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.

In defense of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace...

Like so many who read and write about movies, I saw Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace on Wednesday, May 19th, at 12:01am.  Like many who read and write about movies, I did not think it was the greatest film of all time.  But like the majority of the movie-going public, I also did not think it was the worst film of all time, nor did I find it to be some kind of glorious affront to cinema as an art form.  And 13 years later, it is what it always was: a Star Wars movie through-and-through.  It has problems unique to itself, unique to the prequel trilogy, and even some problems that have existed in the series right at the start.  Taking away the fact that one film was a cinematic breakthrough an launched the fandom of a hundred-million would-be movie lovers and the other was released under the crushing expectations of two generations of film fans, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace is really no better or worse than Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.  

The Amazing Spider-Man gets a stylish, but still familiar trailer.

Taken on its own merits, this is a pretty solid trailer.  The visual effects look decent, there seems to be plenty and varied web-slinging action, and Marc Webb's reboot does possess a different, more real-world look compared to Raimi's cotton-candy New York City.  But the idea that this film is 'darker' because it's visually darker and rains a bit more, for the moment, silly.  For all the bright colors and gee-whiz action, Sam Raimi's initial Spider-Man was an awfully morose and depressing affair, with pretty much every major character (Peter, Mary Jane, Harry, Norman, etc) in a state of mental duress for 90% of the picture.  How gloomy is the picture?  It ends at a funeral... for the villain!  And the idea that this film differs by creating a student/mentor relationship between Peter Parker and Dr. Conners completely ignores the father/son relationship between Peter and Norman Osbourne in Spider-Man and the student/mentor relationship (truncated as it was) between Peter and Dr. Octavius in Spider-Man 2.  

Politicizing apolitical Americana... Will the GOP/Right Wing surrender their biggest advantage by protesting the Clint Eastwood Chrysler Super Bowl commercial?

I've written from time-to-time about how Democrats and Liberals seem so willing to cede what should be basic apolitical American values to the Right/Republican wing of America.  Pundits, even liberal ones, brand movies as Conservative because they espouse family values, morality, private charity, personal responsibility, monogamy, the right of self-defense, entrepreneurship, patriotism, etc.  Never-mind that such American values are technically apolitical and are shared and practiced by people of all political stripes, the 'Right Wing sound machine' did a bang-up job in the 1980s and 1990s basically branding much of Americana as 'conservative', and we stupid liberals went on and allowed them to do it.  The Democratic wing has long struggled with rebutting an opposition that successfully branded itself as 'explicitly American' and has defined the debate by defining the vocabulary.  So to those criticizing last night's Chrysler commercial, which aired during the Super Bowl and was narrated by Clint Eastwood (longtime Libertarian/Republican) as some kind of pro-Obama propaganda, knock yourself out.

Super Bowl commercial: The Avengers (extended preview) adds money-shots, lacks visual oomph, high-toned polish, and a sense of grand scale.

There are certain a handful of 'money-shots' in this 70-second spot, and the final Hulk action beat is the kind of thing that gets people excited.  Still, there is something missing here, both in the sense of actual action content (it still feels like 80% of the action occurs in the third act) and a certain visual pizzazz.  The first preview was in 1.85:1 and while this one seems to be 2.35:1 (or something close to that), there is a certain flatness to the footage.  I'm as much of a Joss Whedon fan as the next nerd, but he is known more for his dialogue and his character-plotting than any directorial flourish.  Without a certain polished sheen or rich color-scheme, scenes like that final 360-degree pan looks like five people playing dress-up with high-end Halloween costumes (compare the new Captain America costume with any still from Johnston's Captain America).  It's tough to put my finger on it, but the whole film (from what we've seen so far) looks and feels a bit plain, and thus doesn't feel as epic or even as 'big' as it damn-well should.  Of course, if the writing and acting are up-to-par, the visual issues will matter that-much less.  But it is still a bit disheartening to see what is supposed to be 'the mother of all superhero films' that looks significantly less epic and large-scale than even the first Spider-Man picture.  The Avengers of course drops on May 4th.  As always, we'll see.

Scott Mendelson

Weekend Box Office (02/05/12): Chronicle and The Woman In Black both debut to around $20 million while Big Miracle tanks.

As I wrote yesterday (HERE), I don't care which of the two big releases end up at number one for this weekend.  Chronicle and The Woman In Black are both low-budget over/under $15 million releases that are somewhat abnormal in terms of what's considered a mainstream release, both were exceedingly well-marketed (as opposed to 'saturation marketing'), and both are unqualified hits after their first three days.  But since I have to choose which film to discuss first, I will pick Chronicle (review), which A) I've seen and B) is the unofficial #1 film this weekend with $22 million (as opposed to The Woman In Black, which made 'just' $21 million).  Chronicle announces the arrival of director Josh Trank (and writer Max Landis, son of John).  The quite compelling and thoughtful character study, which is plays with the genre trappings of as super-hero origin story through the 'found footage' format, cost just $12 million and drew a large chunk of young audiences of both genders (it played 45% female).  I have no idea what the legs will be like on this downbeat morality play (it received a B from Cinemascore), but I'd argue its artistic and box office success pretty much kills Warner Bros's planned live-action Akira remake and hurts Sony's The Amazing Spider-Man (which is advertising itself as a more low-key and emotionally-gritty superhero origin story... whoops).  Come what may, a very good and creative little movie just opened very well, and that's a win for everyone.

I don't care whether Chronicle or The Woman In Black tops the box office, and here's why you shouldn't either...

With a neck-and-neck opening Friday, two of the three major wide releases both look like they will end up with around $20 million over the Super Bowl weekend.  Both Chronicle and The Woman In Black had budgets around $15 million and targeted ad campaigns, meaning that a $20 million debut makes both films pretty solid hits right out of the gate.  But many of the box office pundits are of-course obsessing over which film will be #1 for the weekend, offering up-to-the-minute updates as to which of the two films is in the lead over the ongoing weekend.  For example, Exhibitor Relations tossed out a Facebook post stating that "Chronicle is holding off The Woman In Black again today, up by about 500k, but the lead could shrink tomorrow. Still too close to call."  I've written now and then about how the spin and 'campaigning' in mainstream Hollywood is similar to the political scene in Washington DC, and it certainly applies in this case.   Like many of the political primaries being waged all over the country in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, weekend box office is not a winner-take-all proposition.  Just as most states' (38 out of 50) delegates are divided up based on percentage of total votes for a given candidate, the film that takes the number 01 spot does not get all of the ticket sales for the weekend.

Review: Chronicle (2012) is a compelling character drama, a visual dazzler, and a thoughtful deconstruction of the 'chosen hero' myth.

Chronicle
2012
83 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

I've written a lot over the last couple years about how, if superhero films are going to survive, they are going to have to be able to be about something other than the generic tropes of superhero comic book adventures.  Captain America excelled because it was a World War II period action drama, while Green Lantern mostly faltered because it wasn't about anything other than its own conventions.  Chronicle (written by Max Landis and directed by Josh Trank) is a shining example of a powerful emotional tragedy that involves certain comic book conventions without really being about them.  At heart, the picture is a fierce rebuttal of the now-cliche 'with great power comes a superior destiny' motif that has been central to the last ten years of big-budget fantasy pictures, both those based on comics and those based on young-adult fantasy novels.  More than just a deconstruction of fantasy tropes, Chronicle is a thoughtful and empathetic story of  three disparate teens who end up with special powers and how it does or does not change them.

John Carter gets an 'introduce the heroes' new preview.

Ignoring the Disney Channel-esque voice-over (this may very well be intended to air during Shake It Up commercial breaks), the biggest problem in this 61-second preview is the seemingly awful performance from lead Taylor Kitsch.  The American trailer barely lets him speak at all, and getting to hear him toss off a few lines more complicated than 'Ugh' makes me realize why.  Again, it's just a 61-second teaser that spends most of the time introducing the heroic supporting characters (the wise mentor/sidekick, the princess/love interest, and the comic relief pet), but his few moments of actual vocal inflection leave quite a bit to be desired.  Frankly, it sounds like there is something wrong with his voice, as if someone (be it Kitsch or voice-modulators) is trying to make the strapping hero's pitch sound lower than he actually is.  Of course, a bad vocal performance isn't entirely fatal if said actor is expressive enough to somewhat compensate (Hayden Christensen's highly expressive face somewhat compensated for wooden vocal delivery in Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith), but having neither positive traits can be quite fatal (think Garrett Hedlund in Tron: Legacy).  I'm assuming that this Sunday's Super Bowl commercial will show off the scale of this Andrew Stanton epic, so here's hoping that the film actually looks like it cost $300 million.

Scott Mendelson    

Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol is officially Tom Cruise's biggest global hit ever. Why the film's $200 million+ domestic total puts it in rare company...

As of yesterday, Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol has earned $594 million worldwide, meaning that it has surpassed the $591 million earned in 2005 by War of the Worlds to become the biggest worldwide grosser in Tom Cruise's career.  Domestically, the film sits at $203 million, or behind the $215 million grossing Mission: Impossible II and the $234 million-grossing War of the Worlds.  On the domestic front, it's still ninth in terms of inflation, but the Tom Cruise films of the 1980s and 1990s didn't have to deal with losing 1,600 screens in two weeks despite strong legs.  It is beyond unfortunate that even a film as 'leggy' as Mission: Impossible IV has to contend with arbitrarily losing screens due to the 2-5 new releases that drop each and every weekend.  The jam-packed schedule of mainstream movie releases, as well as the absence of a viable second-run market, has kneecapped any number of films over the last 5-10 years and resulted in screen-bleed and depressed total grosses even if the films didn't exhibit the usual 'quick-kill blockbuster' behavior.