Opening Today: August 17th

New Movies

Superbad
Budget: $18 million
Theatres: 2900+

The Invasion
Budget: $50 million
Theatres: 2700+

The Last Legion
Budget: N/A
Theatres: 2013


Three new movies take over multiplexes today, with Superbad poised to take the top spot. Building incredible momentum over the past few months - after an R-rated trailer hit the net in late May - Superbad has been garnering glowing reviews, similar in fashion to the other Judd Apatow/Seth Rogan teamed comedy of the summer that you were fucking stupid to miss - Knocked Up. Holding Superbad back a couple of notches is its teen-based core crowd may hinder its chances of breaking out to a $30+ million debut like Knocked Up, which benefited from appealing to a wide demographic. On top of this, its the end of the summer, where many movie-goers have been exhausted by a plethora of choices, (all of which, by the way, are shaping this summer up to be the greatest money-maker on record), therefore many skip it until DVD, which would be a bad choice considering this will definitely satisfy moviegoers more than 95% of other movies that come out this year. I'm expectin' it to pull in a minimum of $20 million, in the vein of The 40 year-old Virgin two summers ago, which had incredible legs in the weeks ahead to pull it well over $100 million.

This should be enough to crown it #1, given last weeks champ Rush Hour 3 falls as hard as I'm thinking. Word of mouth has been decent, but not spectacular, and with a softer than expected bow of $49.1 million last weekend, Rush Hour should definitely lose well more than half its audience, aiming closer to $20 million in week 2. This should put it in direct competition with Superbad, as well as The Bourne Ultimatum, which raked in a solid $32 million last weekend, and should hold up decently in the very high teens.

Debuting after multiple re-shoots, an inflated budget, ($50 million was merely the original budget), terrible early word of mouth from test screenings, Warner Bros. revoking its world premiere, and lastly, not-so-enthusiastic reviews, should put a huge dent in what should have been a terrific opening weekend. With a $17 million paycheck, this was supposed to be Nicole Kidman's triumphant return to the suspense/horror genre after her successful turn 5 years ago in The Others. With the studio unsatisfied with the original cut of the film - they wanted less psychological drama, more action and jump-in-your-seat scares - resulted in Director James McTeigue (V for Vendetta) and The Wachowski Brothers (The Matrix Trilogy) to come on board with at least $15 million to their disposal to re-shoot a third of the film. The mish-mash result clearly didn't do too much to boost the picture, and audience awareness and reaction is weak as a result. Don't expect too much more than $10-12 million for the weekend.

Finally, The Last Legion, with Ben Kingsley and Aishwaria Rai opens after being shelved for nearly a year. The Weinstein Company, like The Invasion, is opening the film quietly at the end of August, with no great marketing or press push, which should result in a week opening in the mid-single digits.