You can all breathe easier now, The Expendables has been rated R.

There has been much discussion on whether or not Lionsgate was able and willing to send out the $50 million action-fest into wide release with an age-limiting R-rating. The several test screenings (with their mixed word-of-mouth) and the overtly green-band trailers led many to wonder if the 1980s action homage would end up being edited to a PG-13. But fear no more. The Expendables has been officially been rated R, for "strong action and bloody violence throughout, and for some language". Now if Lionsgate could just cut a trailer that would convince us that the film isn't going to be 80% set-up with only the final reel containing actual action/adventure. I'm getting the feeling that this one's going to play more like Commando than Rambo: First Blood Part II.

Scott Mendelson

Knight and Day opens with just $3.8 million on Wednesday. The bane of the stupid Wednesday/Thursday opening.

I've said this several times over the last few years, but it bears repeating: It’s suicide to open on Wednesday unless you’re dealing with a severely hardcore ‘must see it NOW’ fanbase. Knight and Day is not The Lord of the Rings. It is not Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. It is not Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and it is certainly not Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Yes, Fox may have been deluded into thinking that Tom Cruise's star-power alone is what powered War of the Worlds and the first two Mission: Impossible pictures to their massive five or six day weekends. But those three were holiday weekends, not the week before a major holiday. And Knight and Day is not a heavily-anticipated Steven Spielberg adaptation of a classic sci-fi novel. Nor is it a mega-budget adaptation of a beloved TV show that benefited from a killer marketing campaign. It's just an action-comedy that stars Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. I know plenty of people who want to see Knight and Day. But every one of them is able and willing to wait until the actual weekend to do so.

Red gets an all-star cast, and an amusing trailer.

Well, this looks absolutely delightful. It's apparently based on a Warren Ellis comic book from DC, and I can't imagine that too many fans would be displeased on first glance. Who wouldn't want an adaptation of their favorite action comic to star Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, John Malkovich, Mary Louise Parker, and Richard Dreyfuss? Not enough? Well, it also features Karl Urban, Ernest Borgnine, James Remar, and Brian Cox. So yes, this is the second movie entitled Red that Brian Cox has made in the last two years (the earlier one was a dark drama involving an old man whose dog is murdered by teenage ruffians). Regardless, any movie with that cast is automatically worth the price of admission, and thus Red becomes one of the must-see movies of the fall.

Scott Mendelson

Predators gets a terrific international trailer, and I suddenly have an interest in the film.

Nimrod Antal's Predators was not very high on my radar this summer. I have nothing against the man, his two prior pictures (Vacancy and Armored) were lean and mean B-movies that did much with small budgets. And producer Robert Rodriguez also knows how to do much with little, and his filmography has far more hits (Desperado, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Spy Kids, Spy Kids 2, Shorts) than visually-inventive misses (Sin City, Spy Kids 3D: Game Over). But I don't think the world really needs another Predator film. I still don't, but this brutal and efficient trailer has convinced me that whatever Antal and Rodriguez have cooked up might be worth watching anyway. The cast (Adrien Brody, Laurence Fishburne, Danny Trejo, Alice Brega) looks sharp, the locales look gorgeous and foreboding, and the action is gory as hell. Any worries about this one being PG-13 have been officially been put to rest. This looks like a gloriously top-notch B-movie, which should be just the thing between the mega movies of July 4th weekend (Twilight Saga: Eclipse and The Last Airbender) and Chris Nolan's Inception.

Review: Knight and Day (2010)

Knight and Day
2010
110 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

I can only wonder what kind of film James Mangold's Knight and Day would have been had it just been another action vehicle for a Tom Cruise (pre-2005) who was not in the midst of a PR-mandated comeback. Despite the fact that Cruise's pictures have done just fine since his 2005 couch-jumping, Scientology-hyping PR-meltdown, there is a perception that Cruise has lost his luster as a genuine movie star. So along comes Knight and Day, a variation on the 'wronged-man on the run with quasi-kidnapped female' story, which theoretically casts Tom Cruise as a borderline-satirical version on the Cruise persona (insanely-driven action hero with a touch with the ladies). As a satire on the stereotypical Tom Cruise action picture, it has its moments and its charm. But the film lacks the courage of its convictions, as well as the ability to take the story into territory that a more fearless Cruise of the 1990s would crash headlong into without thinking twice.

Audiences want family films? No, they want good films. Why family films have a higher batting average for quality.

Here's a novel idea: Toy Story 3 is making bank because it's the best big-studio movie of the year and audiences have already noticed. Steven Zeitchik of the LA Times is wrong. Audiences are not flocking to family films because of some rebellion against adult pictures. Audiences are flocking to family pictures because the kids-flicks are better than the adult movies at the moment. Audiences want good films, period. Sure, critics and audiences may disagree on what is 'good', and lousy all-ages pictures like Alice in Wonderland or teen-centric movies like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen may be massive hits despite their lack of quality. But at the end of the day, if studios make a good movie and can open the picture through marketing, audiences will usually respond. The Hangover didn't gross six times its opening weekend because it tapped into some kind of zeitgeist. It grossed $277 million off a $44 million opening weekend because it was good. How to Train Your Dragon didn't slowly pull in $215 million from a $43 million opening weekend because audiences suddenly remembered that they had kids. It stuck around because it was a terrific movie, and those that initially saw it fought like hell to make sure their friends and family saw it too.

Michel Gondry's The Green Hornet gets a trailer.

Despite my distaste for Michel Gondry's Be Kind, Rewind (a heartwarming final twenty-minutes did not redeem the nearly unwatchable first 75 minutes), this actually looks like low-key pulpy fun. Cameron Diaz seems wasted as 'the girl', but hopefully there's more to her part than just the random hot secretary. I can only hope that the next trailer gives more exposure to her and arch-villain Christoph Weitz. It's a shame Tom Wilkinson isn't in the picture past the initial reel or two, but his gravitas is appreciated. I have little knowledge of the original stories, so I don't know if the 'my dead father's company left me all the tools to fight crime' bit is from the original origin or cribbed from Batman Begins. Most intriguing is the warm and relaxed chemistry between leads Seth Rogan and Jay Chou. It seems that this new version of The Green Hornet is making a genuine attempt to have Kato be a full-fledged partner rather than a token Asian sidekick. All in all, for something that allegedly has had a pretty troubled production, this is a very confident piece of marketing. So far, so good.

Scott Mendelson

Toy Story 3 opens with massive $109 million, Jonah Hex makes just $5 million. Weekend box office review (06/20/10).

Toy Story 3 ended its first weekend with $109 million, setting a record for Pixar and the month of June. It is the second-biggest opening weekend for an animated film (behind Shrek the Third's $122 million), the fourth-biggest 'part 3' opening weekend, the biggest opening weekend ever in June, and the 10th-biggest opening of all-time. It is far and away the biggest opening weekend in Pixar history (Finding Nemo and The Incredibles both opened with $70 million). Truth be told, I'm a little disappointed in the number, when you factor in the $41 million opening day. When you factor in the usually high multipliers for kids flicks, along with the across-the-board raves from critics and audiences, I honestly expected (or at least was rooting for) a top-five opening weekend. As it is, it is just the third-biggest opening of 2010, behind Iron Man 2 ($128 million) and Alice in Wonderland ($116 million). Family pictures generally have higher weekend multipliers than the norm. But Toy Story 3 had just a 2.68x multiplier, it actually decreased 9% on Saturday to $37 million.

Box Office analysis to come later today...

Everyone slept in late, and it's already time to leave for Disney Land, so box office analysis will come later. For the record, Toy Story 3 managed only a 2.6x multiplier, ending the weekend with $109 million. We'll see tomorrow if the finals put it high enough for the biggest June Fri-Sun weekend (Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen did $109 million as well), and the second-biggest animated opening weekend (Shrek 2 did $108 million over the Fri-Sun portion of its opening weekend). Jonah Hex did just $5 million and The Karate Kid held strong with $29 million in weekend two. More context and analysis to come later.

Scott Mendelson

Toy Story 3 opens with $41 million Friday, Jonah Hex collapses.

Toy Story 3 has scored $41 million on its first day, barely beating out Alice in Wonderland's $40.8 million Friday for the biggest opening day of the year. It has surpassed the $38.4 million opening Friday of Shrek the Third to score the biggest opening Friday in animated-film history (although Shrek 3 had more tickets sold, factoring in three years of inflation and higher IMAX/3D prices for Toy Story 3). With $41 million, the Pixar sequel has the 22nd-biggest single day, the 12th-biggest opening day, and the seventh-biggest Friday gross of all time. It is the second-biggest opening day in June history, behind Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($62 million). With just part 3s, the film had the fourth-biggest opening day day, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End ($42 million), Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ($50 million), and Spider-Man 3 ($59 million).