Weekend Box Office (10-07-12): Taken 2 scores $50m while Frankenweenie stumbles and Pitch Perfect stays on-note.

As always, check out John Gosling's insanely informative 'preview' of this weekend's new releases HERE.

Taken 2 basically pulled a Bourne this weekend, as a prime example where a well-liked and leggy original film capitalized on said goodwill with a massive opening weekend for the second installment.  Taken 2: The Takening earned a massive $50 million this weekend, which is more than double the $24 million debut of the first Taken over Super Bowl weekend 2009.  If the numbers hold, it will be the third-biggest opening in October, behind only last year's $52 million debut of Paranormal Activity 3 and $50.4 million debut of Jackass 3D.  The trajectory is most similar to the Bourne series and yes the last two 007 films.  The Bourne Identity had a $27 million debut in June 2002, which was followed by a leggy run to $121 million and a sterling performance on DVD as a top-rented title.  Two summers later, The Bourne Supremacy debuted to $52 million and ended its US run with $176 million.  While Casino Royale was technically the 22nd 007 film, it played like a reboot/fresh start to the franchise and it too parlayed a solid $40 million opening into a leggy $167 million run and massive critical and audience approval.  Two years later, Quantum of Solace opened with $67 million and quick-killed its way to a $168 million domestic gross.

Weekend Box Office (09-30-12): Hotel Transylvania scores record September debut while Looper opens strong and Pitch Perfect explodes in semi-limited debut.

As always, for historical trivia and additional context on the week's new release, John Gosling spells it out HERE.

While the whole 'measure the cumulative weekend box office' trend is usually stupid if not dangerous, I must admit that this is indeed an 'everybody wins' weekend.  Sony had the top two films, with one setting a record and the other merely opening in line with realistic expectations.  Hotel Transylvania scored a whopping $43 million this weekend, which at the very least crushes the previous September record, the $36 million debut of Sweet Home Alabama back in 2002.  The Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack, those snazzy Star Wars: The Clone Wars shorts)-helmed pic had a rather large 3,8x weekend multiplier, going from an $11 million Friday to a $19 million Saturday.  In other words, it performed how a non-frontloaded non-sequel animated film is supposed to perform.  Among animated films that aren't sequels/spin-offs and weren't release by either Dreamworks or Disney/Pixar, this opening actually ranks rather high.  If you count the two Dr. Seuess adaptations (The Lorax with $70 million and Horton Hears a Who with $45 million), Hotel Transylvania is the fifth-biggest non-sequel/spin-off animated opening not released by the two animation titans.  If you only count wholly original properties, then it trails only Despicable Me ($56 million) and the first Ice Age ($46 million) and comes in just ahead of Warner Bros' Happy Feet ($41 million). 

John Gosling previews the weekend's new films (09-28-12)

Looper is a new science-fiction feature from Brick director, Rian Johnson and stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Bruce Willis and Emily Blunt. Levitt plays Joseph Simmons, a 'looper' who works for the mob. A very well paid assassin, it's his job to kill people sent back from the future, where time travel has been perfected, but outlawed. 'Loopers' only operate on one rule - never let your target escape. Major problems arise when Simmons comes face to face with his next hit and discovers it is a future version of himself (Played by Willis). In the confusion, the older version escapes, leaving a young Simmons in a race against time to put things right before the mob step in - all the while knowing that if he succeeds, he will become his own murderer.  Johnson began developing Looper once production on his previous film, The Brothers Bloom was completed in 2008, with a view to start work some time in 2009. While things didn't come together as quickly as anticipated, by May 2010 he had script and had cast Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead role, the two having previously worked together on 2005's Brick. Willis would join the picture later that same month, with Blunt added to the cast in October. Shooting on the $60M Looper got underway in January 2011 (after a short delay while Levitt worked on Premium Rush) taking in Louisiana and Shanghai among its locations.

Weekend Box Office (06/17/12): Rock of Ages and That's My Boy tank while Madagascar 3 remains strong and Prometheus plummets.

I try to remain somewhat positive about box office, if only to counter the relentless 'It's a bomb!' or 'Big Star FAILS!' punditry that makes up much of the box office pundit world.  But there is little good news to report about this weekend's two big releases.  The top new release was Warner Bros' broadway adaptation Rock of Ages.  The 80s rock homage pulled in just $15 million.  Now to be fair, while the film's opening is far below the $27 million debut of Adam Shankman's last musical, Hairspray in July 2007 as well as the $27 million debut of Mamma Mia! four summers ago, it's actually the sixth-biggest debut for a modern musical, which shows how rare they are even in a post-Moulin Rouge era (Moulin Rouge opened with $13 million eleven years ago, by the way).  It's a bigger opening that Rent ($10 million), Dreamgirls ($14 million on under 900 screens), Burlesque ($11 million), and Sweeney Todd ($9.3 million on 1,249 screens).

A comeback to where? Even at her peak, Lindsay Lohan was not yet a 'movie star' or a box office draw. So don't expect her to become one now.

Come what may, last weekend's Saturday Night Live was memorable if only for the uncommonly creative "Real Housewives of Disney" sketch (embedded above).  The not good/not bad hosting job by Ms. Lohan is beside the point, as the whole gimmick was intended to show off that Ms. Lohan is apparently sober, sane, and ready to work again.  And if for no other reason than I don't want to see the gossip industry 'win', I am certainly hopeful that Lohan is indeed back on the 'straight and narrow' (or at least to whatever extent allows her to work in the profession of her choice, plenty of actors engage in vices while maintaining artistic careers).  But the meme that Lindsay Lohan is trying to 'reclaim her stardom' is a false one.  Lindsay Lohan, at her career peak, was never a movie star.  She was, like a lot of actors and actresses at a given point in their career, on the brink of true stardom.  She was ready to capitalize on a few years of popular films (Freaky Friday, The Parent Trap) and just coming off of a massive critical and commercial success (Mean Girls) which had her poised to truly break out.  But she was not yet a star.

Weekend Box Office (11/13/11): Immortals surprises with strong #1 debut, Jack and Jill underperforms (for Adam Sandler), Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar opens well.

In what counts as a somewhat pleasant surprise, Reletivity's Immortals topped the box office this weekend with a solid $32 million debut.  Tarsam's highly stylized Greek hack-and-slash action film was sold as a glorified rip-off of 300, which opened with $70 million back in March 2007.  If it needs to be said (because others are indeed whining), expecting Immortals to open as well as the lightening-in-a-bottle 300 (or even Clash of the Titans) makes about as much sense as expecting Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief to open as well as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  The budget for this one was allegedly just $75 million, and much of that was apparently supplemented by foreign pre-sales.  The film also earned another $36 million overseas, giving it a near-$70 million worldwide debut.  Relativity took a major chance on the picture, fully financing it themselves and selling the heck out of it for at least the last six months.  Immortals received a B from Cinemascore and was heavily front-loaded, earning $15 million on Friday night alone for a pretty poor 2.1x weekend multiplier.  So while the domestic run may be brief, the new distributor Relativity needed to prove that they could open an expensive movie to quasi-blockbuster numbers (it's already their second-biggest grossing movie, behind the $79 million haul of Limitless).  On that scale, mission: accomplished.

Weekend Box Office (02/13/11): Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston face off against Justin Bieber over Valentine's Day weekend.

It was a close call this weekend, and the rankings may end up being switched when the finals come in. But for the moment, the Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy Just Go With It has topped the charts with $31 million. Sandler scored previously on this weekend in 1998 with The Wedding Singer (which was a surprise break-out hit with $18 million) and in 2004 with 50 First Dates (which scored $39 million by re-uniting Wedding Singer co-stars Sandler and Drew Barrymore). This is actually one of the very lowest opening weekends for a broad male-driven farce for Mr. Sandler, which shows just what a powerhouse opener he has been since his 1998 mainstream break-out. For thirteen years, Adam Sandler has been the most consistent opener in the business, bar none. His movies may often be terrible, and his fans seem to sniff out and avoid his quality fare as a matter of principle, but Sandler is without question the biggest comedy star of his generation and the biggest movie star to emerge from Saturday Night Live.

When we all were stoked for... The Time Machine?

Another weekend, another three days with nothing worth seeing at the multiplex. Who amongst us is truly psyched to see The Roommate or Sanctum? And who will be lining up at midnight for the first chance to see such winners as Justin Beiber: Never Say Never Again, Gnomeo and Juliet, or The Eagle? Sure, the Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston rom-com Just Go With It will make the usual $40 million opening weekend required by law for broad Sandler farces, but is anyone genuinely anticipating it? Sure, the first two months of the year are occasionally a bit devoid of genuinely exciting releases, but the sheer drought of major studio pictures brings to mind the great dust bowl of 2002.