Your Weekly Guide to New Movies for March 23, 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.

(If you have anything to say about anything written in this column, feedback and Email is always welcome, and almost always responded to.)

THE CHOSEN ONE:

FIRST SNOW (Yari Group Film Releasing)
Starring Guy Pearce, Piper Perabo, William Fichtner, J.K. Simmons, Shea Whigham, Rick Gonzalez, Jackie Burroughs, Adam Scott
Directed by Mark Fergus (debut); Written by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (Children of Men, upcoming Iron Man)
Genre: Crime, Drama, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: "What if someone looked into your future and didn't see tomorrow?"
Story: Salesman Jimmy Sparks (Guy Pearce) gets his fortune read by a roadside soothsayer (J.K. Simmons) who tells him that the big deal he's been trying to set up is going to happen, but he also sees something unnerving which he won't share. When Jimmy goes back to him, he is told that he doesn't see anything beyond the first snow of the year, causing Jimmy to spend the next few days paranoid of what's going to happen to him.
INTERVIEW (with Mark Fergus)
REVIEW

Every once in a while, a movie comes along that surprises you and the debut from Mark Fergus and his writing partner Hawk Ostby is just such a movie, since it starts as one thing, goes somewhere else and then ends up somewhere completely unexpected. Personally, I love movies like that, especially ones that stand out as being original and unique. First Snow isn't necessarily a thriller as much as it is a character drama, but it's driven by another great performance from Memento's Guy Pearce as a shifty salesman whose life changes when he has his fortune read and things start to come true. Pearce's Jimmy Sparks is definitely a bit of an anti-hero, since a lot of his motive and the way he behaves seems questionable, but it's also a riveting character. (It doesn't hurt that the film co-stars a few of my favorite actors including J.K. Simmons, Rick Gonzalez and William Fichtner.) While the movie is sometimes a bit slow and takes some time to hit its stride, it has this really cool vibe, very atmospheric and moody, a bit like next week's The Lookout, the directorial debut by Scott Frank which is likely to be compared to Memento. Unfortunately, it's also opening in one of the busiest weekends of the winter/spring season against somewhat strong choices, so it might be one of those sleeper films that people discover years after its theatrical release. (Maybe people will check it out after next year's Marvel film Iron Man, which was written by First Snow's writing duo.)

First Snow opens in New York and Santa Monica this weekend with an expansion into other cities sometime in the next month.

THE HILLS HAVE EYES 2 (Fox Atomic)
Starring Jessica Stroup, Reshad Strik, Michael McMillian, Daniella Alonso, Lee Thompson Young, Ben Crowley, Eric Edelstein, Michael Bailey Smith, David Reynolds, Derek Mears, Tyrell Kemlo, Javier Nieto, Gáspár Szabó, Jeff Kober, Jay Acovone, Archie Kao, Philip Pavel
Directed by Martin Weisz (60 Seconds, Grimm Love); Written by Wes Craven, Jonathan Craven (Wes Craven Presents Mind Ripper)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: "The lucky ones die fast."
Plot Summary: A group of National Guard recruits training in the desert come face-to-face with the murderous mutants who plagued tourists in The Hills Have Eyes.
Of Note: Craven produces the sequel to the remake of his 1977 B-horror film
INTERVIEW (with Wes Craven)
Analysis: Last year, the horror remake trend started to hit its stride with one of the new generation of horror directors, that being French filmmaker Alexander Aja (High Tension), taking on Craven's 1977 splatter horror film The Hills Have Eyes. The remake was gory and scary enough that male horror fans ate it up, bringing in almost $16 million its opening weekend and just under $42 million total. Apparently, it did very well on DVD as well, so it made sense to continue the story of killer mutants living in the Nevada desert, this time involving an even stronger premise involving rookie soldiers having to fend off the killer mutants living in the hills, a similar approach used by James Cameron in his hit sequel Aliens. This sequel has far more direct involvement from Craven, who wrote the script with his son Jonathan, which is another positive factor in the sequel, though Craven's involvement in the film hasn't been pushed very heavily by Fox's fledgling horror/genre imprint Fox Atomic.

It's not usually a problem for a horror movie to feature a cast of complete unknowns, but this one doesn't even have the surviving cast from the original remake, nor did filmmaker Alexander Aja return to direct the sequel, something that might put off the diehard horror fans he gained with his first movie High Tension. Instead, Wes Craven hired German music video director Martin Weisz, whose work isn't nearly as well known or respected among horror circles, to take the reins.

One could safely assume that everyone who went to see the original remake in theatres will be back for the sequel, as will those who first discovered it on DVD, except that moviegoers have a lot more choices this weekend than they did the weekend in which The Hills Have Eyes opened. While the original remake had almost no direct competition by opening against Failure to Launch and Disney's The Shaggy Dog, the sequel has to contend with movies like Shooter, TMNT and even potentially Pride taking away some of its business. Some might feel that this sequel might be just as good, if it's seen on DVD in a few months. This is one of the reasons why with very few exceptions (the Saw franchise being one), horror sequels rarely fare as well as the original. This can be seen most recently with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, the prequel to the 2003 horror remake that jump-started the wave of horror remakes that surely helped to get The Hills Have Eyes remake greenlit.

The Hills Have Eyes 2 is only the second major release from Fox Atomic after the December bomb Turistas, and though they inherited the sequel from Fox Searchlight, they're not quite up to that level in terms of marketing and promotion just yet, so there's a chance that many people won't know about the sequel. Fox Atomic's biggest selling point, at least in their online campaign, seems to be that the sequel will have the 28 Weeks Later trailer attached to it, though most people will realize they can see it online as well. On the other hand, the namebrand that comes along with being a sequel might help the movie get more walk-up business, not to mention spillover from the weekend's other movies.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: The sequel to the 2006 remake of Wes Craven's 1977 B-horror film should offer lots of the type of thrills and gore that will appease fans of that movie.
Why Not: Even in the year since the remake came out, there have been far too many schlock slasher horror films that have disappointed, and this weekend, there are far better movies worth seeing.
Projections: $10 to 13 million opening, and around $30 million total.

THE LAST MIMZY (New Line)
Starring Timothy Hutton, Joely Richardson, Rainn Wilson, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rhiannon Leigh Wryn, Chris O'Neil
Directed by Bob Shaye (Book of Love, Producer and founder/co-Chairman of New Line); Written by Bruce Joel Rubin (Ghost, Jacob's Ladder, Frequency), Toby Emmerich (Frequency, president of New Line)
Genre: Adventure, Drama, Family, Fantasy, Sci-Fi
Rated PG
Tagline: "The future is trying to tell us something."
Plot Summary: When Noah Wilder (Chris O'Neil) and his sister Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) discover a box full of toys and start playing with them, their teacher (Rainn Wilson) notices them getting smarter to the point of a genius level of intelligence. Emma claims that her toy rabbit "Mimzy" is teaching her things, but when a citywide blackout is traced back to their house, the people around the kids start realizing that there's something incredible happening around them centered on these toys.
Of Note: Lewis Padgett's 1943 short story "Mimsy Were the Borogoves" is adapted by the co-chairman/CEO and president of New Line.

Analysis: Okay, putting aside the fact that this is quite literally a studio movie created by the heads of New Line and that having execs so heavily involved in writing and directing this movie may mean that the company is putting more time and money into promoting the film than they might have otherwise, this looks like perfectly respectable family film with a sci-fi premise that seems more cerebral than the average family film.

Believe it or not, this is New Line founder Bob Shaye's first film as a director in 17 years, and he pulled together a decent cast of actors, even if none of them have much pull at getting people into theatres. Timothy Hutton, who has been around since the '80s when he starred in movies like Taps and The Falcon and the Snowman, plays the father of the kids, while his wife is played by Joely Richardson of the FX drama "Nip/Tuck." The only thing that Hutton has been seen in recently was the failed NBC TV drama "Kidnapped." Rainn Wilson, Noah's teacher, is better known for playing Dwight Schrute on NBC's hit sitcom "The Office" but his presence didn't do much to save Ivan Reitman's My Super Ex-Girlfriend from being one of last summer's biggest flops. The movie also stars Michael Clarke Duncan, who has been following Cuba Gooding Jr's career path by taking lots of weak roles in bad movies after being nominated for an Oscar in Frank Darabont's The Green Mile. Duncan's better known for his tough guy roles in genre films like Daredevil, Sin City and Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes.

Non-Disney live action family films haven't fared too well at the box office in recent years and New Line has had especially bad luck getting audiences into theatres to see their family films, as seen by two flops in Hoot and How to Eat Fried Worms, both based on popular books. The good news for Shaye is that this is the first family film since Disney's Bridge to Terabithia, a movie that did far better than anyone could have imagined both opening weekend and overall. The Last Mimzy certainly has the look and feel of a Walden Media film, maybe since it's based on a piece of children's fiction, but it also is somewhat reminiscent of movies from the '80s like Steven Spielberg's unstoppable blockbuster E.T. the Extraterrestrial or Ron Howard's Cocoon.

Either way, The Last Mimzy is in good shape to snatch up some of the same audience of parents and kids looking for a fantasy-adventure follow-up to Terabithia, though it may have trouble tempting them away from the flashier action-packed animated TMNT despite opening almost as wide. Since it was reported a few weeks ago that the movie wasn't tracking well i.e. not many people knew about it, New Line wisely ran sneak previews of the movie over the past two weekends. Apparently, they have been well-attended and well-received, so word-of-mouth might help get kids and their parents into theatres, not to mention it being a decent second choice to TMNT.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: This looks like an interesting premise for a family sci-fi adventure that harks back to films like E.T. and Cocoon.
Why Not: Boy, is that the worst title for a movie or what? Will anyone care to find out what a "Mimzy" is?
Projections: $10 to 13 million opening weekend and $36 million total.

PRIDE (Lionsgate)
Starring Terrence Howard, Bernie Mac, Tom Arnold, Regine Nehy, Kevin Phillips
Directed by Sunu Gonera (debut); Written by Mike Gozzard and K. Michael Smith (debut)
Genre: Drama, Sports
Rated PG
Tagline: "There are no shortcuts to a dream."
Plot Summary: The academic career of former swim champ Jim Ellis (Terrence Howard) comes to an end due to racial biases of the '60s, but ten years later, he decides to mentor a group of boys from the toughest area of Philly into becoming a championship swim team.
Of Note: Oscar-nominated actor Terrence Howard dons the swim trunks for an inspirational sports drama.

Analysis: It's not often that you get a new movie written and directed by first-timers getting a wide release, let alone starring an Oscar-nominated actor, but that's the case with Pride (formerly PDR), a new sports drama from Lionsgate that will try to inspire moviegoers with the story of a swim coach from the inner city of Philadelphia, who got kids out of trouble by getting them to compete. There's a strong blueprint for this kind of sports movie that's been used many times before, most recently in movies like Coach Carter and Glory Road, though rather than being about basketball, Pride takes place in the world of competitive swimming.

Pride's biggest selling point will definitely be its two stars Terrence Howard and Bernie Mac. After many years as as unknown supporting player, Howard's career high point was receiving an Oscar nomination for his starring role in Craig Brewer's Hustle & Flow after a busy year with the actor appearing in Paul Haggis' Oscar-winning Crash, John Singleton's Four Brothers and with rapper 50 Cent in Get Rich or Die Tryin'. Last year, Howard appeared in the often-delayed Outkast period musical Idlewild, but it barely made in total what 50 Cent's movie made opening weekend. Neither movie did much to show that Howard was a draw at the box office. On the other hand, Pride is also Bernie Mac's first movie since his 2005 Easter hit Guess Who with Ashton Kutcher, though it was an uncharacteristic success, since Mac tends to play secondary, comic relief roles, as he did in Ocean's 11 and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. Mac is likely to be a bigger draw to African-American audiences because of his success as a TV and film star, even if the one movie he had to hold up on his own was the failed sports movie Mr. 3000. Like Adam Sandler, Bernie Mac isn't really known for his dramatic chops and though he does offer a good amount of the film's comic relief, his fans might not even realize he's in the movie, since his part takes a backseat to that of Howard.

Lionsgate's success with films targeted towards African-American audiences has been sporadic. On the one hand, they have the Tyler Perry movies that, up until Daddy's Little Girls, have been insanely successful, plus they also distributed Terrence Howard's Oscar-winning Crash. On the flipside, they have movies like Akeelah and the Bee, a movie that received rave reviews but failed to find much of an audience since it was about spelling bees, not exactly something of interest to mass audiences.(The same can be said about the period film Roll Bounce, which tried to sell African-American audiences on roller-disco.) Pride might have a similar problem selling a movie about swimming, since it's not nearly as popular a sport as baseball, basketball or football, particularly among African-American audiences (at least not the ones I know). Even people who actually do swim might not have very much interest in a movie about it with the one exception being in the Philly area where the story of Jim Ellis and the PDR will be known among the residents who'll likely to flock to see it much like those in the Maryland region did when Annapolis was released last year.

Pride was one of the few movies advertised during the Super Bowl, this year, but the commercial doesn't have the immediacy as something like Wild Hogs, and it's not as likely to grab the interest of that event's male audience, especially with a movie like Shooter opening the same weekend. Although this is a quality film, it's very likely to get lost in the shuffle against so many stronger films, while loosing some of its audience to TMNT, Shooter and Reign Over Me.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: It's an inspirational story starring one of the top African-American actors in recent years with the exception of maybe Don Cheadle, who stars in Reign Over Me this weekend.
Why Not: Who on earth thought it would be a good idea to make a movie about swimming?
Projections: $5 to 7 million opening weekend; $18 million total.

REIGN OVER ME (Sony)
Starring Adam Sandler, Don Cheadle, Jada Pinkett Smith, Liv Tyler, Saffron Burrows, Donald Sutherland, Mike Binder
Written and directed by Mike Binder (The Upside of Anger, Crossing the Bridge, Indian Summer, Blankman)
Genre: Drama
Rated R
Tagline: "Let in the unexpected."
Plot Summary: Charlie Fineman (Adam Sandler) lost his family in the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and he hasn't been the same since. When he runs into his old college roommate Alan Johnson (Don Cheadle), they try to rekindle their friendship as Alan tries to help Charlie get over his all-consuming grief.
Of Note: Mike Binder, the man behind 2005's The Upside of Anger, returns with a dramedy that pairs Adam Sandler with Don Cheadle.
REVIEW

Analysis: For the third time in his career, Adam Sandler has set aside his inclination towards low-brow humor in order to star in a more serious film, this one teaming him with filmmaker Mike Binder (The Upside of Anger) and Oscar-nominated actor Don Cheadle. Obviously, this is another attempt by Sandler to be taken seriously while trying to expand beyond his normal audience of 15 to 20 something males, his last attempt to do this being James L. Brooks' bilingual dramedy Spanglish. That holiday release was only slightly more successful than Sandler's biggest comedy flop Littly Nicky, while his previous foray into serious acting with P.T. Anderson's Punch-Drunk Love made barely half as much as either of those, maybe because it was just too weird. Those missteps aside, Sandler is still considered one of the top box office stars with seven movies under his belt that grossed over $120 million, the most recent one being the high-concept comedy Click which opened last June. Reign Over Me isn't that risky a move at this point in Sandler's career, because it's likely to have a smaller budget than a typical Sandler movie and doesn't have to make that much money to be profitable. Working with Mike Binder (creator of HBO's "The Mind of the Married Man" and an actor in his own right) might give a bit more credibility to Sandler as a dramatic actor, when taking into consideration the critically lauded performance that Binder got out of Joan Allen for his last dramedy The Upside of Anger. Sandler's savant-like character is somewhat reminiscent of Dustin Hoffman's role in Rain Man, for which he received an Oscar nomination.

If Sandler weren't enough to get people interested, Reign Over Me co-stars Don Cheadle, who first got attention in Paul Thomas Anderson's Boogie Nights and has had a diverse career that's taken him from blockbusters like Ocean's 11 and Twelve to lower-budget indies before being nominated for an Oscar for his role in Hotel Rwanda and as part of the ensemble cast of the Oscar-winning Crash. Cheadle will bring even more credibility to the film in terms of quality, and the pairing of the two very different actors should be an interesting experiment for moviegoers. Although Jada Pinkett Smith can be seen in the commercials and trailer for the movie as Cheadle's wife, most people probably won't realize that the movie also stars the likes of Donald Sutherland and Liv Tyler.

Being a bit more weighted towards the dramatic side of things than Binder's last few movies, Reign Over Me is likely to have more of a select audience, especially since some people may be uncomfortable with a movie that deals with 9/11 survivors, as was the case with Paul Greengrass' United 93 last year. A few months later, Oliver Stone's World Trade Center fared much better thanks to its added star power, which should also help Reign Over Me. In recent months, we've seen other comic superstars like Will Ferrell and Jim Carrey have weaker openings than their norm with attempts at serious fare like Stranger than Fiction and The Number 23, and it's pretty apparent that fans of comedians like Sandler like them when they're doing what they do best, rather than trying something different. The movie has a similar look and feel to Will Smith's The Pursuit of Happyness, which was a huge hit for Sony despite being an unconventional role for the actor, although Reign Over Me doesn't have nearly as much advance buzz.

Binder's film will offer moviegoers something a bit more dialogue and character driven than the other movies, and due to the more serious nature of the film, it's likely to be of interest more to older adults and women. Trying to play it safe, Sony is giving Reign Over Me a far more moderate release than either Pursuit or Spanglish, opening it in less than 2,000 theatres. Even with the presence of Sandler, it may be hard for this movie to get much business away from the stronger movies that offer far less weighty entertainment over the weekend.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: The odd pairing of Adam Sandler and Don Cheadle should make this an interesting dramatic film.
Why Not: It might be hard for moviegoers to take Sandler seriously even when playing a 9/11 survivor, and this role may be too different from what his fans are used to.
Projections: $7 to 9 million opening weekend and $25 million total.

SHOOTER (Paramount)
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Michael Peña, Danny Glover, Kate Mara, Elias Koteas, Rhona Mitra, Rade Sherbedgia, Ned Beatty
Directed by Antoine Fuqua (Training Day, Tears of the Sun, King Arthur); Written by Jonathan Lemkin (The Devil's Advocate, Lethal Weapon 4, Red Planet)
Genre: Action, Thriller
Rated R
Tagline: "Yesterday was about honor. Today is about justice."
Plot Summary: The FBI calls upon former Marines sharpshooter Bob Lee Swagger (Mark Wahlberg) to help them prevent an assassination attempt on the President's life, but as Swagger investigates how something like that might be pulled off, he realizes that he's been set-up as a fall-guy and framed for the shooting of an important diplomat.
Of Note: Antoine Fuqua and Mark Wahlberg bring Stephen Hunter's character Bob Lee Swagger to life in this tense action thriller based on the novel "Point of Impact."
REVIEW (Coming Soon!)

Analysis: There's little doubt that Mark Wahlberg is on a bit of a roll right now. After a couple of flops like the comedy Rock Star and Jonathan Demme's remake The Truth About Charlie, Wahlberg has finally found a niche for himself by appearing in a number of successful remakes, first the ensemble action flick The Italian Job in 2003, followed by John Singleton's surprise hit Four Brothers (loosely based on a Western), and then playing a very popular character in Martin Scorsese's The Departed, which took Wahlberg all the way to the Oscars.(Update: I kind of forgot Wahlberg's football movie Invincible, which also did very well late last summer.) The success of those last two films has increased Wahlberg's popularity and visibility among a wide variety of male moviegoers, confirming him as a box office draw, which may have been hard to prove with earlier summer blockbusters like Planet of the Apes (which had Tim Burton) and The Perfect Storm (which starred George Clooney). Wahlberg's charmed career has also seen him have a big hit on television as the executive producer of the HBO hit comedy "Entourage," loosely based on aspects of his own career.

Wahlberg's latest role is that of Bob Lee Swagger, anti-hero of Stephen Hunter's series of novels. Shooter, loosely based on "Point of Impact," teams Wahlberg with director Antoine Fuqua, whose career took an upswing when his police thriller Training Day helped get Denzel Washington an Oscar. Fuqua's films before (The Replacement Killers) and after (King Arthur, Tears of the Sun with Bruce Willis) didn't fare nearly as well, though he is becoming a respected director for his unconventional choices in action films. The supporting cast that Fuqua has assembled around Wahlberg is quite impressive, including Michale Peña from Crash and World Trade Center, Danny Glover of the Lethal Weapon movies, the legendary Ned Beatty and Kate Mara, who co-starred in Brokeback Mountain and We Are Marshall. Shooter is clearly Wahlberg's ball game, and he has enough of a fanbase as an action star at this point to carry the film on his own.

The premise of a framed sharpshooter might seem eerily familiar to the five or six people who saw Keenan Ivory Wayans in the 1997 thriller Most Wanted, but Shooter is more of a political action-thriller in the vein of The Bourne Identity, and its trailer and commercials will do a good job selling it to the audience who helped the Matt Damon franchise find so much success. Although movies like The Hills Have Eyes 2 and Pride might try to target some of Shooter's male audience in urban areas, the presence of Mark Wahlberg and his popularity among a wide variety of moviegoers will make this a first choice for many people from 17 to 30, and it's likely to be one of the few films this weekend that has as much of an appeal to women as men.

With that in mind, it's a bit surprising that Paramount is releasing the movie into less than 3,000 theatres, though the demand for a strong action-thriller like this should help Shooter have the highest per-theatre average of the new movies opening this weekend. Since it's likely to have solid word-of-mouth from those who see it, expect decent legs much like Wahlberg's previous Paramount movies, Four Brothers and The Italian Job.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: Mark Wahlberg takes on another great role in a strong action-thriller based on the novel by Stephen Hunter.
Why Not: Okay, maybe it's a bit TOO similar to The Bourne Identity.
Projections: $19 to 21 million opening and $70 million total.

TMNT (Warner Bros.)
Starring the voices of Patrick Stewart, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Chris Evans, Ziyi Zhang, Kevin Smith, Mako, James Arnold Taylor, Mikey Kelley, Mitchell Whitfield, Nolan North
Written and directed by Kevin Munroe ("Freaky Flyers" video game)
Genre: Action, Animated, Family
Rated PG
Tagline: "Raising Shell in 2007"
Plot Summary: After defeating their arch-nemesis Shredder, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles--Leonardo, Michelangelo, Donatello and Raphael--have drifted apart, but their mentor Master Splinter needs to pull them together to face a new threat to humanity, an army of monsters being used to take over the world.
Of Note: The comic book characters created by Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman are revived via a computer-animated version of the character that hopes to appeal to kids and older males.
Analysis: 23 years ago, a duo of comic book creators known as Eastman and Laird created a black and white independent comic featuring four anthropomorphic reptiles that had super powers and martial arts skills. At the time, it wasn't really a comic book for kids, created more of a parody of comics like Frank Miller's "Daredevil" and Marvel's mutant books. Instead, it started an enormous boom of self-published black and white books that spawned the current wave of indie comics. In 1987, the characters were turned into an animated series for kids, which was far less dark as they turtles made jokes and ate pizza. It was a huge hit, leading to toys and merchandise as well as a 1990 live action movie that grossed $135 million, leading to a quick sequel a year later and a third chapter two years after that. That 1993 3-quel grossed only half of its predecessor, which didn't make nearly as much as the original, showing that interest in the wise-cracking turtles was quickly waning, maybe due to overexposure. Meanwhile, Laird and Eastman didn't profit much from that wave/trend, since they had sold the rights, though the popularity of the cartoon and movies really weren't a product of the comic books, because they were such different entities.

Three or four years ago, the Turtles received a bit of a revival both in comics and with a new animated TV series on FOX, so it made sense that a new movie would happen This time, instead of having a live action movie with men in costumes, Warner Bros decided to embrace the current wave of 3-D computer animation bringing on video game designer Kevin Munroe and the animators of Imagi Entertainment to create a movie that might appeal to older Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans as well as younger kids discovering them for the first time. Apparently, Munroe's version of the characters will be more like the comic books and the recent cartoon, which is far more serious than the kids' property that became the model for trends like "The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers" (which took over after the demise of the TMNT trend).

Voice casts for animated movies rarely mean very much in terms of bringing people into theatres (except when they're mentioned in the ads, which isn't the case here), though TMNT has a much better cast than the '90s movies with former vampire slayer Sarah Michelle Gellar (who starred in Warner Bros.' hit Scooby Doo series) and Fantastic Four's Human Torch, Chris Evans, providing the voices for the Turtles' human friends April O'Neill and Casey Jones. Patrick Stewart of Star Trek and X-Men fame voices the evil Max Winters while Oscar-nominated Chinese actress Zhang Ziyi (House of Flying Daggers, Memoirs of a Geisha) provides the voice of his assassin Karai. Even fanboy favorite Kevin Smith gets in on the act, as does The Matrix's Laurence Fishburne, who acts as the narrator. If Warner Bros. actually starts advertising these voice roles, maybe it'll mean something to the movie's success, even if that aspect didn't really do much to help their 2006 animated flop The Ant Bully, which had the likes of Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts and Nicolas Cage voicing key roles.

The main thing working for TMNT is that it will try to capitalize on the nostalgia factor of the characters much like the upcoming summer blockbuster Transformers, and Imagi Entertainment, the animation company behind TMNT, is already at work on feature films based on other nostalgic favorites like Astro Boy and Gatchaman (AKA "Battle of the Planets"). The funny thing is that guys that were 3 to 8 when the first couple movies came out in 1990 ­ 1993 are now in their 20's and oddly, some of them still have a soft place in their heart for the turtles, so if you see a bunch of single guys in theatres intermingling with the parents and their kids, you'll know why.

While it's likely that the fans of the characters will insure it a decent opening, it may lose some of its younger audience to New Line's The Last Mimzy while having to compete for older guys with movies like Mark Wahlberg's Shooter. It also has to fare with the fact that many people might already see the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in the same vein as trends like "Pokemon" where were hugely profitable ventures at one point, but then peaked due to oversaturation, leading to sequels which no one wanted to see. Maybe it's been long enough since the failed threequel that people will be ready to embrace the characters once again. Either way, it might be tough for TMNT to be more than a "one-week wonder", especially with the latest Disney animated film coming out hot on its heels.

One definite thing in the plus side for TMNT is that Warner Bros. is attaching the trailer for their upcoming summer blockbuster Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which could get a few more Potter fanboys and girls into theatres this weekend.

COMPARISONS

Why I Should See It: They're teenage and mutants and ninjas and turtles… what a combination! Plus they're not going to be nearly as silly as their '90s counterparts.
Why Not: Then again, a lot of people might feel that they're way too '90s to be taken seriously.
Projections: $20 to 23 million opening weekend and roughly $60 million total.

Copyright 2007 Edward Douglas


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