starring Jason Voorhees, but there are
thrillers starring Halle Berry and
Bruce Willis (Perfect
Stranger) and Shia LaBeouf (Disturbia), Marcus
Nispel presents his Viking tale Pathfinder and the
one and only Meatwad, Frylocke and Master Shake star in… (DEEP BREATH) Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon
Movie Film for Theatres. Also, Eddie Griffin will try to crack up more
than his car in the fast-paced Redline and Ray Liotta
stars in the thriller Slow
Burn. It's a busy week... and I have a headache already.
Copyright
2007 Edward Douglas
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