While the weather forecast for much of the East Coast looks like a storyboard from Day After Tomorrow thanks to Hurricane Irene, the box office forecast is decidedly more calm. As summer continues to crawl toward Labor Day, three genre films hit theaters, all with the diminished expectations that come with their late August release dates. What movie will you probably ignore this weekend? To the forecast!
NATIONAL OUTLOOK
· Colombiana: Don't sleep on the Luc Besson Factory of Action Thrillers*. From the Transporter series to the wildly successful Taken, the French auteur has the midas touch when it comes to producing mid-range budgeted meat-grinders. Colombiana is the latest one of Besson's brutal babies to hit theaters -- he also wrote the script here, while the awesomely named Olivier Megaton (Transporter 3) directs -- and it promises to offer Taken-y revenge mixed with Wanted-y lady-toughness (courtesy of star Zoe Saldana). Great! Or it will be great when everyone catches up with it on Netflix in eight months. FORECAST: $8.7 million
*Not a real factory.
· Don't Be Afraid of the Dark: From one auteur producer to another! Guillermo del Toro is responsible for this spooky remake of Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, and judging from the trailers, his directorial stand-in (first-timer Troy Nixey) knew just how to affect the spooky-scary children-in-peril aesthetic that Del Toro does so well. Horror films have been in a rut here in 2011 -- Insidious is the year's highest grossing horror flick at $53 million -- and the genre has been battered over the last two weeks, with both Final Destination 5 and Fright Night flopping. Will fans come out to play with Del Toro, a bunch of Homunculi and Katie Holmes? Considering Jeepers Creepers was a late summer horror hit, why not? FORECAST: $12.9 million
· Our Idiot Brother: Rule of thumb: when a non-blockbuster gets an overwhelming amount of promotion during the lead-up to its release, it's probably a dog. Apropos of that, say hello to Our Idiot Brother! The Sundance fave has been everywhere during the last few weeks, from Funny or Die to the cover of The Hollywood Reporter to a "scandal" about censorship which "forced" the release of Thursday's red band trailer. The film looks like a light and fluffy bit of late summer indie fun, which would be great if it weren't getting released on over 2,500 screens. FORECAST: $4.8 million
THE PRIME DESTINATION
Hope you got used to seeing The Help at the top of the box office; the adaptation of Kathryn Stockett's novel is poised to win its second straight box office crown, matching Hop, Rio, Thor, Transformers: Dark of the Moon and Rise of the Planet of the Apes as the only films to turn that trick in 2011. Also, if you haven't seen Midnight in Paris yet, get on that good news: Sony Classics is releasing the film in 400 additional theaters over the weekend as the studio pushes to get Woody Allen's latest further past $50 million in ticket sales.
REGIONAL OUTLOOK
Vera Farmiga makes her directorial debut with the well-received Higher Ground, Sam Riley and Andrea Riseborough star in the adaptation of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, and Hope Davis features in the familial comedy Family Tree.
Care to call your shot?