Weekend Box Office (02/19/12): The Vow and Safe House fend off Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance and This Means War.

It was yet another 'photo-finish' at the box office over this President's Day weekend, but as always, it's the hard numbers rather than the arbitrary rankings that matter.  But since we need to decide which movies to discuss first, in order we shall go!  For the moment, it appears that Safe House will top the charts in its second weekend after barely missing the top slot last weekend.  It grossed $23.9 million over the Fri-Sun weekend and $28 million over the holiday.  Safe House will have grossed $82 million by Monday, a rather huge total for Mr. Washington.  In just eleven days, Safe House is Washington's 7th-biggest grosser, out-grossing such films as Training Day ($76 million), Man On Fire ($77 million), and Unstoppable ($81 million).  Barring a complete collapse, Safe House should become Denzel Washington's fifth $100 million grosser over the next weekend, with an outside shot of eclipsing the $130 million gross of American Gangster, which is currently his top grosser.  While we can debate how much credit co-star Ryan Reynolds gets for this one (he certainly didn't hurt...), Safe House is already his fourth-biggest grosser and will likely out-gross Green Lantern's $116 million total in a few weeks.  I'm frankly shocked at the strong legs for this one, as it's certainly one of Washington's worst genre entries in a long career with a number of solid adult-skewing action pictures (it looks like it was shot through a puke filter and edited in a blender, plus the script is so generic it could have been written in a Mad Libs book).  Still, star-power is a rare thing these days, and Denzel Washington clearly has it.  

Weekend Box Office (02/12/12): Everybody wins as The Vow breaks records, Safe House opens huge, Journey 2 best Journey 1, and Phantom Menace 3D feels the Force.

Wow.  Just wow.  Four major releases debuted this weekend and every single one of them opened with superb numbers.  On one hand, that means that every respective demographic was ably served this weekend.  On the other hand, one can only wonder how much cash was sacrificed by opening these four movies on the same weekend.  Anyway, the top film of the weekend was the Rachel McAdams/Channing Tatum romantic drama The Vow.  The $30 million Screen Gems drama, which by the way is NOT based on a Nicholas Sparks novel (it's a true story), debuted with an eye-popping $41 million, a record for the studio.  That's well-over $10 million more than the $30.4 million debut of Dear John, which was the previous record-holder for an opening weekend for a pure romantic drama.  The film played 55% under-25 years old and 72% female.  Obviously everything clicked on the marketing for this one, and Channing Tatum is now the official king of the romantic drama, having headlined the first one to open with more than $30 million and now the first one to open with over $40 million, while Rachel McAdams is the queen, now holding the first and fourth-biggest opening weekend for an unfiltered romantic drama ($18 million for The Time Traveler's Wife).  Where it goes from here is an open question, as Dear John did not have the strongest legs, topping out at $80 million (or just below the $81 million gross of Rachel McAdam's The Notebook).  On the plus side, The Vow doesn't have the same-demo blockbuster Valentine's Day nipping on its heals like Dear John did.  Plus, even if The Vow has the same quick-kill performance (2.6x weekend-to-final multiplier), it will become the first pure romantic drama (no explosions, no action scenes, no mass-disaster in the third act) to cross $100 million since Jerry McGuire in 1996.

Review: Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) entertains, intrigues, and amuses, but becomes too frantic for its own good.

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
2011
128 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

There are times when this second Guy Ritchie-helmed Sherlock Holmes adventure threatens to become what the first film was advertised as.  The first picture, if you recall, was marketed as an all-action, all-comedy, huge tent-pole adventure that just happened to feature the world's most famous detective (teaser and trailer).  In fact, the 2009 Sherlock Holmes (review) was an often quiet and contemplative character piece, a genuine mystery drama that had moments of big budget spectacle.  This new film tries its hand with the 'bigger is better' philosophy, to varying degrees of success.  The action is more frequent and of a larger scale, and the characters are less mournful and introspective this time around.  But what's lost in the fury and bombast is gained with an upping of the stakes, both personal and external.  Oddly enough, the highlight of the last picture, the relationship between Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law, becomes almost a distraction this time around, taking time away from what should be the primary attraction - the battle of wits between Sherlock Holmes and Professor James Moriarty.

Now THAT'S more like it! Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows gets a darker, more engrossing trailer that highlights Moriarty accordingly.

It is perhaps worth noting that this sequel was intended to be in 3D when it was announced early last year, but now the plan seems to be going for pure 2D.  Make of that what you will... I'm still miffed that Jared Harris is not getting billing as arch-fiend Professor James Moriarty, but that's a small quibble.  What matters is that this trailer sets up a darker, more violent, and more expansive adventure rather than just selling overly broad humor.  Yes, there is some bawdiness, but there is a clear establishing of the grand stakes, along with the implication that Moriarty is racking up a tidy body count in the process.  I wish they hadn't revealed the respective gag at 1:55, but I am glad that they've stopped hiding the fact that Rachel McAdams is indeed returning for this go-around.  While the trailer does seem action-packed, with explosions and gunfire galore, it is heartening to notice that most of the action beats seem to be from two major sequences (a chase/gun-battle in the woods and the train sequence).  I'm also glad to see Eddie Marsan returning as Inspector Lestrade, both because I like the actor and I'm a big proponent of maintaining character continuity for sequels of this nature.  Anyway, this is a far superior trailer to the one that debuted in July, so hopes remain high that the sequel will at least be as good as the rock-solid original picture.  No, Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes wasn't as good as the BBC Sherlock series.  Yes, I'm still allowed to enjoy them both.  Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows opens on December 16th, so as always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson