Yowza: With three new wide releases and no fewer than five well-regarded indies making their ways to art houses this week, you can't say there's nothing for you at the movies. Let's give July the sendoff it deserves with a busy round of Weekend Forecast.
NATIONAL OUTLOOK
· Cowboys & Aliens: After what feels like months of hype and/or gazing at some variation of a photograph of Daniel Craig and his alien-light bracelet, the American public finally gets its eyes on the very big-budget ($160 million+!) graphic-novel adaptation. It is what it sounds like, and no one in particular is tremendously excited about it. Buzz out of last week's Comic-Con premiere was pin-drop quiet, and when you've got Craig and Harrison Ford in a film whose marketing campaign favors the hook "From the director of Iron Man" over showing either star's face, then faith might be low at Universal and DreamWorks. Projections, meanwhile are not; some are predicting a take near $50 million, but I'm not drinking that Kool-Aid. At least not with Captain America holding its own and a possible sleeper-in-the-making like Crazy, Stupid, Love pulling adults away. FORECAST: $33.7 million
· The Smurfs: No one necessarily asked for this movie before it was announced, but a surprising amount of people with young kids and/or a robust sense of nostalgia are expected to ask for it this weekend. The 3-D bump will treat this one right -- still probably not enough to score second place over Captain America, but closer than probably even its own gang at Sony expects. Sequel! FORECAST: $25.9 million
· Crazy, Stupid, Love.: Steve Carell. Julianne Moore. Ryan Gosling. Kevin Bacon. Marisa Tomei. Emma Stone. Josh Groban. Allll with their own constituencies, and allll under the same PG-13 romcom umbrella. This movie would have killed in August. I guess technically it still can (and will), but for now, it'll have to settle for a strong fourth place. FORECAST: $19.2 million
REGIONAL OUTLOOK
Things get really bottlenecked at the art house, meanwhile, where the early Oscar-season adopters The Devil's Double (featuring Dominic Cooper in a staggering dual performance as sadistic Iraqi scion Uday Hussein and his lookalike decoy) and The Interrupters (Steve James's acclaimed documentary about gang-violence "interrupters" in Chicago) make their debuts. They're joined by fellow Sundance alums The Future and The Guard, while the Brits-vs.-aliens cult darling Attack the Block scrambles for indie dollars as well.
What do you expect to break out? And how much do you think your preference can rake in by Sunday night?