Twilight Saga: Eclipse smashes midnight record with $30 million.

Wow. Summit took advantage of the lack of school and just crushed their own record. With just midnight showings, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has taken in $30 million (New Moon opened with $26 million in midnight showings). Obviously the die-hard fans will show up no matter when the film opens, so it'll be interesting to see how close Eclipse gets to, or how far it surpasses, the $72 million scored by New Moon last November on its first full day. It will be a nail-biter, as many casual fans were turned off by New Moon, yet this film has comparably better reviews and a somewhat misleading trailer promising lots of vampire vs. werewolf action (the film has about as much action as a season finale of Heroes). The single-day record for a Wednesday is $62 million for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (which did 'just' $16 million in midnight screenings). The six-day record is $222 million for The Dark Knight. Both records are now in serious jeopardy. We'll know more soon enough...

Scott Mendelson

Gore Verbinski's Rango gets a teaser.

This looks kinda terrific, and the animation looks genuinely stunning, almost lifelike in its detail at certain moments. It's good to see Verbinski back in the saddle, as he is a genuine talent whose work on the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy remains oddly underrated, to say nothing of his fine work on The Weather Man and The Ring. The entire series hold up a few years down the line as overly-convoluted but generally intelligent and surprisingly political blockbusters (the sequels work as relatively potent 'War on Terror' analogies better than the more on-the-nose Prince of Persia). This looks like something more akin to the hilarious Looney Tunes-ish romp Mouse Hunt, which first put him on the map back in December 1997. This is also Paramount's first stand-alone animated feature since Barnyard: The Original Party Animals back in 2006. It comes out March 4th, 2011.

Scott Mendelson

Review: The Last Airbender 3D (2010)

The Last Airbender
2010
102 minutes
Rated PG

by Scott Mendelson

M. Night Shyamalan's The Last Airbender contains a few moments of grace and visual wonder, moments that dare to show me something I've never seen onscreen before. It's a shame that said beats are contained within a stunningly inept story. Apparently based on the first season of the acclaimed Nickelodeon cartoon Avatar: the Last Airbender, the film is a structural disaster, choppily bouncing from one brief expositional scene to another. The picture has no rhythm and no pacing, feeling both heavily edited and curiously padded. As the introductory chapter to a three-part story, it fails to inspire any reason to care about what comes next, as not a single character emerges from the haphazard narrative. As a film from the man who once wrote and directed such films as The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, it is a heartbreaking tragedy, a 'sign' that perhaps the once-great M. Night Shyamalan is truly 'broken'.

Review: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse: An IMAX Experience (2010)

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
2010
124 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

I'm probably one of six people on the planet who preferred Spider-Man 3 to Spider-Man 2. The second Spider-Man picture is arguably the better film. It's better written, better acted, and contains moments of real pathos and drama (Aunt May's birthday present to Peter, Peter confessing his role in Uncle Ben's death, the train action-scene, Peter's conversations with Doctor Octavius). Yet it is derailed by the fact that Peter Parker spends the entire movie in a swirl of self-pity, endlessly moping for the girl he loves, while forgetting the fact that he dumped her first at the conclusion of the first film (nevermind that most of his other problems have pretty obvious solutions - move in with Aunt May and take your Spider-Man photos to other newspapers for money, etc). The third film, by virtue of having three hundred subplots, focuses less on the annoying Peter Parker/Mary Jane romantic plot, and is less forehead-slappingly obnoxious despite the kitchen-sink plotting. So while the Twilight Saga: Eclipse is not as focused and disciplined as Twilight Saga: New Moon, I did enjoy it a bit more due to the plentiful distractions from the Bella/Edward/Jacob arc. It's not nearly as fun and light-on-its feet as the first Twilight picture, but it's a case of improvement-by-default.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows gets a dynamite trailer.

Wow... just wow. After a somewhat low-key teaser clip that was shown on the MTV Movie Awards just a few weeks ago, Warner Bros. has unleashed this genuinely epic trailer. This is a thunderously impressive preview, full of the kind of emotional pathos and visual oomph that the Twilight crowd could only dream of. You can practically hear Harry, Hermione, and Ron telling Bella, Edward, and Jacob to get the hell off of their lawn. As far as tentpole teasers go, this is Dark Knight/Star Trek good. Warner Bros is selling the astonishing legacy of this series first and foremost, as well they should be. Eight rock-solid epic films, nearly ten years in the making, with nearly every major cast member (save the late Richard Harris) intact. It's hard to believe it'll be nine years since The Sorcerer's Stone premiered by the time part I of The Deathly Hallows opens this November. By keeping the films rooted in character and emotionally-charged, Campellian-storytelling, these films will live on long after their special effects have become dated. This series is a truly unprecedented achievement in cinema history and deserves to be celebrated as such.

Scott Mendelson

New feature: Not Necessarily the News.

Another new occasional feature, one dealing with random speculation that inexplicably gets turned into real news due to various bloggers who are desperate for hits and/or scoops. All of the items below are either complete speculation or painfully obvious developments that are being branded about as BREAKING NEWS for the sake of page views.

Spike Lee returns to genre filmmaking with Nagasaki Deadline.

I don't generally comment on stories from Deadline Hollywood, but this one seems legit (and notably non-sensational) enough to merit commentary. According to Mike Fleming, Spike Lee is wrapping a deal to shoot the modern-day terrorism thriller Nagasaki Deadline. Basically the gist is that it involves a damaged FBI agent who must prevent two (simultaneous?) attacks on US soil while uncovering the apparent historical motives behind the attacks. The project had been bounced around for around a decade, and had even been looked at by Martin Campbell as one of the flurry of post-Casino Royale thrillers that he was offered (he eventually decided to remake Edge of Darkness and helm Green Lantern). But now the project will mark Spike Lee's first film since Miracle at St. Anna in October 2008.

Toy Story 3 retakes crown, as Grown Ups and Knight and Day make solid showings. Weekend box office in review (06/27/10).

Ten-and-a-half years ago, Toy Story 2 opened with $57.3 million over the Fri-Sun portion of Thanksgiving weekend, which was the third-biggest Friday-to-Sunday take on record (behind Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace at $64 million and The Lost World: Jurassic Park at $72 million). Today, the third Toy Story picture has taken in $59.3 million on its second weekend. That's the seventh-biggest second-weekend take in history, and the very largest non-opening weekend for a 'part 3' ever. And, at a second-weekend drop of 46.2%, it's the fourth-smallest drop for a film opening to over $100 million. The film crossed $200 million on Saturday (nine days), which is the eighth-fastest on record and the fourth-fastest such dash that did not involve a holiday weekend boost. With $226.8 million so far, the film has the seventh-largest ten day total ever, and the the third-biggest such total for a film not aided in any way by a holiday weekend in those first ten days (behind Spider-Man 3 at $240 million and The Dark Knight at $313 million). With sustained weekday numbers and a hold such as this, the film could theoretically cross $300 million by the end of the long Fourth-of-July weekend. It won't be the number one film in America for long, as Twilight Saga: Eclipse is opening this Wednesday, but the Pixar masterpiece is almost certain to become the year's highest-grossing film in America in just a few weeks. Audiences have no problem with sequels and what-not, as long as they are this good.

Friday box office - Toy Story 3 crushes newbies, Grown Ups opens per normal Sandler standards, and Knight and Day regains momentum.

At $18 million, Toy Story 3 has the 29th-biggest non-opening Friday of all-time. However, if you discount day eight or day ten grosses (IE - for a film that opened on Wednesday) that were not part of a holiday weekend, Toy Story 3 once again shoots up to number four, behind Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($18.5 million), Spider-Man ($19.9 million) and The Dark Knight ($23.2 million). It's eight-day gross is now at $185 million, which is eighth on the list, just ahead of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ($184.9 million). In realms of eight day grosses where the first or second weekend did not fall in a holiday, the film moves up to third place, behind Spider-Man 3 ($199.2 million), and The Dark Knight ($261.8 million). At a 57% drop from Friday to Friday, the film should bounce way back with weekend matinee business today and tomorrow. Expect a second-weekend total of $60-65 million, and a ten day total of about $230 million (the sixth or seventh-best, depending on the final numbers).

With astounding midweek numbers, Toy Story 3 scores $167 million in seven days.

I was seemingly alone in my slight disappointment with the low 2.68x weekend multiplier for Toy Story 3, which opened to $110 million off of a $41 million opening day. Apparently I was an idiot to worry, as the film has recovered whatever steam it allegedly lost over its first three weekdays. The picture grossed $15.6 million on its first Monday, a mere 51% drop from Sunday and the fifth-biggest non-holiday Monday of all-time, behind such lightweights as Avatar (it's first two Mondays: $16 million and $19 million respectively), Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($18 million) and The Dark Knight ($24 million).. On Tuesday, it kept up the pace, grossing another $15.1 million. That puts it again at number five for non-Holiday/non-opening day Tuesday grosses. Again, it's behind just Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest ($15.7 million), the fifth and twelve days of Avatar ($16 million and $18.2 million respectively), and The Dark Knight ($20.8 million).