Your Weekly Guide to New Movies for March 2, 2007
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 final projections based on actual theatre counts.

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TW	LW	Title	Weekend (in millions)	Change	# Of Theaters	Average	Week
1	New	Wild Hogs	$28.1	N/A	3,287	$8,549	1
2	New	Zodiac	$17.5	N/A	2,362	$7,409	1
3	1	Ghost Rider	$9.5	-53%	3,608	$2,633	3
4	3	Bridge to Terabitha	$9.1	-36%	3,159	$2,881	3
5	2	The Number 23	$6.8	-54%	2,759	$2,465	2
6	New	Black Snake Moan	$6.3	N/A	1,252	$5,032	1
7	5	Norbit	$5.4	-45%	2,827	$1,910	4
8	4	Reno 911!: Miami	$5.2	-49%	2,702	$1,925	2
9	6	Music and Lyrics	$4.7	-39%	2,644	$1,778	3
10	7	Breach	$3.4	-43%	1,496	$2,273	3
			Est. Weekend Total $96.00	Est. Avg. Drop-Off -46%		Est. Average PTA $3,685

Moviegoers looking for more intelligent thrills than last week’s The Number 23 will be delighted that the month of March kicks off with the first film in four years from master filmmaker David Fincher, once again exploring the serial killer genre, this time with the true crime story of San Francisco’s Zodiac. For those not looking for intelligent anything, they’ll have Touchstone Pictures’ Wild Hogs, which cleverly teams up box office stars Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence with respected actors William H. Macy and Marisa Tomei for a high premise road comedy that’s sure to appeal to a mass audience looking for laughs this weekend.

The way things have been going in recent years, Wild Hogs' m indless fun will win the weekend, helped by nearly 800 more theatres than the competition and by its diverse cast, each of whom have their own following that will want to see them riding Harleys across country.

It’s likely that it will lose a lot of guys, especially older ones, to Fincher’s Zodiac which stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr., a trio that might bring in a few women as well. Since it’ll be appealing to a different audience, those looking for more serious entertainment and Fincher’s many fans, it should do decently but wind up in second place due to a longer running time and a narrower release.

There’s also the chance that both those movies will lose guys, especially in Southern and urban areas, to Craig Brewer’s Black Snake Moan, his follow-up to 2004’s Hustle & Flow, which stars Samuel L. Jackson as an old blues singer who must stop Christina Ricci’s evil, nymphomaniac ways by chaining her to his radiator. While it might be a bit of a hard sell to those who don’t already have hot white women chained to their radiator, Brewer has earned a great deal of respect for his last movie and fans of Jackson will certainly be interested.

Last March kicked off with four new movies in wide release, none of them really strong enough to make a mark on the returning Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Family Reunion as it held onto the top spot for a second weekend, despite a 58% drop-off. Richard Donner’s action-thriller 16 Blocks, which paired Bruce Willis and Mos Def, had to settle for 2^nd place with just $12 million, while colorful movies Ultraviolet and Aquamarine wound up below Disney’s Eight Below in its third weekend with $9 and $7.5 million respectively, and the comedy concert film Dave Chappelle’s Block Party only made $6.2 million. The Top 10 grossed just $77.5 million, a big drop from the previous week, though this year’s fare should be stronger, as the releases from the past few week should lose screens and theatres to this weekend’s trio of anticipated new films.

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THE CHOSEN ONE:

This week, the unchallenged champion for this coveted spot is the first movie from David Fincher in four years, and you can learn more about why by reading MY REVIEW, but for those who want to know about its box office prospects, read on.

ZODIAC (Paramount)
Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, Robert Downey Jr., Anthony Edwards, Brian Cox, Elias Koteas, Donal Logue, John Carroll Lynch, Dermot Mulroney, Adam Goldberg, Chloe Sevigny, Pell James, Clea Duvall
Directed by David Fincher (Se7en, The Game, Fight Club, Panic Room); Written by James Vanderbilt (The Rundown, Basic, Darkness Falls)
Genre: Drama, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: “There’s more than one way to lose your life to a killer.”
Plot Summary: In 1969, a serial killer began to plague the San Francisco area, sending letters to the newspaper boasting of his deeds and foreshadowing his future kills. He took the name Zodiac and kept the entire city at bay (no pun intended) as homicide detective David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and crime reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr.) become obsessed with deciphering the clues to catch the killer. Little did either realize that it would be editorial cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal) who would learn the truth years later when researching a book on the killings.
Of Note: David Fincher’s first film in four years…what on earth more do you need to know than that?
Analysis: In 1991, The Silence of the Lambs became a huge Oscar-winning hit due to the way it followed the Jodie Foster’s unconventional FBI investigation into the murders of a serial killer. Of course, there’s a good chance that Thomas Harris had been influenced, especially when writing its precursor Red Dragon, by the Zodiac killings that plagued San Francisco in the late ‘60s, early ‘70s. Fast forward four years and a music video director named David Fincher, who’d helmed the visually stimulating but weak Alien 3, took a more stylish look at serial killers in Se7en, casting the likes of Brad Pitt, Morgan Freeman, Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevin Spacey. The rest, as they say, was history as the movie made over $100 million, convincing every studio to buy and greenlight movies and scripts that had anything to do with serial killers. Morgan Freeman began a lucrative career as James Patterson's FBI profiler Dr. Alex Cross in Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider, the latter making $76 million in a spring 2001 release. A year later, Sandra Bullock didn't have quite as much luck with her own foray into the genre with Murder by Numbers, which put the last nail in the genre's coffin for later bombs like Suspect Zero. (Angelina Jolie's Taking Lives didn't help the genre's continued success.) Even Spike Lee got into the act, exploring New York City's most famous serial killer in Summer of Sam, though that was a different movie, more about a handful of people during that time than the murders themselves. (Oddly, Zodiac owes more to that film than any of those other films including Fincher's own work.)

As the serial killer genre thrived and waned, Fincher went onto the less successful The Game and Fight Club, both which became hugely popular cult favorites on DVD, before making Panic Room with Jodie Foster, it became a huge hit for both of them, grossing $30 million over Easter weekend and nearly $100 million overall. It’s been four years since Panic Room, and Fincher is back in Se7en territory with a stark thriller about the Zodiac killings that plagued and fascinated the San Francisco area during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. The story is based on two non-fiction books by Robert Graysmith, the character played by Gyllenhaal, his book on which the film is based having sold over 400 million copies worldwide. (Graysmith also wrote a book about Bob Crane on which Auto Focus was based.) Although screenwriter James Vanderbilt’s resume isn’t nearly as strong as one might hope, this is Fincher, a director who is hugely popular among true movielovers, many of whom consider him a genius.

Although Fincher’s latest doesn’t have the box office clout of a Jodie Foster or a Brad Pitt, he does have a solid group of fine actors led by Jake Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo and Robert Downey Jr. Gyllenhaal stars in his first movie since the 2005 double play of Jarhead and Brokeback Mountain, two movies that helped elevate his status as a known box office star, both making over $60 million and the latter garnering him an Oscar nomination. Mark Ruffalo has been doing a lot of movies in the last few years, either playing a copy like in Michael Mann’s Collateral and the thriller In the Cut or appearing in romantic comedies like Just Like Heaven with Reese Witherspoon, 13 Going on 30 opposite Jennifer Garner and Rumor Has It with Jennifer Aniston. The role of Detective David Toschi is definitely more of a serious cop role in the vein of Brad Pitt in Se7en. Robert Downey Jr. is a great actor, but he’s yet to really break out as a box office draw. Despite having a number of $60 million grossing movies like The Shaggy Dog and Gothika, he’s never been the main role in those movies. His recent starring roles in Richard Linklater’s A Scanner Darkly and 2005’s Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang with less than $6 million total.

Though the trio have a strong surrounding cast with the likes of Anthony Edwards from “E.R.”, Brian Cox, Philip Baker Hall, Chloe Sevigny and many more, most people won’t be going to see this movie for the cast, as much as they will for the chance to see Fincher doing another serial killer movie, particularly one based on a legendary case that has kept so many people intrigued for so many years. (Especially since it’s never truly been solved despite Graysmith’s very strong evidence against one suspect.) Though one might suspect that the serial killer genre has been dying a slow death in recent years, the return of one of the genre's innovators should help revive it.

Most of the movie’s appeal may be to Fincher’s male fans, though women may be interested in the film’s three hot male stars, especially since this is not nearly as testosterone-laden as the other movies this weekend. The problem is that the movie is almost entirely dialogue-driven with almost no action, and some people might not be as interested in a talky true crime police procedural, despite them being so popular on TV thanks to shows like “CSI” and “Law & Order.” Because of this, the movie’s appeal will most certainly be older than the other two movies.

Oddly, Paramount is only opening the movie in 2,300 theatres, which might make it hard for the movie to come close to the opening weekend gross of Panic Room. The film’s long running time (over 2 and a half hours) is also somewhat problematic since theatres will have to dedicate more screens than they might like in order to meet the demand. Most of them might not be so willing to give up screens allocated to sure things like Wild Hogs and other movies, though the last few weeks’ offerings aren’t as strong as this weekend’s new movies. However well the film does this weekend, expect legs and word-of-mouth to be strong if the early reviews are any indication of the film’s quality.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: David Fincher has redefined the serial killer genre once again with a brilliant piece of work that’s sure to start many conversations and restart interest in the unsolved case.
Why Not: The movie’s a bit long and slow but otherwise, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t go to see Fincher’s latest masterpiece.
Projections: $16 to 18 million opening weekend; $60 million total.

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WILD HOGS (Touchstone Pictures)
Starring Tim Allen, John Travolta, Martin Lawrence, William H. Macy, Marisa Tomei, Jill Hennessy, Ray Liotta
Directed by Walt Becker (Van Wilder, Buying the Cow); Written by Brad Copeland (debut screenplay from writer of “Arrested Development”, “Grounded for Life” and “My Name is Earl”)
Genre: Comedy
Rated PG-13
Tagline: “A lot can happen on the road to nowhere.”
Plot Summary: Four middle-aged friends (Allen, Travolta, Lawrence, Macy) decide to go on a road trip none of them will ever forget, as they decide to take a motorcycle trip across country ala “Easy Rider” but end up getting into trouble when they get into a conflict comedy with the Del Fuegos, a tough biker gang who are not into Weekend Warriors. (Hm… and I actually liked the Del Fuegos at one point, since they were a pretty cool band.)
Of Note: Three (and a half) box office superstars team for a high concept road. As Macy keeps saying in interviews, “Hilarity ensues.”
Mini-Review: It takes less than a minute into this comedy for one to realize how much of the cast involved is doing it for the paycheck, and though both Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence have done far worse things for money, one expects better from John Travolta, who is so ridiculously hammy in the movie that it’s embarrassing. All of their characters are the type of typical high premise comedy stereotypes we’ve seen so often that you don’t have to be a MENSA member to figure out where things are going, as every gag is telegraphed by the whimsical accompanying score to make sure know that what we’re watching is supposed to be funny. (Usually, it’s not.) Most of the movie involves physical and bathroom humor for yucks, and when that doesn’t work, it shows William H. Macy’s naked ass. While Macy certainly seems to be slumming worse than the other three, especially with the stupid physical comedy, at least he also gets to make out with Marisa Tomei, who has never looked cuter than in the movie’s romantic subplot that’s more tolerable than the rest of the movie. After the lamest of set-ups, things do settle in once Ray Liotta shows up as the tough leader of a biker gang and it starts building a story around its premise. (God only knows what Tenacious D’s Kyle Gass is doing in there, showing up to do a few karaoke bits, cut to with no reaction or interaction from the main players.) Although the movie looks good, Becker shows his incompetence at developing this movie beyond another dumb comedy that goes for easy laughs. What’s sad is that as stupid and bad as the movie gets, there’ll still be people out there who find this movie hilarious. Rating: 4.5/10

Analysis: If it’s the first weekend in March, then it must be time for Disney/Touchstone to release a wildly outlandish comedy that looks kinda stupid but gets the kind of dumb laughs that audiences love, and if it’s anything like their last two March kickers in 2003 and 2005 (see below), Wild Hogs will be an equally huge hit.

The premise of four middle-aged guys going on a motorcycle road trip is a pretty easy sell based on its premise and the gags in the commercials, but that’s made an even easier by a trio of relatively solid box office stars and their fourth, William H. Macy, a highly respected and popular actor due to his own body of work. Of course, both Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence have the most experience doing comedy, especially of the physical kind. Both of them had hugely popular sitcoms for years and we can’t forget that John Travolta got his start on TV as well, in a little show called “Welcome Back Kotter.”

Both Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence have had rather shaky returns at the box office, Allen doing the best when dressed as Santa (three times) and Lawrence when dressed as a woman (twice), and Allen hasn’t had much luck when trying to make a comedy more for grown-ups. They both bring something special to the mix, Allen in being this icon among the working class in the middle part of American and Lawrence having an appeal to African-American audiences, which could end up being a strong audience for the film with Norbit and Tyler Perry’s latest quickly leaving theatres. Allen’s coming off an interesting year having two reasonable hits for Disney (The Shaggy Dog, The Santa Clause 3) bookending a big bomb for Sony (Zoom) and Wild Hogs is trying to get him into the PG-13 territory of another bomb, Big Trouble, which was delayed coincidentally because it was about a bomb. Lawrence’s comedic career isn’t perfect and despite the success of the Big Momma’s House and Bad Boys movies, he’s had his own share of bombs, most notably his 2005 basketball comedy Rebound. (Lawrence picked a bad time to go PG apparently.) He does have the most experience in action-comedies though, and that’s the only movie of his that grossed less than $30 million.

Of the cast, Travolta probably has the least experience doing straight comedy, having done mainly dramas and thrillers since making his humorous comeback with Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, which was followed by the Elmore Leonard movie biz comedy Get Shorty. That had a semi-successful sequel in 2005 with Be Cool, but other than that, Travolta’s comedic films have been few and far between. Don’t think that he’ll be taking a backseat to his co-stars as he’ll have to prepare to take centerstage in Divine’s former role in Hairspray. Then of course, you have the Oscar-nominated Macy playing the mild-mannered wallflower and the Oscar-winning Marisa Tomei as his love interest in the film, and you have a pretty solid all-around cast that can appeal to a wide range of audiences, including the teens who grew up with Allen’s movies and the older audiences who grew up with Travolta.

Releasing a strong comedy like this in March is nothing new for Disney/Touchstone, who kicked off the month of March with $30 million comedy blockbusters in 2003 with Bringing Down the House starring Steve Martin and Queen Latifah and two years later, they had equal success with Vin Diesel’s The Pacifier. The latter was a family film, so it’s hard to use that as a comparison but House had a similar laugh-filled trailer that got a wide variety of audiences interested much like the cast of Wild Hogs should do for it.

Touchstone was one of the few studios to buy an ad during the Super Bowl for this movie, knowing that the concept of middle-aged men on Harleys would be something appealing to the guys watching, and it’s likely to have been another worthy investment. (If memory recalls, they bought adds for House and Pacifier as well.) They also sneak previewed the movie this past Saturday in 800 theatres, previews that were well attended and presumably enjoyed enough to spread decent word-of-mouth. Though the movie will have the most resonance with guys, there's just as good a chance that women might find some humor in the guys' situations even if this is not the kind of movie one would normally expect to find women.

While Wild Hogs could lose some of its male audience to Zodiac, one would expect that those looking to laugh and those looking to be challenged and thrilled are two very different audiences, and the Hogs’ wider release means that there will be many areas, particularly in the MidWest and central America, where this will be the only choice for some audiences. (God help them all.)

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: Four funny actors, directed by a guy known for irreverent comedy, means this could be funnier than most of the dumb mainstream comedies out there.
Why Not: As funny as this looks, the odds of it reverting to physical humor to get laughs is higher than the chance of any of the stars ever being taken seriously after making it.
Projections: $25 to 29 million opening weekend; $75 to 80 million total.

BLACK SNAKE MOAN (Paramount Vantage)
Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Christina Ricci, Justin Timberlake, S. Epatha Merkerson, John Cothran, Michael Raymond-James
Written and directed by Craig Brewer (Hustle and Flow)
Genre: Drama, Music
Rated R
Tagline: “Everything’s hotter in the South.”
Plot Summary: Lazarus (Samuel L. Jackson) is an aged, divorced bluesman whose life is on the skids when he finds the half-naked body of a young woman named Rae (Christina Ricci) who has been beaten-up and left for dead on his property. Realizing that he's found a lost soul who needs saving, Lazarus chains her to his radiator to try to keep her sinful ways at bay.
Of Note: Craig Brewer’s controversial follow-up to Hustle & Flow takes on equally weighty topics, this time centered around a blues singer played by Samuel L. Jackson.
INTERVIEW (with Craig Brewer)
REVIEW

Analysis: The biggest buzz out of the 2004 Sundance Film Festival was an independent film by mostly unknown Memphis filmmaker Craig Brewer, Hustle & Flow, which was produced and financed by John Singleton and his partner Stephanie Allain. It won the Audience Award and a couple others, while being quickly scooped up by (then) Paramount Classics for a summer release. Although it didn’t explode ala Eminem’s 8 Mile like some people thought it would, it did help make the career of former character actor Terrence Howard and some of the other stars, while making the world know more about the Memphis crunk/rap scene. When Howard was nominated as an actor at the Oscars, the movie started generating interest and then even more when it won the Oscar for Original Song with a lovely ditty called “Hard Out There for a Pimp” by Three Six Mafia.

Now, Craig Brewer is back with the follow-up, which pairs Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci, facing off against each other amidst the Memphis blues scene. It’s another very different role for Jackson who has been appearing in two to three movies a year for many years now, probably why his movies have cumulatively grossed over $7 BILLION worldwide, which is more than any other actor or actress. (Of course, a lot of that has to do with volume.) This one is more in the vein of his serious dramas like last year’s Freedomland then the action fare he’s become known for, but it’s Jackson’s performance that drives the film, much like 2005’s Coach Carter, and his involvement will bring a lot more interest to Brewer’s third feature than he had for Hustle & Flow. Despite Jackson’s huge filmography, including a number of blockbusters, he still doesn’t have the type of draw that one might expect, especially when appearing in weaker films like the action-comedy The Man, which teamed him with Eugene Levy. Even last year’s big internet hypefest Snakes on a Plane failed to do nearly as well as expected after the Jackson-driven marketing campaign.

Christina Ricci hasn’t even been lucky enough to have a disappointment like Snakes on a Plane, since she’s too busy appearing in movies that go straight to DVD (The Gathering) or cable (Prozac Nation) and even the movies that do get into theatres like Wes Craven’s Cursed or Woody Allen’s Anything Else. Although she’s been lucky to appear in movies like Casper and Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow, both huge blockbusters, her biggest recent movie was Monster, in which she played a backseat to Oscar winner Charlize Theron. The movie’s wild card is Justin Timberlake, who isn’t featured prominently in the ads, though he plays a big role. Of course, Timberlake is more known for his career as a platinum-selling Grammy-winning recording artist and pop star, but he’s been making the transition into movies with the recent Alpha Dog, which also debuted at Sundance a year ago.

It was originally supposed to come out last week but then was moved back to this weekend to give Paramount Vantage more time to promote it. It made some sense since there were five new releases last week, though none of them were nearly as strong or primarily male-driven as either of the other movies in wide release. While Black Snake Moan will be primarily of interest to older guys, music/blues fans, Samuel L. Jackson fans and sick serial killers looking for ways to chain their victims to radiators, it’s going to have a hard time getting anyone else from the weekend’s stronger movies. If nothing else, the movie will have a stronger draw in Southern and urban areas than the other movies, which is likely to be where PV is focusing their 1,200 theatres, but it’s still likely to be far too dark for some audiences with a marketing campaign that just won’t appeal to mass audiences.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: Brewer creates another strong dramatic film set in the world of music with another strong male lead, this time played by Mr. Samuel L. Jackson.
Why Not: The other two thirds of the acting equation are Christina Ricci and Justin Timberlake. Oy vey.
Projections: $5 to 7 million opening weekend; $18 million total.

Copyright 2007 Edward Douglas


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