Weekend Box Office (02/24/13): Identity Thief tops Oscar weekend, Snitch and Dark Skies open "okay".

I can't confirm this offhand, but I'm pretty sure Snitch has the biggest opening weekend of all time for a film based on a Frontline documentary.  The 'mandatory minimum sentences are evil' action drama debuted with $13 million this weekend.  That's not a huge figure, but it's above the sub-$8 million debuts from Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Jason Statham in the last two months.  Lionsgate/Summit procured the film for just $5 million, so this is a solid win all-around.  The picture played 77% 18-49 and 53% male, earning a B from Cinemascore.  The solid 3.17x weekend multiplier, especially considering the predicted Oscar drop today, means that the film may have legs and an outside shot at $45 million.  It's not a massive success, and it means that Dwayne Johnson needs a viable franchise to be 'box office', but for a film with nothing but The Rock to sell, this isn't a bad debut at all (it's higher than the $8 million debut for 2010's Faster, for example).  Johnson still has G.I. Joe: Retaliation next month and the sure to be *huge* Fast & Furious 6 on tap for May, so this almost qualifies as his "one for me" art film.  It's a good movie that I hope finds an audience and it's clearly a better choice for action junkies than A Good Day to Die Hard.

Review: Snitch (2013) is a potent political diatribe disguised as a solid B-movie action drama.

Snitch

2013
115 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

Writer/director Ric Roman Waugh and writer Justin Haythe's Snitch (trailer) operates on two levels.  On one hand, it's a pulpy and satisfying B-movie, a distinctly old-fashioned studio programmer about a normal man thrust into an abnormal situation.  The film is compelling and engaging, keeping its head to the ground in terms of plausibility and authenticity.  Even when the film chooses action, the action beats are small-scale and life-sized, which in turn makes them more suspenseful.  But the film also operates on a second level, that of a somewhat angry political polemic.  While the film doesn't go all-in in condemning the entire 'war on drugs', it sticks to a specific portion of that misguided policy and makes an unimpeachable case for its stupidity.  The film thus earns bonus points for being able to successfully mix social moralizing with its action drama while sacrificing little in the way of story or character.

Money for nothing: A commercial (not artistic) defense of Paramount's decision to convert GI Joe Retaliation to 3D.

As most of you know, Paramount has announced that it is moving one of its three major summer releases, G.I. Joe: Retaliation, from June 29th, 2012 to March 29th, 2013.  The official reason for this date change is not quality issues with the film, the need for reshoots, problems with the marketing, or the desire to 'unkill Channing Tatum due to his increased visibility/profile. but purely because they want to take the extra nine months to convert the film to 3D for theatrical release.  Obviously most of the film punditry world is crying foul over this decision and as someone who was looking forward to the film I sympathize.  But putting aside the "I want to see it *now*!" and the "I hate needless and/or post-converted 3D!" arguments, it's tough in this current box office climate to argue that Paramount didn't make the right call.  Since Avatar kick-started the 3D trend 2.5 years ago, there has been a flurry of would-be tentpole films going the 3D route and an equal number of would-be blockbusters choosing to renounce the gimmick and go out as 2D only.  While we can all appreciate the filmmakers who stuck to their artistic guns in the face of box office pressure, the truth of the matter is that in today's marketplace, where a big-budget film's financial fate is often decided by overseas dollars, it's almost fiscal self-injury not to make the call.  For anywhere from $10 million to $20 million extra, you can add around 15-20% to your opening weekend grosses and around 15% to your total domestic box office, with an un-quantifiable upshot for foreign grosses.  For numbers like that, why *wouldn't* you convert your purely commercial popcorn adventure film to 3D?

G.I. Joe Retaliation gets a 'realistic' trailer, for better or worse.

I'm of two minds about this one.  On one hand, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this second G.I. Joe movie being a bit different, both visually and in terms of tone, from the last picture.  So the last one was colorful and campy while this one is trying to sell itself as somewhat more serious and arguably more generic.  Fine, no harm, no foul.  On the other hand, as someone who LIKED G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, this new entry feels less like 'your G.I. Joe action-figure dramas brought to life!' and more like 'A G.I. Joe movie for audiences who are probably a little too old to reasonably have an interest in a G.I. Joe movie'.  Part of the fun of the last film was seeing the characters that we all loved back in the 1980s (Baroness, Snake Eyes, Scarlett, Duke, Destro, etc) come to life in $175 million worth of candy-colored carnage (say what you want about those robo-suits, but the Paris chase is a fantastic action sequence).  This time around, it's basically like someone made an admittedly stylish-looking action picture (that ninja cliff fight is about six kinds of awesome), cast some name actors (The Rock, Bruce Willis apparently playing himself), and some relative unknowns, suited everyone up except the two returning ninjas in generic battle gear, and then slapped 'G.I. Joe' on the marquee for marketing purposes.  Will it be a 'better' movie than Sommer's initial entry?  Perhaps, at the very least it hopefully won't shoot itself in the foot during its final 20 minutes in order to neuter its major villain.  But, based on what we've seen, it feels less like a (as I know it) G.I. Joe movie than the first film.  Having said all of that, I love that they are keeping the terrific cliffhanger of the first film.  I like that the button gives Willis the joke, but Adrianne Palicki gets the comic reaction shot.  Anyway, this one drops on June 29th, 2012.  Then we'll know, which is of course about 50% of the battle.

Scott Mendelson      

Friday box office (04/29/11): $33.2 million for Fast Five, $79-83 million weekend debut likely. Prom and Hoodwinked Too under-perform.

With an opening day that is bigger than all-but two live-action opening weekends this year (Battle: Los Angeles's $36 million opening and The Green Hornet's $33.5 million debut weekend), Fast Five kicked off the summer movie season in high style. The film pulled in just 11% of its opening day tally in midnight screenings. If the picture performs with the same 2.4x weekend multiplier as Fast and Furious ($30m/$72m), it's got an $80 million opening weekend on tap, bigger than the two largest opening weekends of 2011 (Rio and Rango) combined, nearly $10 million higher than the last picture, the record for an April debut, and the biggest three-day opening in Universal's history (the prior record holder is The Lost World: Jurassic Park with $72.3 million). Obviously we'll know how it plays tomorrow, but I'm personally expecting a less frontloaded picture than the previous entry, if only because it's a much better film (although that may not be a factor until next weekend). There's nothing breathtaking about a well-marketed sequel in a popular franchise performing in line with expectations, but it's still nice when a good genre film opens well. Prom made just $1.8 million while Hoodwinked Too grossed just $1.1 million. I don't know how much Dylan Dog: Dead of Night made on just $270,000 on 875 screens.

Scott Mendelson

Review: Fast Five (2011)

Fast Five
2011
130 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

Fast Five is frankly something of a miracle. Here is the fifth entry of a ten-year old franchise that has rarely surpassed mediocrity, but which now offers up a chapter that borders on genuine greatness. Here is a sequel that pays explicit attention to what came before and rewards viewers who actually watched and enjoyed the previous films. Unlike so many later sequels that basically just disregard the prior sequels and try to be a sequel to the original or a stand-alone reboot, Fast Five embraces its character relationships and continuity. I had not seen any of the Fast and the Furious films until the week prior to seeing Fast Five. Having watched the prior entries over a period of a few days, I really didn't care for any of them. As much as I enjoyed Fast Five, I cannot even imagine how rewarding this movie will be for those who have loved this series since the beginning.

Review: Faster (2010)

Faster
2010
95 minutes

rated R

by Scott Mendelson

The most surprising thing about Faster is that it's not. It's not a thrill-a-minute action romp, nor does it even qualify as trashy exploitation fare. It's a genuine drama and a thoughtful, occasionally moving character study. It is, at its core, a look at three damaged souls who must choose whether to cling to their convictions or let it go for the sake of their humanity. Faster may not satisfy hardcore action junkies and/or gore hounds, but it earns points for being a real movie with a token amount of substance.