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Predictions and Comparisons -
1. Sex and the City 2 (New Line/WB) - $68.2 million N/A
2. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Disney) - $54.6 million N/A
3. Shrek Forever After (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) - $53.0 million -25%
4. Iron Man 2 (Marvel/Paramount) - $18.8 million -29%
5. Robin Hood (Universal) - $12.5 million -34%
6. Letters to Juliet (Summit) - $7.2 million -20%
7. Just Wright (Fox Searchlight) - $3.0 million -30%
8. MacGruber (Universal) - $2.5 million -37%
9. Date Night (20th Century Fox) - $2.5 million -13%
10. How to Train Your Dragon (DreamWorks Animation/Paramount) - $1.5 million -19%
Weekend Overview
The summer seems to be in a tailspin so far, as none of the movies we've expected to be big have come close to our predictions--we're talking to you Iron Man 2 and Shrek Forever After!--but this weekend is Memorial Day, four days where everyone barbecues, goes to the beach, but more importantly, it's the weekend where many people plow into movie theaters to see whatever is playing and catch up on movies they've missed.
Opening on Thursday for the women who just can't wait that one extra day to see it, Sex and the City 2 (New Line/WB) is one of two anticipated summer sequels among the estrogen set, the other being next month's The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Reuniting the cast of the popular HBO show and the previous blockbuster movie, it's likely to bring in the same group of women over 20 hoping to find out what happens next. It should have a decent opening Thursday but like other Memorial Day movies that have opened on Thursday (Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and Terminator Salvation), we expect it to still have lots of business for Friday and the weekend, as many women get out of work early and go see it en masse. It's also likely to take advantage of the hard-working women being off Monday to win the weekend with relative ease.
Walt Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer reteam for an Arabic action epic Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (Walt Disney) based on the popular games and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Gemma Arterton, Sir Ben Kingsley and Alfred Molina. While this is the type of action and FX-driven movie that normally does well over Memorial Day weekend, the over-20 male crowd familiar with the game may be somewhat skeptical of a movie that seems to be playing more towards younger kids. While it might bring in some younger women from the Jake Gyllenhaal factor, business will likely be spread out among demos with none of them feeling it's a must see. It should still do decently, but after Friday, it will be battling with the latest "Shrek" movie for the weekend family business.
This week's "Chosen One" is Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Micmacs (Sony Pictures Classics), which you can read more about below.
Last Memorial Day saw the release of two sequels (sort of) and much to the surprise of many, Ben Stiller's family comedy Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (20th Century Fox) took McG's Terminator Salvation (Warner Bros.) relaunch to school by besting it $70 million to $51.9 million over the four-day weekend, although the Stiller movie did have a 600 theater advantage (and IMAX ticket prices) to help it. Not even entering the race was the Wayans' latest spoof movie Dance Flick (Paramount), which opened in fifth place with $12.6 million, quite a long way from their previous successful comedies. The Top 10 grossed $211 million over the four days, and the two movies should help this Memorial Day weekend do slightly better than last year.
THE BATTLE CRY
Not sure if having two "Battle Cries" in a row can be considered "being on a roll"--I already know we won't have one next week--but this week's opinion piece is about something we like to call "Geek Sells," and the interesting recent phenomenon that has made Huey Lewis' song "Hip to be Square" become the new reality.
This is a relatively new phenomenon where entertainment that used to appeal only to a very small core group of outsiders or outcasts, who were used to being mocked by society, has now entered the mainstream, including comic books, science fiction and horror. We've been seeing this in a big way in the last few years, most obviously with the immense success of the recently-completed ABC drama "Lost" which went far beyond the normal geek crowd with its sci-fi influenced stories of time travel and alternate timelines, helping to create a new trend for hip science fiction shows. We're also seeing a number of phenomena surrounding vampires in places like HBO's "True Blood" and Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight Saga," which appeal more to women than the males who normally thrive on horror or genre fare.
Geeks are no longer nerdy introverts who wear glasses and average 200 lbs. on a good day--sure, we're still around, too--but now, the popular kids in high school and the crowd you might normally find at a party or clubbing on Friday and Saturday nights, the people who normally wouldn't have anything to do with comic books or science fiction or anyone who had anything to do with them, now feel the need to act as if they're into all that stuff in order to fit in with everyone else. They're what I like to call "faux-geeks," those who'll go to comic conventions "'cause it's the cool and 'in' thing to do" rather than something that merits mocking. This has also led to the advent of a species of sexy female geeks, young women who dress up as their favorite anime and television characters. Ten years ago, you'd barely see any women at comic conventions and now they're everywhere and they're in complete control... yet they still won't go out with guys who may like the same things they do unless they meet up to the standards of their beloved Edward or Jacob.
Filmmakers and producers like J.J. Abrams, Jon Favreau, Joss Whedon, Peter Jackson, Edgar Wright and Guillermo del Toro, whose geeky cinephile tendencies kept them on the outside of the Hollywood mainstream, are now treated like rock stars because they're able to tap into their own inner geeks to appeal to a much larger audience. While Martin Scorsese might be considered the King of Cool among filmmakers and film aficionados, even he branched out into genre fare with the recent Shutter Island to have his biggest success to date. There are also serious filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, who one wouldn't necessarily think as coming from a genre background but are able to bring their own cinematic sensibilities to superheroes to come up with something that can appeal to much wider audiences, leading to the likes of The Dark Knight. Nolan's full-on immersion into science fiction with the upcoming Inception makes one think that maybe he had just been hiding his "geek badge" better than others.
A lot has been written about how Comic-Con plays into this. The annual "geekfest" has become so popular that the city of San Diego can barely even handle the number of people who show up each year. Even hip indie documentarian Morgan (Super Size Me) Spurlock has outed himself as a geek by wanting to make a documentary about it. Who knows if his movie about the annual comic convention might be more successful than the last few attempts? One certainly wonders who is meant to see that movie - the people who can't make it to Comic-Con each year or the "normals" who don't understand the appeal and draw of it? (Oddly, Universal's Paul, which teams Superbad's Greg Mottola with geek heroes Simon Pegg and Nick Frost also has a story revolving around Comic-Con.)
What does this have to do with movies? Well, not much, except that the "Rise of the Geek" has led to those people who used to be the outsider are slowly gaining control of the media causing the geek mindset to grow by leaps and bounds. It's now easier for those who used to enjoy geek fare on their own to create a website or blog to try to reach others and convert them. You also see this in the form of new blogs created by mainstream print media like the L.A. Times' Hero Complex and the Hollywood Reporter's Heat Vision blog, which keep the industry posted on what's hip and cool among the geek crowd. MTV, the music video network that used to epitomize what was cool among the teen set, are now relegated to trying to placate the geek crowd that drives most of the traffic on the internet. Then there's dudes like Geoff Johns, who I first met in a DC Online chat room years before he was writing comic books and who is now the Chief Creative Officer of DC Entertainment, which will presumably break down any remaining boundaries.
Even so, we're almost reaching the point where the "geek crowd" is starting to overpower those who aren't into genre fare. Part of that can probably be attributed to the peer pressure of people wanting to belong, though like with everything else, there's a breaking point where one wonders if this is just the latest trend or fad that requires constant feeding. "Battlestar Gallactica" is done and so is "Lost," and is there anything else that can keep this burgeoning crossover audience sated?
The studios have known for a long time they can tap into this market via the internet, but the size of that audience, while it's constantly expanding, is still only so large that the only way to have a huge hit is to crossover to other audiences like James Cameron's Avatar did or the "Spider-Man" and "Pirates" movies. It's also good to bear in mind that not everyone who goes to see a superhero or sci-fi movie is automatically deeming themselves a "geek," though one hopes that a good percentage of that audience will then go and pick up a comic book to check out the source material. To me, the weirdest thing about this phenomenon is that I've read comic books since I was ten years old, and I still don't consider myself a "geek." I'm just a guy who likes a lot of different things including opera, soccer, punk rock... and comic books. And yet, I still get looks whenever I'm reading comic books on the subway, which I do regularly.
And that's really the kicker that keeps the geek ethos from completely taking over. While those of us who've enjoyed comics and genre films all our lives have welcomed the dawn of the new geekdom that's enabled us to have access to a lot cooler stuff in theaters and on TV, let's hope we won't be shut out or ostracized by the New Age of ultra-hipster geeks who might not be ready to embrace one of the core values of fandom, which is being accepting of like-minded individuals without judgment. That's the one part of "being a geek" that may never quite register with the "cool kids."
Sex and the City 2 (New Line/WB)Starring Sarah Jessica Parker, Kim Cattrall, Kristin Davis, Cynthia Nixon, Chris Noth, David Eigenberg, Evan Handler, Jason Lewis, Mario Cantone, Willie Garson
Writing and directed by Michael Patrick King (Sex and the City as well as the HBO show of the same name)
Genre: Comedy, Romance
Rated R
Tagline: "Carrie On"
Plot Summary: Two years after the previous movie, Carrie (Sarah Jessica Parker), Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), Samantha (Kim Cattrall) and Charlotte (Kristin Davis) are dealing with their earlier decisions, whether it's being married or balancing a family and work life, etc. The answer to all their problems? A vacation escape for just the four ladies.
Mini-Review: As someone who thought the first "Sex and the City" feature film was flawed, yet a perfectly fine continuation of the HBO show, it's hard not to be skeptical that another movie could possibly improve upon the formula that's worked well so far.
It's two years since the previous movie, the stylish New York friends are dealing with very real issues from menopause to coping with having two children. For Carrie and Big, it's the horrors of having gotten far too comfortable in their marriage rather than being the fun and carefree couple we loved to see together. Before we get too far into the realm of the serious, we're invited to the wedding of Carrie and Charlotte's gay friends, played by Willie Garson and Mario Cantone, a lavish spectacle that opens the movie in a fun way including a crazy appearance by Liza Minelli. Once that's over, it starts delving into more weighty topics for roughly an hour before the ladies are off on a partying vacation to Abu Dabi. At this point, the movie completely changes gears, shirking its duty to resolve any of the drama set-up earlier.
Michael Patrick King is a solid director who gets some of the best performances out of these actresses, especially Parker who is such a strong dramatic actress when given the chance. He also makes all of the ladies look great, even when they're wearing some of the most outlandish outfits, and he essentially does a perfectly fine job continuing the same formula that worked so well on the show. Unfortunately, that also means the sequel shows little growth or development.
God love Kim Cattrall for taking part in not just one but two fairly graphic sex scenes that hark back to her hilarious early role in "Porky's" and for the most part, she's often the one who delivers just the right wry punchline to save many a scene, if not the entire movie. Cynthia Nixon's Miranda, who had the strongest dramatic arc in the previous movie, seems to have little to do here, her "big change" being a decision to quit her lucrative job. Big whoop.
Other than Chris Noth's Big, who is discarded and forgotten as soon as the women leave New York, the other men--David Eigenberg, Evan Handler and Jason Lewis--all play negligible parts. Considering how weak many of them were in the previous movie, that's just fine, since at least the latter three have not shown that they have the chops to be a movie actor.
There are quite a few funny bits that will get laughs regardless of your gender, but there's just as much hamming it up and resorting to the female version of gross-out humor, some of which will be appalling to any man forced to endure it. As an homage to female empowerment and bonding, the movie certainly does the trick, but there are points where it becomes a little too ridiculous to be taken even remotely seriously. (Really? A club in the Middle East would have "I Am a Woman" on the karaoke machine?) While the economic downturn is mentioned a few times in passing, you're not likely to know if from all of the money being thrown around on screen. In that sense, the film is as irresponsible as it is unrealistic.
Worse than anything else, the movie's excessive length is entirely inexcusable. Once again, the movie seems like King just slapped together ideas for five or six episodes, loosely strung together with little to no cohesion. It's so erratic it's hard to stay with it, especially with the feeling that King is just throwing whatever ideas he has into the mix. (What's the point of having Penelope Cruz playing a character who appears in one scene?)
Any crisis thrown the ladies' way is quickly overcome and forgotten as it awkwardly veers its way back into the laughs. For instance, the entire subplot with Carrie meeting Aiden in Abu Dabi seems to be done merely to sate the fans who preferred John Corbett's love interest to Chris Noth, yet the much-discussed plot point goes nowhere before being brushed aside and forgotten when Samantha causes an international incident with her vulgarity. Since that storyline is worth more laughs, the movie plays up on that leaving the Aiden encounter as an afterthought.
Even more than the first movie, "Sex and the City" continues to be little more than the female equivalent to porn, a fashionable but unrealistic fairy tale with very little actual meat, but this time, it feels more like a cash grab than a necessary continuation of the story that was tied up so neatly and nicely with the previous movie. Rating: 6/10
Analysis:
Two years ago, the popular HBO show Sex and the City came to the big screen, reintroducing audiences to the characters that hadn't been seen on television in five years. It became a huge event for women to go see together as a group, bringing in $56.8 million its opening weekend, making it the highest opening romantic comedy and fifth-highest opening for an R-rated movie. More importantly, it solidified the fact that women were clearly able to drive the box office as well as men, something shown by The Devil Wears Prada a year earlier, but then would become the norm later that year with hits like Mamma Mia! and of course, Twilight.
Although Sarah Jessica Parker, a former teen actress who first appeared on the cult show "Square Pegs," has had huge success with the "Sex and the City" show and movie, she's had mixed results as a box office draw when not playing Carrie. Her biggest success was her pairing with Matthew McConaughey in the romantic comedy Failure to Launch, which grossed over $88 million, but last year's poorly-titled Did You Hear About the Morgans? with Hugh Grant wasn't able to capitalize on the success of the previous Sex and the City movie. Obviously, Parker's female fans are the ones who only want to see her play Carrie, which is why they're likely to forgive most of her previous bad rom-coms whenever she returns to the role.
The other three ladies haven't had much success on their own with Kristin Davis making the most forays into mainstream studio movies, most recently in the hit comedy Couples Retreat, which grossed $108 million last fall. Before that, she appeared in a couple of dogs, quite literally, starring opposite Tim Allen in The Shaggy Dog and opposite Parker's hubby Matthew Broderick in the holiday comedy Deck the Halls. Kim Cattrall was recently seen in Roman Polanski's The Ghost Writer, but otherwise, she hasn't had very much luck in movies in recent years after having starring in two classic '80s films, Mannequin and Porky's. Fortunately, she's loved for her role as the sex-crazed Samantha and she's been keeping busy since the last movie by appearing in the West End on stage. Cynthia Nixon has mainly been drawn to smaller indies, but like the other actresses, she's had a hard time transcending her "Sex and the City" role as Miranda to do other things.
As much as this sequel will thrive on having all the cast from the show and previous movie back together again, an even bigger draw for the movie is its appeal to women in the way it deals with their issues in an upfront and funny way, something that makes it stand apart from other chick flicks. There's also a glamor to the movie, one that delves into the fantasy of romance, though not quite to the extent as "The Twilight Saga," which also makes it a draw to younger women as well.
Once again, the sequel factor should be in effect where those who saw the first movie not only in its theatrical release and on cable will be more likely to go out to see the sequel in its opening week, and having only two years since the previous movie is definitely a plus. That said, the original movie did have the benefits of five years anticipation since the show ended as well as the equally long-awaited wedding of Carrie and Mr. Big, which was a big draw for fans of the show as the movie neatly tied up the series. This sequel, like most, may seem to be more of a money grab that doesn't really follow up on the first movie and may not as feel as necessary. Still, the joys of coming together with other women in a theater to cheer on the characters made the first movie such a big female-friendly event movie, and that should once again be the case. Also, this is one of Warner Bros.' biggest movies this summer and they've been promoting the heck out of it, especially in New York City, where it should do especially big business not just among locals but also with the tourists visiting on the holiday weekend.
For whatever reason, Sex and the City 2 is opening on Thursday, presumably to be able to do an extra night's worth of business before the Memorial Day weekend. The original movie kicked off its run with an astounding $26.7 million opening day, partially due to the huge amount of women rushing out to see the movie as a group at midnight on Thursday. This sort of opening might have been doable to replicate if the movie didn't open on the day before a four-day holiday, although one can expect the movie to do a ton of business Thursday night and midnight going into Friday. Also, the previous movie opened over the last weekend of May, a week after Memorial Day, which caused a huge drop on Sunday. This time, it should take full advantage of the four-day holiday weekend especially on Sunday with so many women being off work on Monday.
Either way, the anticipation by women for the movie still points to a fair bit of frontloading for the movie, though one wonders how much of that will be on Thursday (or Wednesday midnights) rather than taking Friday off and seeing it then. Advance ticket sales have been brisk, and one of those days should do at least $22 million, though we think that will be Friday while Thursday will fall just short of $20 million.
Why I Should See It: The Girls are Back In Town! And they're also spending time in Dubai!
Why Not: The sequel doesn't have the same appeal as the first movie, which did a good job tying up loose ends from the show.
Projections: $17 to 19 million on Thursday, another $21 to 23 million on Friday for a $65 to 68 million four-day weekend (so roughly $85 million in its first five days?) on its way to roughly $170 to 175 million total.
Source: Edward Douglas
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