Daily Archives: February 27, 2009
Scotty G’s Box Office Predictions for the Weekend of Feb. 27, 2009
It’s the weekend that every fan of Biff Bam Pop! has been waiting for. The Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience finally arrives in theatres. I know you’re excited. I’m excited. Ok, I’m not excited at all, but this film is going to make some good coin.
A year ago, the Hannah Montana//Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds opened and shocked the industry. It’s opening was just over $31 million, which is good. The real surprise was that it was playing in less than 700 theatres. So it’s per theatre average was over $45,000. It was also an event movie, because it was only supposed to have a limited run. Sold out movie theatres made Disney extend the fun of the film. The Jonas Brothers has the same buzz going for it. This is to kids, as what Watchmen is to adults. It’s an event film. It will play in over 1,200 screens, runs approximately 1 hour and 16 minutes, meaning tons of show times throughout the day, and it will do better than Hannah Montana. I’m predicting that the Jonas Brothers rule at #1 and the film grosses $47 million.
The other major new release is one that no one is excited for. Based on the popular video game of yesteryear – Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li opens in around 1,000 screens, which is small for a film like this. It’s directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak, who has not done anything that people really love [Doom is his most notable credit, and I don’t know many people who like that film]. The cast is B-List with Kristin Kreuk and Michael Clarke Duncan being the big names, and it shows the studio [20th Century Fox] doesn’t have much confidence in the picture. I’m sure the film will find a bigger audience on DVD. I’m predicting it opens outside the Top 5 at about $3.5 million.
With not much else opening, there will not be much change in the Top 5. Madea Goes To Jail has been the number one movie throughout the week, followed by Slumdog Millionaire, which will get a bounce this weekend because of its 8 Oscar wins, and because Fox Searchlight is expanding its release. Taken is still doing well [still cannot believe this film is over $100 million domestically], and He’s Just Not That Into You and Coraline continue to impress with grosses of $71 million and $55 million respectively. I don’t know anyone who saw those films making that much money.
So here’s how I see the weekend unfolding:
1) The Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience – $47 million
2) Madea Goes To Jail – $20 million
3) Slumdog Millionaire – $14 million
4) Taken – $8 million
5) Coraline – $6.5 million
Random Acts Of Movie Watching: Andy B sits through Southland Tales
As fate would have it, the sickness that felled the Queen last weekend has made its way into my immune system, leaving me snotty and sleepless and home from the day job. With cold medicine coursing through my veins, I was unable to sleep as well, so I thought I’d throw on a DVD to keep me entertained.
My choice was Southland Tales, written and directed by Richard Kelly (Donnie Darko) and starring Dwayne Johnson, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Sean William Scott, Justin Timberlake, and a host of B-level actors and Saturday Night Live alumni. The DVD had been in my possession for over a year but I’d been holding off on watching until I finished its graphic novel prequel. Problem is, the Southland Tales comic book that professes to be Chapters I-III of the tale is virtually unreadable. At the very least, it’s horribly boring, which didn’t bode well for the film.
Set in an alternate 2008 where World War III has taken place and the United States government has regulated cyberspace, Southland Tales stars Johnson as Boxer Santaros, an action star with amnesia who has written an apocalyptic screenplay with porn star Krysta Now, played by Gellar. Along for the ride is Scott as a masquerading L.A. cop under the influence of homegrown terrorists.
At least I think that’s the story.
Southland Tales has had a tumultuous history. Rewrites and reshoots, a horrible reaction at Cannes 2006, and a complete burial in December 2007, when it was released in just 63 theaters in North America to both audience apathy and critical ennui. It made no money and was unceremoniously dumped onto DVD last March.
In theory, I would have seen Southland Tales had it made it to a theater in Toronto, but to the best of my knowledge it never screened here. So instead, I spent the 22 dollars on the DVD. Even with all the critical drubbings, I still had faith in Southland Tales. I loved Donnie Darko (not the director’s cut, mind you, but the one that we all first experienced on DVD), and I’m all for entertaining apocalyptic tales.
My mistake. My horrible mistake. There is virtually nothing entertaining about Southland Tales.
First of all, any film that puts Jon Lovitz, Cherie Oteri, and Amy Poehler in prime roles has immediately got it all wrong. The baggage those SNL alumni bring with them does not allow us to take them seriously. And they’re bad actors. That was some horrible casting, Mr. Kelly.
While Dwayne Johnson does decent enough work in Southland Tales, playing against type with his nevous ticks, the problem is the material he’s working with is fucking horrible. I’m pretty sure The Rock left this one off his resume when he started working with Disney. Meanwhile, Sarah Michelle Gellar, who hooked me for seven seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, does nothing with her underwritten and unappealing porn star character. The more Gellar does outside of Sunnydale, the more I wonder how long it will be until she tries to return.
Then there’s the convoluted storytelling. There’s a heck of a lot of “telling” throughout, thanks to narrator Timberlake, but when an audience desperately needs something explained to them, a filmmaker should know something is wrong. For all the warnings of “danger on the horizon”, I never really knew what was going on. In that regard, watching Southland Tales reminded me of how I felt as a child trying to watch David Lynch’s Dune. It’s that bad.
There are a few good things to say about Southland Tales. For all of its convoluted storytelling, the movie looks great. There’s also a quirky scene that finds Justin Timberlake lip-synching to The Killers “All The Things I’ve Done”. And the typically overbearing Sean William Scott shows himself adept at drama.
But these are just a few pluses in over two hours of excruciatingly awful minuses. In fact, by the end of Southland Tales I think I felt worse than when it started.
Southland Tales – one of the worst films I’ve ever made myself sit through. Please save yourself a few hours and never, ever, watch it.
