Welcome back to Movieline Attractions, your one-stop guide to everything new, noteworthy and/or nostalgia inducing at the movies. This week brings what appears to be one of the most consistent, dependably watchable -- and even good! -- batch of releases to theaters, including what I imagine might turn out to be this year's Hurt Locker. Not that you'd know it by looking at it. Read on and allow me to explain.
WHAT'S NEW: People finally seem to be clued in to Despicable Me and... they like it! Stephanie Zacharek's own rave is forthcoming this morning, but a strong majority of American critics are also behind this animated tale of a moon-stealing super-villain who meets his match in fatherhood. (I think? I'm still kind of relying on the kindness of others here.) How will that translate to box office, though? Well, look at it this way: The title and general ambiguity is still a bit of an albatross, and the big 3D boost that Universal sought should be mitigated a bit by holdovers The Last Airbender and Toy Story 3. But! Good word-of-mouth can earn back a little of that, probably pushing Despicable into the neighborhood of $36 million. Which, believe it or not, might very well be flirting with sequel-ready grosses; Despicable Me reportedly cost half of the $150 million Pixar drops on an average effort.
I'm more interested in Predators, which was not exactly given what you'd call an inspired marketing push by Fox in recent weeks. But what it did receive -- particularly online -- seems to signify something... good? The reboot/remake/revision of the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger hit pits a band of humans against a population of the big-mouthed title characters -- on their planet this time -- introducing a solid ensemble of Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, Laurence Fishburne and others to the genre fun. It's a counterprogramming no-brainer, timed just about perfectly for the gritless action/horror vacuum of the moment. And again: It looks all right! Let's call it for an even $28 million and probably a prompt plunge off the end of the table when Inception rattles the scene next week.
And then, in limited release, there's The Kids Are All Right. Remember last summer, when The Hurt Locker trickled into major markets, pulling down the fulsome accolades (if not exactly exorbitant grosses) that would eventually help spin it into 2009's Cinderella Oscar story? Wait and see if Kids doesn't follow that same trail: A generally unpolitical film vaguely about a hotly politicized social issue (i.e. gay marriage and families) that will prompt a slow burn of debate, all the while pushed and pushed by critics desperate to persuade Hollywood that sophistication is not dead. Except this one's moderately funny and has lots of gratuitous sex, so there's that speed bump on the long road to Oscar night. Anyway, this movie's fine, and it will kill. As long as we're comparing, Locker opened on four screens to a $36K-per-theater average. Kids should do at least that on seven screens.
Also opening in limited release: The latest Stieg Larsson adaptation The Girl Who Played With Fire; the Spanish horror sequel [REC] 2; and the Indian Maoist drama Red Alert: The War Within. New York gets first looks at the viral-video cult-hero doc Winnebago Man and the Jacques Rivette circus (literally!) Around a Small Mountain. Los Angeles gets it own first look at the filmmaking documentary Great Directors, the regional bogeyman doc Cropsey, and the shoestring dysfunctional-family portrait Daddy Longlegs.
THE BIG LOSER: In the race to see who can free-fall the most from last week's peaks, it's a very, very close race between The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Last Airbender. Each should take at least a 60-percent hit from their holiday three-days, winding up around $27 million and $16 million respectively. Thanks for playing, guys.
