Movie Box Review

Hollywood Hearts this weekend.

OPENINGS:   It turned out that THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony) was indeed slightly more frontloaded than SAFE HOUSE (Universal), but not by enough to rob it of 1st place.  Vow's massive $41.7M haul was higher than any opening weekend for a Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock or Katherine Heigl vehicle--ever.  (Cut to the board room at Screen Gems, where they're trying to figure out just how to do a Vow 2.)  Sony has another reason to be thrilled, too--they have Channing Tatum's 21 Jump Street opening next month.  Normally, one would say that Vow might get hurt by the similarly-aimed This Means War next weekend, but War has such bad buzz that it may not be much of a threat.  Meanwhile, Safe House's $39.3M is the 2d highest opening of Denzel Washington's career, and since its genre hits an international sweet spot, there's nothing but upside (and another sequel that seemingly can't happen, although never discount the inspiration--and desperation--of Hollywood execs).  Also celebrating today:  Ryan Reynolds, whose career was heading for life support after 2011's flops; the Safe House tally probably isn't much due to him, but in Hollywood, if you're in a hit, it's your hit.

Over in the 2d tier, the one genuinely frontloaded movie of the weekend was STAR WARS EPISODE I:  THE PHANTOM MENACE 3D (20th), as audiences, depending on their ages, either remembered or discovered just how bad it was.  (Even though Phantom Menace was the only opening to go down on Saturday, Fox is predicting it to have Sunday's lowest drop--so look for that $23M weekend number to be reduced tomorrow.)  JOURNEY 2:  THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (Warners), on the other hand, had a wonderfully robust 94% hike on Saturday, its $27.6M weekend total almost 25% higher than the $21M opening for the first Journey picture.  With the semi-arty The Secret World of Arrietty as the only family movie opening for Presidents Day weekend, Journey should hold up pretty well.

HOLDOVERS:  As noted yesterday, last Sunday's depressed Super Bowl Sunday grosses make this weekend's comparisons look artificially strong.  In a normal weekend, CHRONICLE (20th), THE WOMAN IN BLACK (CBS) and BIG MIRACLE (Universal) would all be down over 50%, but only Woman (just barely) crossed that line this weekend.  Those 3, along with THE GREY (Open Road), RED TAILS (20th) and UNDERWORLD AWAKENING (Screen Gems/Sony) are all headed for $50-65M totals.

OSCAR NOMINEES:  Generally good holds for the pictures in general release, as THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight), THE ARTIST (Weinstein) and HUGO (Paramount) all lost 20-30% of their theatres and went down under 25%.  The only big hit was for EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Warners), which shed almost half its theatres and plummeted 60%.  A couple of nominees in smaller categories had modest expansions:  A SEPARATION (Sony Classics) added 5 theatres for a total of 45 and went up a couple of percentage points, and PINA (IFC) almost doubled its theatres to 67 and had a nice 35% bump.  The bare 22% increase for W.E. (Weinstein), though, meant a big reduction in per-screen as it went from 4 to 17 theatres. IN DARKNESS (Sony Classics) had an OK start with a $9700 at 3, and surprise Best Animated Film nominee CHICO & RITA (GK) got a lot of curious eyeballs with a $27K opening in 1 NY theatre.j

LIMITED RELEASE:  Not much going on, apart from the Oscar nominees above.  RAMPART (Millenium) had a decent start with a $13K average in 5 theatres, and RETURN (Dada), a very tiny movie with excellent performances by Linda Cardellini as a returning Iraq vet and Michael Shannon (for once playing a normal human being) as her husband, had a $3500 average at 2. 

In these heady moments after the NY Giants' triumphant victory over the New England Patriots (I'd say "Sorry, New England fans," but I wouldn't mean it), let's take a moment to look at the other major event of the evening:  the ads for upcoming movies.  (Mitch Metcalf will offer a separate take on NBC's use of its promo time during the broadcast, which somewhat surprisingly wasn't as Smash-intensive as one might have expected.)

The average cost of a 30-second ad on the Super Bowl is $3.5M, so this isn't where you'll see promotion for the latest Sundance sensation.  With just a couple of exceptions, the ads were almost all for big-budget action extravaganzas, split between movies opening in the next few weeks and summer tentpoles looking to generate some buzz.

They were also, without any exception at all, unimpressive--basically lazy cut-down versions of trailers that have already been running for weeks if not months.  

Actually, the most interesting movie-ish ads of the night were the ones that weren't for movies at all, but which used motifs and stars from Hollywood.  These included an Audi ad inspired by Twilight and its young vampires (are bright headlights really such a selling point that it was worth $3.5M to plug them?), a follow-up to last year's VW ad that featured Star Wars characters--including a junior Darth Vader--in an outer-space caintina, a Hyundai piece in which all the employees sang the theme from Rocky (way to be topical, Hyundai!), the much-hyped Honda ad that riffed off Ferris Bueller's Day Off (but disappointingly featured only Matthew Broderick from the original cast).  Most notable of all was probably an ad for Dodge that didn't relate back to any specific movie, but which by using Clint Eastwood as its gnarled, spirit-of-America spokesman seemed like Hollywood history personified.  (It also resembled a Presidential campaign spot so closely that you half-expected it to end with "My name is Clint Eastwood and I approved this ad.")

Anyway, here were the movie spots themselves.  Note that this list covers the Super Bowl telecast itself (including the pre-kickoff half hour) and not the pre- or post- shows.  Lionsgate, for one, saved a few bucks by airing its Hunger Games ad during the pre-show.  For whatever reason, the movie commercials were mostly crammed into the game's 2d quarter.

SAFE HOUSE (Universal) - 30 seconds pre-kickoff:  One of the many trailer cut-downs, for a movie opening next Friday.  Mostly a quick-cut montage of things blowing up, interspersed with Denzel Washington looking intense and Ryan Reynolds looking clueless.  (As it happens, that's a fairly accurate summary of the movie.)

THE DICTATOR (Paramount) - 30 seconds pre-kickoff:  This spot for the Sacha Baron Cohen comedy opening in May at least put in a little effort by including an NBC gag (albeit a lame one).  After that, it recycled what appear to be the movie's 2 big jokes:  Megan Fox playing herself for a Kardashian gag (ha ha, they're hairier than she is) and the track race where Cohen's dictator shoots all his competitors.

BATTLESHIP (Universal) - 60 seconds 2d Quarter:  Universal spent $7M on this spot to tell us 2 things:  whatever the title says, Battleship is really Transformers 4, and please forget about the "battleship" part.  There were far more shots of round fiery alien things (which seem to have borrowed Mickey Rourke's laser whip from Iron Man 2), jet planes, and buildings blowing up than there were shot of the title boat.  Also, Liam Neeson is stalwart and Taylor Kitsch is heroic, which could conveniently be compared to--

JOHN CARTER (Disney) - 30 seconds 2d Quarter:  Another Kitsch vehicle (in this one he's shirtless), and the worst ad of the evening, thanks to an amateurish looking visual concept that had the footage from the movie receding until it was tiny and fading into a mosaic of the movie's title, made up of even tinier footage.  It made the Disney marketing department look like they'd all just gotten their first iPad app.  The footage itself continues to make the incredibly expensive Carter, which opens in just a month, seem like Dances With Wolves set on a planet full of Jar-Jar Binks lookalikes. 

THE LORAX (Universal) - 30 seconds 2d Quarter:  The oddest choice for a Super Bowl ad (one has to wonder whether the preponderance of Universal titles indicates a cut rate for NBC's home studio), this animated Dr. Seuss comedy opens next month.  The promo itself was mostly footage from the trailer, and continues to push hard on the Danny DeVito "That's a woman?!?" line. 

STAR WARS EPISODE 1:  THE PHANTOM MENANCE (20th/Lucasfilm): Thinking of Jar-Jar Binks... in case you didn't know, this ad told you it's back this Friday, and in 3D.  Jake Lloyd fans, order your tickets now.  

THE AVENGERS (Paramount/Disney) - 30 seconds 2d Quarter (the 2-minute warning slot):  This is the kickoff movie to the summer movie season, and it used its 30 seconds unimaginatively but effectively.  The whole spot was basically summed up in its final shot, which circled around for a roll-call of all the familiar characters who will appear in the movie:  Iron Man, Captain America, The Hulk, Thor, Scarlett Johansson as whoever she played in Iron Man 2, etc.

G.I. JOE - RETALIATION (Paramount) - 30 seconds 2d Quarter:  Um, where exactly was G.I. Joe in this?  We saw plenty of The Rock, and the spot made clear that Bruce Willis (playing Joe Sr) is in the house, but there wasn't a clear shot of Channing Tatum in the whole thing.  The result just looked like a generic boom-boom movie (maybe The Expendables 2?), although it did try to establish how cool it's going to be by citing Jay Z.  The movie doesn't open until late June, and should use the time to work on its message.

ACT OF VALOR (Relativity) - 30 seconds 4th Quarter:  The gimmick of this picture is that the cast is made up of actual Navy Seals who are on active duty (don't they have other things to do?), and Relativity accomplished what was no doubt its goal:  show things blowing up and make it look like this relatively low-budgeted flick is as filled with high-velocity action as the epics surrounding it.  Apart from that, the movie remains a mystery.

That was it:  nothing from the upcoming Sony (Men In Black 3, The Amazing Spider-Man), Fox (Prometheus, Abraham Lincoln:  Vampire Hunter) or Warners (The Dark Knight Rises) blockbusters, those studios having decided that their millions could be better spent when their movies are closer to launch. 

By the way, the best ad of the night in any genre?  The Doritos bit with the homicidal but very clever dog. 

To commemorate Green Lantern's arrival, 10 superhero movies that couldn't fly:

10. WATCHMAN (2009):  Not a total disaster, but Zack Snyder's failed epic earns its place by providing definitive proof that monk-like faithfulness in adapting a comic to the screen is doomed to failure:  endlessly long (more than 3 hours on DVD!), impenetrably plotted, and neither viscerally nor intellectually exciting.

 

9.   THE GREEN HORNET (2011): Seth Rogen as an idiot fratboy schooled by Asian sidekick Kato into becoming an idiot superhero.  The last movie on earth Rogen should have made, and so badly directed it seemed like Michel Gondry's name in the credits had to be a typo.

8.   DAREDEVIL (2003):  Ben Affleck as a blind lawyer who moonlights as a crimefighter.  Luckily for Affleck, he can direct.  (There are people who claim that Mark Steven Johnson's  "Director's Cut" available on DVD is actually good, but it's just slightly less bad.  Johnson, by the way, has a special place in Bad Superhero Movie history since he also directed Ghost Rider, which just narrowly missed this list.)

7.   CATWOMAN (2004):  Halle Berry won the Oscar for Monster's Ball and jumped into this; her career never really recovered.  Sharon Stone, as a supervillainess cosmetics executive, set new standards for campiness.

6.   MY SUPER EX-GIRLFRIEND (2006):  The only movie here not based on a preexisting comic:  Ivan Reitman's supposed comedy about a bitchy crimefighter embarrassed Uma Thurman, Luke Wilson, Anna Faris, and self-respecting superwomen everywhere.

5.   BATMAN AND ROBIN (1997):  Joel Schumacher's garish exercise in superhero fabulousness killed off the franchise for 8 years (Christopher Nolan practically had to perform an exorcism to bring it back), and almost took George Clooney down with it.  And let's not forget Alicia Silverstone as Batgirl.

4.    THE PHANTOM (1996):  If Billy Zane's turn as a masked avenger is released in theaters and no one goes to see it, does it make a sound?

 

3.   .THE SPIRIT (2008):  Frank Miller's adaptation of the Will Eisner comic was an utter mess of stylized visuals, arch dialogue and clunky action.  With Samuel L. Jackson as the Nazi villain (his character needed to catch up on world history).

2.   THE SHADOW (1994):  Would you believe... Alec Baldwin as a superhero?  No one else did, either.

1.   SUPERMAN IV:  THE QUEST FOR PEACE (1987):  A sad end to the franchise that began the whole genre 9 years earlier, with Christopher Reeve (who also took a story credit) battling dirt-cheap special effects when he wasn't making windy speeches about World Peace.  The franchise hasn't yet managed to come back:  Bryan Singer's attempted reboot with Superman Returns was a pompous bore, and next year The Man of Steel will try once again... directed, as we come full circle, by Zack Snyder.