Weekend Forecast: Just How Green Will Green Lantern Be?

Who's ready for another comics hero to make the leap from the page to the screen? I said, who's ready... Enh, forget it. Let's just get on with it: Your Weekend Forecast is here, and it's looking... troubling.

NATIONAL FORECAST

· Green Lantern: It's one of the biggest gambles in recent Hollywood history, and within a few days we'll know if Warner Bros. has a win on its hands with Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively and the CGI-saturated comic-book schema around them. The studio is calling its shot a little below $60 million, while most box-office observers are whispering final projections around $62 million or so. But marketing firehose and terrible reviews aside, have you heard anybody really talking about Green Lantern? This may track like a $60-million-plus opening, but it doesn't really feel like one. And there is so much interference elsewhere in the multiplex -- it's the third comics adaptation to open in seven weeks, and people still want to see Super 8, too -- that I smell a disappointment. Not huge, but enough to soil at least a few suits in Burbank. FORECAST: $55.1 million

· Mr. Popper's Penguins: Sure, the penguins of the title don't talk. But ZOMG they dance and waddle around New York and everybody loves penguinnnnsssss!!! That Carrey dude has been known to open a few movies here and there, too. I'm underwhelmed with the overall presence on this one, but I still see it surprising a few people. FORECAST: $18.3 million

NATIONAL ALERT!

Just a quick heads-up that Sony Classics is still expanding Woody Allen's splendid Midnight in Paris. The distributor sent word today that the film will appear this weekend on 1,038 screens nationwide -- the largest release of any Allen film -- as it looks to pile further lucre atop its already-staggering $16 million pot.

REGIONAL OUTLOOK

I flirted with the idea of dropping The Art of Getting By in National Outlook -- it opens on more than 600 screens -- but the indie high-school dramedy isn't quite on that tentpole level with Ryan Reynolds and Jim Carrey. Still, it should fare OK, probably in the $3 million range before tapering off next week. Much smaller are the docs Page One: Inside The New York Times, Buck, and the Irish Dancing Championship chronicle JIG, all of which arrive in art house with reasonably strong critical endorsement. We'll see how they hold up in the word-of-mouth department.

There you have it. Who's lighting up a Lantern? Who's still got Super 8 catching up to do? Let's hear your picks, projections and anything else you've got planned for your weekend at the movies.



Comments

  • NP says:

    Will there be a "9 Most Scathing Critical Responses..." post about _Green Lantern_? How far must its RT score fall (21% right now!)? It just looks terrible. The CG stuff is so cartoony and awful looking, including the freaking mask and his _eyes_. Eyes are always the giveaway. What made them think it was a good idea to do computer generated eyes???

  • MA says:

    Green Lantern looks like some bastard offspring of Battlefield Earth. I guess the question is how floppy does this have to be to qualify as a flop? If the $300m spend is close to being true, then a $60m opening would be the least they've hope for? I'm even more cynical about this one - I reckon it might do mid-40s. I can't think of too many people who care -- and those who might have will surely think twice after the reviews and those terrible trailers.
    I KNOW, RIGHT!
    This could become the new mark of lazy screenwriting, 2011's "My bad" or "That's gotta hurt"

  • Bob says:

    Well, you got your wish today. Smells like a big old stink-bomb. They may do $55-60 million this weekend, but if it's as bad as they're saying, that will drop pathetically next weekend. Out of the theaters by July 4th weekend.