Weekend Forecast: Apes Should Rise to the Occasion, But Will Change-Up?

Apes! Will! Rise! Ups! Will! Change! Enh, whatever. That's about as exciting as this weekend's wide release line-up gets on paper, at least until the dollars trickle in and the spreadsheets start filling up around Hollywood. But who will be on top? To the Forecast!

NATIONAL OUTLOOK

· Rise of the Planet of the Apes: Notwithstanding the movie's generally strong word-of-mouth to date, the success of the Apes franchise origin story/reboot/prequel/whatever is predicated almost entirely on how persuasively all those fighting apes tearing up the Golden Gate Bridge can work as marketing tools -- because people still aren't necessarily buying what James Franco is selling. (And let's be honest: He's barely selling anything at all.) But there's another advantage here on 3,500 screens, at least for Fox: Millions of moviegoers' eyes are gonna scroll right past Cowboys & Aliens' name at the multiplex and go right for the Apes. Or at least they will if they don't have young kids who didn't attend last week's staggering Smurfs opening. There's nothing saying a tentpole can't be a sleeper; this one might sleep its way to the top two weeks in a row. FORECAST: $41.4 million

· The Change-Up: Ho-hum, another R-rated comedy. Jason Bateman does his straight-man shtick and Ryan Reynolds plays oversexed. The only difference is the stakes: Reynolds needs this one bad after Green Lantern. I don't have a feeling he's going to get it, though -- not with the likely second-week legs Crazy, Stupid, Love. pulling millions away. He won't get a flop, either, but still: This might be the weekend America lets him know we'd like to take our relationship a little slower. FORECAST: $16.7 million

THE PRIME DESTINATION

Man, oh man, did Stephanie Zacharek ever nail it with regard to The Whistleblower, featuring superb work by Rachel Weisz as a UN peacekeeper investigating human trafficking in Bosnia: "Weisz is a sensitive but sturdy actress, just what a director needs for a job like this. She doesn't hammer at the righteousness of the role, and she's in touch not just with Kathy's resoluteness but with her shortcomings, chiefly her misguided belief that she can protect these victimized girls when she can't even protect herself. At certain points, Weisz's face registers disbelief at the atrocities around her, and that disbelief is essential -- it's not naivete, but a way of reckoning with just how cruel and unjust the world can be. The Whistleblower may overstate some of its themes, but Weisz keeps dipping below the movie's surface, always looking for the shadowy underside of moral certainty." Bam. It's not a masterpiece, but in both its actorly (Vanessa Redgrave and David Strathairn co-star) and narrative intrigues, it is one of the summer's few true must-sees.

REGIONAL OUTLOOK

The Sundance sensation/DIY darling Bellflower roars into theaters in limited release alongside Alex Gibney and Alison Ellwood's more sputtery Magic Trip, while Esai Morales stars and co-produces the gritty Bronx family drama Gun Hill Road. Kevin Zegers and Josh Ritter sort out their troubled friendship in The Perfect Age of Rock and Roll, and Raul Ruiz takes us on an epic, meditative journey across the decades in Mysteries of Lisbon.

Care to call your shot?