Weekend Box Office (07/31/11) part II: Attack the Block scores in limited release, Captain America tumbles, Harry Potter 7.2 crosses $1 billion worldwide.

Meanwhile, a little farther down the chart, the much-anticipated and raved-about by geek critics Attack the Block was released on just eight screens by Screen Gems, with respectable results.  The film earned $130,000 for a solid $16,307 per-screen average.  Of course, this means little in terms of the film's mainstream play ability, and I do not yet know the expansion plans for the British alien invasion import.  But every movie geek on my Twitter feed has been begging everyone else to see this one.  As for me, I'm hoping that it goes to the much closer Arclight Sherman Oaks next weekend (as opposed to the much farther Arclight Hollywood).  I'm also a little nervous about those allegedly thick British accents, as I'm a little hard of hearing and am debating on waiting for the subtitled-DVD.  But for those unafraid of accents, everyone I know seems to have really enjoyed this one.  Also debuting in limited release was The Devil's Double ($95,000 on five screens) and The Guard ($80,000 on four screens).

Weekend Box Office (07/31/11) part I: The Smurfs, Cowboys and Aliens do battle,tying with $36.2 million, while Stupid Crazy Love opens with $19.2 million.

This weekend is an excellent example of why it's the numbers, not the rankings that matter when discussing box office.  And, more importantly, the context of the numbers must be taken into account as well as the hard figures.  As of this moment, The Smurfs and Cowboys & Aliens are battling for the top slot at this weekend's box office, with both films hovering at $36.2 million.  One cost $110 million while the other cost $165 million.  One has strong foreign prospects and a guarantee of eternal life as a family DVD purchase/rental, while the other faces an uncertain future as it belongs to a distinctly American genre.  Point being, The Smurfs can take solace that it somewhat over-performed this weekend, while the Jon Favreau genre mash-up may go down as one of the bigger whiffs of the summer season.

Paranormal Activity 3 gets a surprisingly revealing teaser.

Considering how completely enshrouded in mystery the second film is, it's a little surprising that Paramount basically ups and reveals the primary plot in this moody and effective teaser.  This time around, it's being helmed by Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman, who broke out last year with the somewhat questionable (in regards to its 'non-fiction-ness') documentary Catfish.  I have no objection with the third film in this franchise being an 80s-set prequel, but I have to wonder where they will go after they'd allegedly explained much of the mystery in this alleged 'here's how it all began' third chapter.  I am genuinely curious to see A) if they actually shot the film on old-fashioned VHS camcorders and B) whether this series can maintain the consistency of the Saw franchise, which was flying high for five straight installments before crashing with the sixth (and ironically best) chapter back in 2009.  It took direct competition from the first Paranormal Activity to bring down Jigsaw.  What will be the next October-scheduled franchise to take down the poltergeists/demons from this series in a few years?  Anyway, this one opens on October 21st, which is the same weekend as the wide releases of the first two films.  As always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson 

Brett Ratner's all-star caper Tower Heist gets a trailer.

This one has been on the radar for awhile purely due to the huge cast.  The big trump card is of course Eddie Murphy returning to slightly harder-edged comedy after 15 years of being a family-friendly entertainer.  The rest of the lineup (Ben Stiller, Alan Alda, Tea Leoni, Gabourey Sidibe, Matthew Broderick, Casey Affleck, Michael Pena, Judd Hirsch, etc) makes this a must-see almost by default, while the fact that the first credited writer (out of eight) is Noah Baumbach gives hope regarding its quality (the other seven writers are a mixed bag).  I know this isn't a popular opinion, but I'm a big fan of Ratner's Red Dragon, primarily because he apparently was smart enough to stand back and let his equally terrific cast just do their thing (major caveat - Why was Scott Glenn not asked back to play Jack Crawford this time around?).  Hopefully the same 'go off and play, just come in before dark' mentality will apply here.  It is slightly odd that Eddie Murphy is arguably playing the same type of character he played in 48 Hrs and he doesn't look that much older than he did in 1982 (he turned 50 this past April).  Anyway, this one comes out November 4th from Universal so, as always, we'll see...

Scott Mendelson

Right idea, wrong execution: Paramount makes the wrong scheduling moves for GI Joe: Retaliation and Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

As expected, Paramount was the first to blink this afternoon, moving Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol away from its December 16th release date where it would have gone head-to-head with Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows and Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked.  The Brad Bird-directed sequel will now open five days later, on Wednesday, December 21st.  Unfortunately, instead of facing one major would-be blockbuster, it now faces several.  Opening on the same day or two days later are The Adventures of Tintin, The Darkest Hour, We Bought A Zoo, and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  The Tom Cruise/Jeremy Renner vehicle very well may win that long Christmas weekend and benefit from those famous year-end legs.  But there was another even more prime release date with absolutely no competition whatsoever.

She's a politician, not a movie star. Why the box office failure of Sarah Palin's The Undefeated doesn't mean a gosh-darn thing.

However immature it may be, it can be fun to crow when your enemy fails.  Thus we've had two weeks of various liberal bloggers jumping for joy at the financial under-performance of the Sarah Palin halo-agraphy The Undefeated.  The film opened with $65,132 on ten screens for a mediocre $6,532 per-screen average.  It expanded to 14 locations this past weekend but dropped 62%, earning just $24,662 for a $1,762 per-screen average.  The film barely has $100,000 after ten days and has announced premature (?) plans to debut on Video on Demand and DVD release.  This is frankly an out-and-out tank, a genuine bomb even when compared to other political documentaries that aren't directed by Michael Moore (comparing all political documentaries to Moore's work would be like expecting Punisher: War Zone to out-gross Spider-Man 3).  Ben Stein's Intelligent Design documentary, Expelled, ended up grossing $7.7 million in 2008.  Even something as relatively low-key as The US vs. John Lennon opened with $11,523 per-screen on six screens and eventually grossed $1.1 million back in 2006.  What does this mean for the political fortunes of Sarah Palin and/or those who endorse her ideologies?  Absolutely nothing.

Battleship gets a teaser, feels very Armageddon-ish.

I could go on and on about how this represents the pinnacle of what is wrong with the 'tentpole' portion of the film industry at the moment.  But truth be told, I'm more depressed that Peter Berg chose THIS as his follow up to Hancock (arguably one of the best original superhero pictures of the modern superhero era) and chose not to fill the cast with quirky character actors (think The Core).  But no matter, the finished product basically feels like an original (though contrived) invading aliens vs. the US Navy film that slapped the name 'Battleship' on its marquee purely for brand name recognition.  Which, frankly, if you're going to adapt a board game (or a theme park ride for that matter), that's how you do it.  I'm less annoyed at the whole 'let's make a movie out of Battleship' concept that I am at how contrived and generic the picture feels.  Peter Berg (who showed real action chops with The Kingdom) seems to be mimicking Michael Bay.  The alien threat feels like something out of Transformers (the red and yellow peg-shaped missiles are a nice touch), while the core storyline is pure Armageddon.  The only question is not whether Liam Neeson will die at the end (after giving Taylor Kitsch approval to wed his daughter, Brooklyn Decker), but whether Neeson's last words will be "You sunk my battleship!"  This one comes out May 18th, 2012, which is actually prime summer real estate, in apparently glorious 2D.

Scott Mendelson    

The Muppets gets a final domestic poster...

Thanks to Fandango to putting this up originally.  Not much to say, other than I'm glad that Statler and Waldorf are getting prominent spaces in the gigantic deluge of Muppets.  I suppose I could take umbrige over the fact that the humans are given top billing over the puppets that everyone is actually coming to see.  I love Chris Cooper as much as the next person, but he's not exactly a box office draw or a kid favorite.  Anyway, enough whining, I'll be there with bells on for the first November 23rd showing, or an earlier press screening if I can brownnose Disney to a suitable degree (they don't return my emails as often as other big studios).  On a last note, kudos to Disney for not forcing a 3D conversion this time around.

Scott Mendelson  

For the good of the industry: Why The Amazing Spider-Man must not be a smash...

What was merely presumed is now official, as IMAX announced that The Amazing Spider-Man would be debuting in IMAX 3D along with its 2D and Digital 3D counterparts on July 3, 2012.  This is no surprise, as Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 both played in IMAX (the latter opened day-and-date), while the lost Raimi-helmed Spider-Man 4 was announced as an IMAX launch when it was scheduled to open on May 5th of this year.  Of course, the Marc Webb Spider-Man reboot will only have 2.5 weeks in IMAX before Chris Nolan debuts The Dark Knight Rises on July 20th.  I have nothing against anyone involved with the making of The Amazing Spider-Man.  I liked Marc Webb's (500) Days of Summer, I think Emma Stone deserved an Oscar nomination for Easy A, and Andrew Garfield has shined in (among his more mainstream films) Never Let Me Go and The Social Network.  And while the teaser trailer failed to make any real impression beyond autopilot 'dark and gritty' brooding, I've been told the footage at Comic Con was more impressive.  But for the good of the industry as a whole, for the sake of the countless untapped sources of big-budget cinematic experiences, The Amazing Spider-Man must bomb.

Happily Never After: The sad (and sexist?) rush to cast some of our most promising young actresses as fairy tale princesses.

There were a few interesting articles written over the last several months about the unusual amount of ass-kicking (or at least take-charge) young female roles being written into mainstream cinema.  Whether it was Chloe Moretz in Kick-Ass, Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit, Jennifer Lawrence in Winter's Bone, or Saoirse Ronan in Hanna, the last 18 months or so has seen a mini-wave of genre pictures where young females were basically the lead characters (or in the case of Kick-Ass the star attraction), 'strong independent character' (god, I hate that cliche) who not only could fend for themselves but were not defined in any way, shape, or form by their male love interest (not a one of them had a boyfriend).  Yes, I would include Sucker Punch in this category, as it was basically a satiric examination of whether ass-kicking young women in pop culture were automatically sexualized by virtue of the salacious nature of such imagery (stop whining and read THIS).  The somewhat negative undercurrent of this trend is that these actresses were generally under 18, often barely passed puberty.  Point being, what would become of these actresses once they reached adulthood?  If recent developments are any indication, Hollywood has a genuine desire to roll back the progress clock and turn these actresses into fairy tale princesses.