Attractions: Battle of the SNL All-Stars

Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your regular guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or franchise-ending at the movies. This week an ogre says goodbye, an SNL semi-hero says hello, and a real legend quietly sneaks into the art house. And: Fearless box-office prognostications! Tell me I'm wrong after the jump.

WHAT'S NEW: I can't remember the last time a Saturday Night Live alumnus went up against a current SNL cast member on opening day. I'm sure it's been done, though probably not with two studio tentpoles like Shrek Forever After and MacGruber. And sure, there are other mitigating conditions (Mike Myers is merely voice talent, etc.). Either way, the bottom line is that the Shrek series's final installment is going to beat the crap out of Will Forte's randy, R-rated, feature-length sketch based on his incompetent SNL special-ops guy. Buoyed by franchise faith (Shrek 3 notwithstanding), good reviews and a staggering $20 ticket price to see the film in IMAX 3-D in New York, Shrek Forever After should probably creep just past $100 million. Its legs should carry it from there.

MacGruber, meanwhile, isn't expected to do much, but I like it for more than the $11 million or $12 million most folks seem to consider its ceiling. Then again, this is Universal, so it's not unreasonable to expect the worst. Let's split the difference at around $13.5 million and a quick exit to minor DVD cult status.

That's it for wide releases. There's another glut this week at the art house, where the Bollywood epic Kites will once again test the market for the genre on 200 screens in mid- to major markets. (Its trimmed-down, Americanized "remix" will debut next week.) Documentarian Marshall Curry's acclaimed youth auto-racing film -- the follow-up to his Oscar nominated Street Fight -- also opens on more than 30 screens in the racing hotbeds of the South. (Look for it June 11 in NYC and L.A.) Moving down from there, Michael Douglas offers a curiously slick, nihilistic performance in Solitary Man, featuring the screen legend as a disgraced car dealer who propensity for easy sex and self-destruction defy his urge to restore his name in the business world. It's a flawed but intriguing bit of work with a nifty ensemble featuring Susan Sarandon, Mary-Louise Parker, Jesse Eisenberg, Danny DeVito and predatory young newcomer Imogen Poots. The kid's going places.

Also: The Hasidic ecstasy-smuggling drama Holy Rollers; the Israeli-Arab soccer documentary After the Cup: Sons of Sakhnin United; the Nanking-inspired period biopic John Rabe; the flinty Irish caper flick Perrier's Bounty (NYC only); the film-world tragedy The Father of My Children (L.A. only); and, expanding to L.A., Harmony Korine's ugh-fest Trash Humpers and Ken Loach's comedy-ish Looking For Eric.

THE BIG LOSER: Surprisingly, not Robin Hood, which way outshone last week's projections and remains the only semi-sophisticated mainstream option for moviegoing adults. (Sure, it's terrible, but it won't drop more than 45 percent.) If there has to be a "loser" anywhere in theaters, it's probably Iron Man 2; that suit failed dramatically last week with a 60 percent freefall that will only gather speed this weekend.

THE UNDERDOG: Hey, Los Angeles: The Living Wake is opening today near you! Read about here, then go check it out at the Sunset 5.