Greetings and welcome back to the Weekend Warrior, your weekly guide to the weekend’s new movies. Tune in every Tuesday (or in this case Wednesday) for the latest look at the upcoming weekend, and then check back on Thursday night for final projections based on actual theatre counts. It’s the end of April which is usually a dumping ground for the last of the studio’s spring dogs, though every once in a while you get a surprise hit, which may be why it’s interesting to see two half-way decent comedies being released, both with strong comedy duos. Universal releases their third comedy of the month with Tina Fey and long-time Amy Poehler facing off in Baby Mama, a comedic look at surrogate motherhood that should cater to a similar female audience as Fey’s debut Mean Girls, which opened on the same weekend four years ago. Fey is even more popular now than she was back then thanks to the success of her show “30 Rock” but the subject matter will certainly sway the audiences older and more female. Chances are that guys from 15 to 25 will be more interested in Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay (New Line), the sequel to the R-rated stoner comedy that bombed in theaters but found a cult audience on DVD and cable. This sequel is hoping to capitalize on that fanbase as well as to offer something for those not interested in pregnancy humor, but working against it is that it’s one of the final releases by a studio on its last legs against a comedy with stronger marketing and better-known stars. The real question is how badly will either or both of these be hurt by the second weekend of Universal’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall which should be able to generate some strong word-of-mouth from its opening weekend. (UPDATE: It looks like it’s going to be an even tougher race than we first predicted with Baby Mama getting fewer theaters than projected and H&K getting more. There’s a good chance that the latter will win Friday but by its nature, it will be more front-loaded than the comedy geared towards women and the date crowd, which should pick up on Saturday to overtake and win the weekend.) Countering the strong comedies, the Fox thriller Deception, starring Ewan McGregor and Hugh Jackman, is clearly a movie being dumped after numerous title changes, and it probably will make even less of a mark than Al Pacino’s 88 Minutes did last week despite opening in a similar number of theaters. This week’s Chosen One is the French thriller from Claude LeLouch’s Roman de Gare (Samuel Goldwyn), which you can read about here. This Week’s Predictions – 1. Baby Mama (Universal) – $15.5 million N/A (+.1 million) 2. Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo (New Line) $14.7 million N/A (+1.9 million) 3. Forgetting Sarah Marshall (Universal) – $11.2 million -37% (+.2 million) 4. The Forbidden Kingdom (Lionsgate/The Weinstein Co.) – $10.8 million -50% +.1 million) 5. Deception (20th Century Fox) $4.6 million N/A (same) 6. Prom Night (Sony/Screen Gems) – $4.2 million -53% (+.2 million) 7. Nim’s Island (Fox Walden) – $3.6 million 36% (same) 8. 88 Minutes (Sony/Tristar) – $3.3 million 52% (same) 9. 21 (Sony) – $3.2 million 42% (+.1 million) 10. Dr. Seuss’ Horton Hears a Who (20th Century Fox) – $2.1 million -40% (same) This year will definitely seem less of a dump weekend than last year where three new movies opened in wide release and yet, DreamWorks’ Disturbia sailed over the top with its third weekend at #1 and another $9 million. Opening in second place, David Goyer’s The Invisible (Hollywood Pictures) just narrowly defeated the long-delayed sci-fi flick Next (Paramount) starring Nicolas Cage and Julianne Moore, but both ended up with less than $8 million their opening weekends. Steve Austin and Vinnie Jones faced-off in the Lionsgate action-thriller The Condemned, which grossed just $3.8 million in 2,310 theaters opening in ninth place. The Top 10 grossed $56.9 million and like last weekend, this week’s offering should allow the Top 10 to come out ahead this year compared to last.
Next week, the month of May and the start of summer kicks off with (takes enormous breath) IRON MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh, and also Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan stars in the romantic comedy Made of Honor. Ho hum.
