Yep, The Hunger Games wins again. The mega-hit has fended off the advances of two strong opponents to retain it’s Box Office crown for at least one more week. Bringing in over $33 Million dollars over the Easter weekend The Hunger Games now stands at over $300 Million in just three weeks.

The rest of the top three this week were dominated by 90′s nostalgia fare. Both came out with respectable numbers, especially considering the context of their release. Even still, neither could muster enough bank to truly challenge for the top spot.

Coming in at second was the fourth theatrical American Pie film, American Reunion. While it is true that its $ 21.5 Million dollar take is not very impressive compared to the previous films, the release of any R-Rated, raunchy comedy on Easter weekend is going to suffer. Considering that, and the bad will the franchise suffered from a long stretch of poor direct-to-DVD spin off films, you have to look at American Reunion as a win.

Continue Reading →

Last week saw the debut of the monster hit The Hunger Games. This week that film held well enough to keep an iron grip on the weekend box office. Raking in an estimated $61 Million over the weekend, the super sized block buster is now over $250 Million in just over a week.

The movie did drop over 60% from it’s opening last weekend, but in comparison to films like the Twilight series that is a decent hold. Especially when you take into consideration that films like these are notoriously front loaded, the second weekend take for The Hunger Games is impressive.

Coming in at number two this weekend was Wrath of the Titans, the sequel to the 2010 film Clash of the Titans. With a total of $34 Million, Wrath brought in only just better than half of the original’s open in the similar weekend two years ago. Given the current trend of sequels performing at levels similar to the reception of the previous film, this low number had to be expected.

Continue Reading →

There is some good, some awesome, some sad and some well excepted news in this weeks box office results.

Coming in at number one for the weekend, 21 Jump Street makes a splash with $35 million, and it’s very good news. To see a successful TV adaptation that proves you can be R-rated, have a completely unexpected tone and still work is a wonderful trend starter for the industry.

Hollywood is a copy cat industry and if remakes and reboots have to happen, the only way you can maintain some artistic credibly is to bring something fresh to the table. Hopefully this success can grease the wheels with other creative folks and deliver something unexpected with these name brands. It will be interesting to see how the zany Dark Shadows is received in the wake of this win.

The well expected news comes in the form of our second place finisher, The Lorax. This Suess adaptation is performing well above initial expectations and is proving to have strong legs as it fell another soft 40ish percent to nearly $23 million. The Lorax will take a hit next week, but is well on it’s way to crossing the $200 million bar.

Continue Reading →

That unfortunate loud thudding noise you just heard was John Carter‘s opening weekend. The mega budget, would be franchise starter came in at a beyond disappointing 30.6 million. Good enough for second place to last week’s winner, The Lorax.

Speaking of this week’s box office champion, The Lorax hauled in an impressive 39.1 million, representing a mild 44% drop from last week’s huge opening numbers. With a massive opening, and a mild drop, the Dr. Suess adaptation is in prime shape to be the break out hit of the spring. It really only has The Hungar Game to compete with, and that audience is similar but far from exact.

Project X held well, and preformed strongly in the wake of a solid opening weekend. This week it was announced that a sequel to the found footage party film was possibly underway, and a continued strong presence at the box office goes a long way in validating that decision.

Continue Reading →

The Lorax is the big winner of the box office this weekend, bringing in a massive 70.7 million. This is a monumental number and further proof that the concept of prime seasons being the only way a film can make bank is dead.

We are now in the thick of the ‘Spring Movie Season’ which for the last few years has yielded some of the most successful and surprising films of the years. The staggering numbers for The Lorax also represent a bit of a coming out for Universal’s animation house Illumination Entertainment, which previously won a lot of people over with the very fun Despicable Me.

The impressive haul also marks a new high water mark for Dr. Seuss adaptions, topping the previous high of 55.1 million raked in by How The Grinch Stole Christmas. The film is likely to have a decent run as well with few marquee kids films on the immediate horizon, and mixed reviews that do tend to skew a bit towards positive.

Continue Reading →

You may be wondering why Marvel is releasing a comic book mini-series based on Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Mars series of novels. Well, it’s not that hard to figure out.

Disney has a big movie coming out soon based on the novels and Disney also owns Marvel. So, they want to build awareness and publicize the movie as much as possible.

See, it all makes sense now. However, to Marvel’s credit, this isn’t just a simple comic tie-in with the movie. It’s actually an original story.

Here’s the scoop:

From the creative team of Sam Humphries & Ramon Perez, the heroic John Carter makes his return to Barsoom not to save it from Martian beasts . . . but Martian GODS! This new series, in collaboration with the Edgar Rice Burroughs estate, is an all-new graphic fiction adaptation of the legendary John Carter novels AND considered part of the official canon set by Burroughs.

As our hero finds himself in the land of the dead, all hope looks lost. But nothing will stop John Carter from saving Mars from the terror of those looking to destroy it.

Check out the preview pages after the break. Look for John Carter: The Gods of Mars #1 (of 5) to hit store shelves on March 21.

Continue Reading →

I’m not sure what it is about movie marketing these days. For some reason, studios seems determined to hide elements of a film when putting together trailers and other marketing materials.

It’s almost as if they’re afraid to reveal anything for fear of alienating some segment (or all) of a film’s potential audience. In truth, that’s probably pretty close to the reality.

Such is the case with Disney’s upcoming film John Carter. It’s painfully obvious from the trailers released so far that Disney marketing has no idea how to sell this film. In fact, I’d wager the first trailers have done little to entice potential viewers into the theaters.

Personally, I’ve found them to be dull, uninspired and tending to focus on elements making this film pretty much look like every other Disney film released in the last ten years. Fortunetely, for those of us who are fans of the books and want this movie to succeede, others have stepped up to help.

Enter YouTube user John Carter Files. They’ve taken it upon themselves to make a trailer for the film and after watching it I’m sure you will agree it’s so much better than any of the “official” ones Disney should give these guys a job immedietly and leave them alone to do their work.

Check it out after the break. Look for John Carter to hit theaters on March 9.

Continue Reading →

We’ve had some tidbits from this film already including some stills and a poster and the first trailer. Now, Disney has released a new trailer for John Carter, the science-fiction epic based on the series of books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

In case you’ve forgotten (or never knew in the first place) here’s a synopsis of the film:

“John Carter tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom (Mars) and its people rests in his hands.”

Well, does the trailer live up to the hype and your expectations? Check it out after the jump. Disney’s John Carter arrives in theaters on March 9.

Continue Reading →

I first read Edgar Rice Burroughs A Princess of Mars when I was a very young man. After reading it, I devoured the entire series of books in a matter of weeks. They were just that good.

I’ve always thought the books would make great movies and now that thought has been turned to reality by Disney with its upcoming big screen adaptation of the series: John Carter. The film, which is directed by Andrew Stanton, features what looks to be a good cast including Taylor Kitsch, Lynn Collins and William Dafoe.

The trailer was released on Apple’s iTunes this morning and we’ve got it for you today. In case you’re not familiar with the story, here’s a bit of the official synopsis to get you in the mood:

“The film tells the story of war-weary, former military captain John Carter (Kitsch), who is inexplicably transported to Mars where he becomes reluctantly embroiled in a conflict of epic proportions amongst the inhabitants of the planet, including Tars Tarkas (Willem Dafoe) and the captivating Princess Dejah Thoris (Collins). In a world on the brink of collapse, Carter rediscovers his humanity when he realizes that the survival of Barsoom (Mars) and its people rests in his hands.”

Check out the trailer after the break. John Carter arrives in theaters on March 9, 2012.

Continue Reading →

According to The Hollywood Reporter Disney has found its two leads for writer/director Andrew Stanton’s upcoming John Carter of Mars. Taylor Kitsch, last seen as Gambit on X-Men Origins: Wolverine and Lynn Collins, also last seen in the same film playing Wolverine’s love interest, have signed on to play the title character John Carter and Dejah Thoris receptively.

In case you’re not familiar with the story, the film is adapted from the Edgar Rice Burroughs series of novels and centers around John Carter, a Civil War veteran who is miraculously transported, via astral projection, to Mars. Once there, he meets Martian princess Dejah Thoris, wins her hand, rediscovers his own humanity after the ravages of war and eventually becomes Warlord of Mars. Along the way he also manages to get in quite a few sword fights and battles.

This movie is a big deal for all involved. It marks Stanton’s first live-action film after directing Disney’s Finding Nemo and Wall-E and its great for Kitsch and Collins, who will need to carry this one on their shoulders. And as a fan of the books growing up, I’ve always visualized what this movie might look like.

In truth, I’m not 100% sure on the casting choices but I think Stanton has the vision to pull off something very interesting. Still, Stanton reportedly was considring both Josh Duhamel and Jon Hamm for the role of John Carter and in my mind, it might of made more sense to go with someone like Hamm. Oh well, no matter what happens, we’ll find out soon enough as the film begins shooting later this year for a release in 2012.