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THE BATTLE CRY!

For a good part of last year, I wrote a section in The Weekend Warrior called “Star Spotlight.” If I was still doing it, this week's spotlight would have been shone on Eddie Murphy, an actor whose probably had the most interesting 25-year career of anyone in Hollywood. In the five and a half years I've been doing box office analysis, Murphy hasn't exactly been shining, having many flops and making dumb family comedies, so I was pretty excited to see him doing something different in Bill Condon's musical Dreamgirls. True, his new movie Norbit (opening this week--see below) seems to have him falling back on things that have worked before, but I'm certainly not one to fault Murphy for trying to reclaim the success he once had.

And yet, there are so many critics and journalists out there who hate Murphy and will do anything possible to besmirch his recent return to the limelight. Despite the number of awards he's received and his well-deserved Oscar nomination, many of these naysayers want to take Murphy down or see him fail, mostly because they claim that he has a chip on his shoulder. But really, does anyone blame him?

The guy was a successful stand-up comedian, had a great run on “Saturday Night Live”--essentially saving the show--had just as much success in movies, creating the formula for the buddy cop comedy, and here he is, reinventing himself for Bill Condon's Dreamgirls and that's not enough. As soon as he's doing something for the many fans of his wacky slapstick comedy, the media is ready to pounce on Murphy again. There's actually a group of mostly white journalists using Norbit as an excuse to attack Murphy's note-perfect performance as James “Thunder” Early in Dreamgirls, saying that doing a silly comedy will ruin his chances at receiving his much deserved Oscar recognition.

There's a certain point where you have to wonder how much of the recent attacks on Murphy is out-and-out racism, because he's certainly not doing anything worse than Steve Martin or Ben Stiller or Jack Black or any other white comic trying to earn a buck and stay relevant for modern audiences. And if you think about it, Murphy has done as much as Richard Pryor before him by making headway into comedy crossing the racial borders, paving the way for comics like Chris Tucker, Martin Lawrence, Dave Chappelle and others to find wider audiences.

There are many Murphy fans who'll gladly pay to see Norbit over other things this weekend, but you just know that on Monday, there'll be dozens of white critics and journalists bitching and moaning about the state of the country when Murphy's latest opens big at #1. It's proof positive of the ridiculous divide between the mostly white entertainment media and the large African-American moviegoing audience. It's the same journalists who get all confused every time Tyler Perry or Martin Lawrence have a hit, since they have little clue what African-American audiences find funny and what they want to pay to see in movie theatres. (And sadly, I've fallen into this category more times than I'd like to admit.)

Me, I say good for Murphy for doing movies like Dreamgirls and Norbit, movies that appeal to his core audience rather than continually trying to crossover and cow tow to white audiences who rarely put their money where their mouth is. Movies like both of these are far more welcome than seeing Murphy do another stupid kids movie, hamming it up and dumbing himself down to appeal to five-year-olds and their parents.

So congrats to Murphy on his Oscar nomination and if it takes a movie like Norbit to keep things going for him, then all the more power to the guy for doing movies for movie fans rather than for critics.

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THE WEEKEND PREDICTIONS: (final predictions)

TW	LW	Title	Weekend (in millions)	Change	# Of Theaters	Average	Week
1	New	Norbit	$27.6	N/A	3,136	$8,801	1
2	New	Hannibal Rising	$16.8	N/A	3,003	$5,594	1
3	2	Because I Said So	$7.6	-42%	2,526	$3,009	2
4	1	The Messengers	$6.5	-56%	2,529	$2,570	2
5	4	Night at the Museum	$4.4	-32%	2,702	$1,628	8
6	3	Epic Movie	$4.2	-51%	2,806	$1,497	3
7	5	Smokin' Aces	$3.1	-49%	2,195	$1,412	3
8	8	Pan's Labyrinth	$2.8	-25%	1,143	$2,450	7
9	7	Dreamgirls	$2.4	-40%	2,284	$1,051	9
10	6	Stomp the Yard	$2.3	-43%	2,045	$1,125	5
			Est. Weekend Total $77.60	Est. Avg. Drop-Off -42%		Est. Average PTA $2,910

It's the weekend between the Super Bowl and Valentine's/Presidents Day weekend, and surprisingly, at least one of the two new movies could end up being the strongest offering of the month, that being Eddie Murphy's return to cross-dressing comedy with his multiple roles in the madcap romantic comedy Norbit. Teaming with the likes of Eddie Griffin, Marlan Wayans and Thandie Newton, this should be a strong choice for African-American audiences, who have flocked to movies like Madea's Family Reunion and Big Momma's House 2 last year with a bit more crossover to mainstream comedy audiences. Though Murphy's film isn't a sequel like those other two, it does return him to familiar territory that his fans will dig and the desire of the market for strong high concept comedies (regardless of quality) is clear from the long-running success of Ben Stiller's Night at the Museum.

While Anthony Hopkins has had a great career as the serial killer Hannibal Lecter in three blockbuster films, he's nowhere to be found in the prequel Hannibal Rising, which is likely to bring in a number of Thomas Harris' diehard fans but isn't likely to have nearly as strong an opening weekend as the last few movies in the series.

Last year this weekend, four new movies opened with grosses ranging from $13.6 million (Harrison Ford's thriller Firewall) and $20.22 million (Steve Martin's turn as Inspector Clouseau in the long-delayed The Pink Panther) with Final Destination 3 taking second with $19.2 million and the animated Curious George taking third with $14.7 million. With four new movies making $56 million, the top 10 ended up with just under $100 million, but unless Norbit or Hannibal really explode and do far better than expected, that amount is not going to be matched this weekend.

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THE CHOSEN ONE:

THE LIVES OF OTHERS (Sony Classics)
Starring Martina Gedek, Ulrich Mühe, Sebastian Koch, Ulrich Tukur
Written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck (debut)
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: “Nothing is private. Nothing is sacred.”
Story: Five years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the East German Stasi are keeping an eye on the country's writers and artists to prevent them from speaking out on the communist government. A high ranking minister has assigned Captain Georg Wiesler (Ulrich Mühe) to keep an eye on playwright Georg Dreyman (Sebastian Koch) and actress Christa-Maria Seiland (Martina Gedeck), but not because he suspects them of something, as much as he wants some dirt on Dreyman to get him away from the beautiful actress, who he also fancies.
REVIEW
INTERVIEW (with Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck)

While I do want to save some thoughts for my review and interview, I saw this German film late last year and once again last week, and it's hard not to be impressed by Florian von Donnersmarck's debut, a real-life version of George Orwell's 1984, in this case set in East Germany, where the government's Stasi spy on the artistic community, looking for an early warning of those read to speak or act out against the communist government. It's a pretty slow movie and a bit long, but the performances by the three principal players really makes it a riveting character piece, especially Ulrich Mühe as the sad and lonely Stazi Captain assigned to investigate a playwright and actress girlfriend, who suddenly gains a conscience and a change of heart. It's not a perfect movie but well worthy of its Oscar nomination. I wouldn't be disappointed if it ends up winning over Pan's Labyrinth, though considering Germany's track record with Downfall and Sophie Scholl (both in my top 3 in the last two years), one has to think that the Academy isn't really into dour German dramas. Still, it's an intriguing movie about a subject matter and setting we haven't seen too much of, that being East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall.

Also opening this week at New York's Film Forum on Wednesday is Nina Toussaint & Massimo Iannetta's related documentary The Decomposition of the Soul, focusing on two former prisoners of the East German Stasi who recount their horrifying ordeal at their hands.

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HANNIBAL RISING (MGM/The Weinstein Company)
Starring Gaspard Ulliel, Gong Li, Rhys Ifans, Richard Brake, Kevin McKidd
Genre: Thriller
Directed by Peter Webber (Girl with a Pearl Earring); Written by Thomas Harris (novelist who has written all of the Hannibal Lecter novels including Red Dragon, Hannibal and The Silence of the Lambs)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: “It started with revenge.”
Plot Summary: At the end of World War II in Eastern Europe, a young Hannibal Lecter (Gaspard Ulliel) is forced to live in a Soviet orphanage after the violent death of his parents. He soon escapes to Paris where he begins an affair with the mysterious Lady Murasaki (Gong Li) who nurtures his desire to get revenge on the war criminals who killed his parents.
Of Note: Bestselling author Thomas Harris adapts his own prequel novel, which shares the origins of the one and only Dr. Hannibal Lecter as a young man.
REVIEW

Analysis: When Thomas Harris' novel “Red Dragon” was adapted by Michael Mann into the 1986 film Manhunter, the cannibal psychiatrist Dr. Hannibal Lecter only had a small part in the story, but five years later, when Harris' follow-up The Silence of the Lambs was turned into a movie, Brian Cox was replaced by Anthony Hopkins as Lecter, and the rest, as they say, was history. The Silence of the Lambs went on to sweep the Oscars, grossing $130 million, and much of it had to do with Hopkins' ability to make the most of his screen time as Lecter.

Five years later, Ridley Scott took on the sequel Hannibal with Hopkins being paired with Julianne Moore (replacing Jodie Foster from the first movie) and it opened almost exactly six years ago. At the time, opening a movie in February was box office death, but Hannibal defied the odds, becoming the top opening R-rated film at the time, leading to producer Dino De Laurentiis wanting to remake Harris' first Lecter novel with Hopkins replacing Cox. Less than two years later, Red Dragon, met with skepticism due to the choice of directors, Rush Hour's Brett Ratner. Though it didn't do nearly as well as Hannibal, it still made more than $90 million.

Original author Harris has decided to go back even farther in time to make a prequel that tells the origins of Lecter, adapting his own novel, released mere month ago, into a screenplay, which is directed by Peter Webber, the highly regarded director of Girl with a Pearl Earring. The younger Lecter is played by French actor Gaspard Ulliel, who appeared in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's A Very Long Engagement and other French films few Americans have ever seen. It also stars Rhys Ifan, best known for playing Hugh Grant's roommate in the Brit romcom Notting Hill and movies that've been seen by as many people as Ulliel's films. Then there's Gong Li, who has appeared in many of Zhang Yimou's films including the recent Curse of the Golden Flower, as well as playing the part of a baddie in Michael Mann's big screen version of Miami Vice last year. Li's the only one who might have any sort of draw, but since she's not even mentioned in the commercials, it's really more about playing up the Hannibal Lecter name to interest fans of the previous films.

Thomas Harris' novels have many fans, many of whom have seen the movies, and his involvement in this one, as well as its proximity to the release of his first novel in seven years, certainly makes the movie an easy sell this weekend. The question is whether anyone will want to watch a Hannibal Lecter movie that doesn't star Anthony Hopkins, the man who made the character famous. After all, it was Hopkins' performance that convinced Dino De Laurentiis and Universal to make a second movie based on Harris' earlier book with Hopkins in the lead role. Obviously, they know what people want to see and that's Hopkins as Lecter, a character that was declared the #1 villain of all time in a poll conducted by the American Film Institute.

Then again, it's been four and a half years since Red Dragon, a movie that underperformed and wasn't able to maintain its business after opening weekend, so one can't imagine there's that much interest in the character these days, particularly among younger audiences. At least Lecter should still have a number of older fans who've enjoyed the previous three movies, and they're likely to see this based on the name alone over something like Eddie Murphy's Norbit. Unfortunately, there's a lot of skepticism that this movie won't be any good, and the bad track record of MGM and Weinstein Company won't do much to help convince doubters that this will be a worthy prequel.

Moviegoers aren't dumb and they know when they're being had, which is why attempted money-grabbers like Dumb and Dumberer, a prequel to the Farrelly Brothers comedy without Jim Carrey, Jeff Daniels or the Farrellys barely made in total what the original movie made its opening weekend. This is in comparison to The Scorpion King, a prequel to The Mummy Returns, which featured The Rock reprising the lead character from the recent sequel. Since many might feel that Red Dragon was already a prequel to The Silence of the Lambs, it's odd that they'd decide to go back even further, but we'll see if Harris and De Laurentiis can have another hit without Hopkins.

Comparisons:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Red Dragon	10/4/02	3,357		$36.54	$10,885	$93.10
Hannibal	2/9/01	3,230		$58.00	$17,958	$164.97
The Silence of the Lambs	2/15/91	1,497	$1.41	$13.77	$9,198	$130.73
The Scorpion King	4/19/02	3,444		$36.08	$10,475	$90.34
Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd	6/13/03	2,609		$10.85	$4,157	$26.21
Dumb and Dumber	12/16/94	2,447		$16.36	$6,686	$127.18
Basic Instinct 2	3/31/06	1,453		$3.20	$782	$5.96

Why I Should See It: Hannibal Lecter has become one of the greatest film villains of all time and this movie will give his fans a look at his origins.
Why Not: A Hannibal Lecter movie without Anthony Hopkins is like trying to make peanut butter without peanuts.
Projections: $15 to 17 million opening; $38 million total.

NORBIT (Paramount)
Starring Eddie Murphy, Thandie Newton, Eddie Griffin, Marlon Wayans, Terry Crews, Clifton Powell, Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Directed by Brian Robbins (The Shaggy Dog, The Perfect Score, Hard Ball, Close to Home); Written by Jay Scherick and David Ronn (Guess Who, National Security, I Spy, Serving Sara), Eddie Murphy (Vampire in Brooklyn, Another 48 Hours, Harlem Nights), Charles Murphy (Vampire in Brooklyn)
Genre: Comedy
Rated PG-13
Tagline: “Have you ever made a really big mistake?”
Plot Summary: The nerdy Norbit (Eddie Murphy) was abandoned as a child and raised by Chinese restaurant owner Mr. Wong (also Eddie Murphy) but when he grows up, he's forced into a marriage with the obese Rasputia (you guessed it… Eddie Murphy), which makes it more difficult when his childhood sweetheart Kate (Thandie Newton--just to break things up) returns to town.
Of Note: Eddie Murphy is back in the crazy outfits, hoping to keep his career momentum going after winning awards and being nominated for an Oscar for his role in Dreamgirls.

Analysis: Mere weeks after being nominated for his first Oscar, Eddie Murphy is back in the crazy outfits hoping to reclaim the success of his Nutty Professor movies. Not that Murphy's career has been having that many problems even with bombs like Showtime, I Spy and what might be the biggest bomb in box office history, The Adventures of Pluto Nash. Despite those speed bumps in his career, Murphy's been living comfortably by voicing Donkey in two animated Shrek movies and a third coming out this summer, though Dreamgirls has done a good job reminding people why they've loved Murphy for so many years, giving him a role that allows him to cut loose on stage, but also allows him his first fully dramatic role.

It will be another three weeks before we have to start calling him “Oscar winner Eddie Murphy,” but before then, he's taking on the type of comedic role that will remind his fans why they loved Eddie in movies like Bowfinger and The Nutty Professor, doing a physical character comedy that should have a pretty wide appeal with its simple high concept premise. Though it's been a while since Murphy had any success with a live action movie that wasn't PG--Murphy's become a bit of a family favorite between the Doctor Dolittle and Shrek movies--he does have an older audience looking for him to return to the raunchier humor of his stand-up

And let's face it? Is there anything funnier than a black man in a dress? Flip Wilson certainly made his career based on his turns in a dress, and Murphy followed suit with the characters he played in The Nutty Professor and The Nutty Professor 2, as did Martin Lawrence, whose Big Momma's House 2 opened bigger than expected last year. Then there's the case of Tyler Perry, one of the latest black men to make money by dressing in drag, in his case, the gun-toting granny Madea in Diary of a Mad Black Woman and Madea's Family Reunion, the latter which opened to over $30 million in less theatres than Norbit. Even Marlon Wayans--who has a small role in the movie--donned a dress along with his brother, though he put a unique twist on it by playing a skinny white girl in 2003's White Chicks. That movie also did far better than most people expected. To assume that African-American audiences are easy to please might be generalizing a bit too much, but let's face it… Nutty Professor, Big Momma's House, and Tyler Perry's movies have all done well, and the only urban movie to have failed in the cross-dressing department is the basketball comedy Juwanna Man in 2002.

For everyone who thinks the movie looks incredibly stupid, there's likely to be two or three people who think it's funny, and this is a great time for a new comedy to open, especially one with a romantic angle like the one between Murphy's Norbit and Thandie Newton, which is similar to the relationships in The Nutty Professor movies. In many ways, this movie for Murphy is not unlike Will Smith's Hitch, which was released the same weekend two years ago, although for Murphy, this has him returning to something people enjoy seeing him do whereas Smith was doing something different with Hitch. Murphy also gets a bit of additional support from Eddie Griffin and Marlon Wayans, both popular comics among African-American audiences, who'll help bring them into theatres in smaller roles.

The movie is directed by the very white Brian Robbins, whose last comedy was Disney's remake of The Shaggy Dog, but he's been around for a while, making sports movies after cutting his teeth on the rap concert movie The Show and the show “Kenan & Kel” (starring Kenan Thompson), which led to the film Good Burger.

The movie should be an easy sell for Murphy's fans, but to drive interest even more, ads for the movie ran non-stop through the four-hour Super Bowl preshow and awareness is pretty high for the movie, even though it's audience is going to be very specific towards younger people and African-American audiences. It's doubtful that many of Murphy's older white male fans who enjoyed movies like Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hours will have much interest in this type of comedy, but there should be enough support elsewhere to allow for a strong opening weekend.

Comparisons:

Title	Release Date	Theater Count	Previous Box Office (in millions)	Weekend Box Office (in millions)	Average	Total Box Office
Dreamgirls	12/15/06	852	$22.96	$14.10	$16,549	$86.78
Daddy Day Care	5/9/03	3,370		$27.62	$8,197	$103.55
I Spy	11/1/02	3,182		$12.75	$4,008	$33.11
The Adventures of Pluto Nash	8/16/02	2,320		$2.18	$941	$4.41
Showtime	3/15/02	2,917		$15.01	$5,142	$37.95
The Nutty Professor 2: The Klumps	7/28/00	3,242		$42.52	$13,115	$123.29
Bowfinger	8/13/99	2,706		$18.06	$6,674	$66.37
The Nutty Professor	6/28/96	2,115		$25.41	$12,014	$128.81
Big Momma's House 2	1/27/06	3,261		$27.74	$8,505	$70.17
Big Momma's House	6/2/00	2,802		$25.66	$9,158	$117.48
Madea's Family Reunion	2/24/06	2,194		$30.03	$13,688	$63.26
Diary of a Mad Black Woman	2/25/05	1,483		$21.91	$14,771	$50.38
White Chicks	6/25/04	2,726	$7.50	$19.68	$7,218	$69.15

Why I Should See It: Eddie Murphy returning to the type of comedy that people love him for.
Why Not: The movie looks very, very stupid. As we all know, last year was The Year of the Stupid… this year, I think moviegoers are a little smarter… or so one can hope.
Projections: $24 to 27 million; $73 million total.

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OTHER LIMITED RELEASES:

BLACK FRIDAY (AdLab Films) ­ Banned in India but finally being released here, Anurag Kashyap's drama about the March 1993 terrorist bombings in Bombay just a few weeks after the bombing at the World Trade Center opens in limited release this weekend after playing the Locarno International Film Festival.
THE LAST SIN EATER (Fox Faith/Bigger Picture) ­ Francine Rivers' best-selling novel is adapted by Michael Landon Jr. (son of the “Little House on a Prairie” star), as it tells the story of a young girl who wants redemption from her sins, so she goes looking for a mysterious man who showed up at her grandmother's graves to absolve her.
OPERATION HOMECOMING (The Documentary Group) ­ Opening at the Film Forum in New York, Richard Robbins' documentary is the latest to focus on the American soldiers currently stationed in Iraq through the writing they do during downtime.
UNCONSCIOUS (Regent Releasing) ­ After months and months of delays, Joaquín Oristrell's period romantic comedy about a brother and his pregnant sister-in-law who become romantically entwined while looking for her husband finally comes to New York, opening at the Cinema Village.

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Next week, all hell breaks loose with Ghost Rider!!!! Oh, there's a bunch of other movies, too, including Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls, the Hugh Grant-Drew Barrymore romantic comedy Music and Lyrics, the espionage thriller Breach, and Disney's family adventure Bridge to Terabithia. It's going to be a busy week, so the Weekend Warrior will start working on it right now!

Copyright 2007 Edward Douglas


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