The Weekend Report

The earth moved but there was no fault line for San Andreas as it buried the competition in the rubble with an estimated $53 million debut. The other national newcomer Aloha lei-ed an egg with a $9.8 million opening.

Friday Box Office Estimates

The seventh wide opening of the summer, San Andreas, opens to the third best Friday of the 2015 season, behind only Pitch Perfect 2 (still #2 in its third weekend) and Avengers: Age of Ultron, which seems like a hundred years ago already (still #6 this weekend). But how it will hold this weekend and moving forward, that is the question. It has a very strong chance of significantly outperforming PP2 internationally, just as it is unlikely to ever pass PP2 domestically.

Also opening is Aloha, which will be the summer’s weakest wide opening (we’re letting The D Train have a pass, which never went wider than 1009 screens). Just to frustrate film critics, who have lined up against the film both on quality and on political correctness, the film will likely open better than We Bought A Zoo, Cameron Crowe’s last, much better-reviewed film. Maybe casting Emma Stone as Alison Ng paid off.

The DVD Wrapup: Magician: Orson Welles, The Confession and more

In the stage and cinema works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, it wasn’t always easy for postwar German audiences to differentiate between social satire, parody and provocation. The same holds true for his legacy on film, outside Germany. In a career that lasted 16 years, he was responsible for writing, directing and acting in nearly 50 movies, shorts and TV mini-series, as well as continuing to create Brechtian theater pieces. After beginning his career in the late 1960s making films that ranged from experimental to difficult, Fassbinder would turn to the Hollywood melodramas of German émigré Douglas Sirk for creative inspiration.

Wilmington on Movies: Poltergeist / When Marnie Was There

One thing you can say in favor of the latest Poltergeist is that at least nobody in it gets tortured, hideously maimed, eviscerated, eaten, or chopped to screaming bits. Children may take their parents to this picture, without fear of nightmares.

The Weekend Report (4-Day Estimates)

The four-day estimates are in and Tomorrowland expands its lead slightly for the 34th best Memorial Day Weekend gross ever (but expect the “actuals” to be a little lower because of an aggressive Monday estimate). If Disney wants some information about what went wrong, they can call 411, which is also the number of millions Avengers 2 hit domestically this weekend. Poltergeist turns in the 13th best four-day of 2015 so far. Far From The Madding Crowd expands positively, though gently. And I’ll See You In My Dreams tops all per-screen grossers.

The Weekend Report

It was the future by a nose as Tomorrowland edged out Pitch Perfect 2 for the holiday box office crown. It opened to an estimated $32.2 million to PP2 with $30.3 million (all figures reflect 3-day box office). Also bowing for Memorial weekend was the reboot of Poltergeist that generated a scary $22.7 million that slotted fourth overall.

Wilmington on Movies: Tomorrowland

Watching Tomorrowlan—a great big film hunk of love and optimism and confusion from the Walt Disney Studio—you sometimes get the idea that director-writer Brad Bird and company are trying not just to create a new movie but maybe to found a new movement; Dianetics for Disneyphiles, or Pessimists Anonymous or Worldmakers. (Just kidding.)

Friday Box Office Estimates

“Let’s play two,” says Pitch Perfect 2 as Tomorrowland comes out of the blocks slow, hoping that family audiences will power it to a long weekend win, while Poltergeist is going to scare up some business, but nothing quite as shocking as a scary clown. Meanwhile, the much beloved Mad Max: Fury Road continues to do mediocre business, struggling towards $100m domestic, while PP2 passses that landmark today, just nine days into the run.

The DVD Wrapup: Leviathan, Lovesick, Before I Disappear, Blue Room and more

Instead of being iron-fisted by Communist Party functionaries, however, the populace is ruled by an increasingly militaristic government and bullied by plutocrats, gangsters, small-minded politicians and conservative leaders of the ascendant Russian Orthodox Church. That much, at least, can be inferred in Andrey Zvyagintsev’s overtly allegorical drama, Leviathan, which ironically was inspired by the story of a Colorado man whose beef with city officials eventually led him to armor-plate a bulldozer and use it as a battering ram against bureaucratic intransigence.

Wilmington on Movies: Pitch Perfect 2 / Pitch Perfect

Any movie sequel that starts out by having its costar moon the President of the United States and the First Lady at Lincoln Center obviously doesn’t suffer from a lack of self-confidence.

Wilmington on Movies: Mad Max: Fury Road

Head-banging, car-crashing action movies with minimal dialogue and maximum carnage may make a lot of money, but they’ve also gotten (deservedly) a bad odor for some film-lovers, including, sometimes, me

The Weekend Report

Pitch Perfect 2 hit the right note and bowed to an estimated $70.2 million to win weekend bragging rights. The session’s other wide release, Mad Max: Fury Road, also opened dynamically with $44.4 million

The DVD Wrapup: Dr. Jekyll & Miss Osbourne, Retaliation, Beloved Sisters, Mad Max, Jamaica Inn, Make Way for Tomorrow, Power, Welcome to Sweden … More

And more.

Wilmington On Movies: Maggie

Maggie (Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: Henry Hobson, 2015 Arnold Schwarzenegger hasn’t made many movies you could describe as art films, and that may be one of the reasons his new picture, Maggie, seems like such an anomaly. It’s at least half of an art film — an attempt at a sensitive genre piece that‘s…

The Weekend Report

The chase wasn’t on and Avengers: Age of Ultron easily took session viewing honors with an estimated $78.3 million. Although it had a clear field the sole wide release Hot Pursuit sputtered to $13.2 million in second spot. It was nonetheless a bonanza when put alongside the $437,000 bow for the homecoming comedy The D Train that bowed in 1009 locations. Exclusive bows provided a string of encouraging but not quite boffo results including the biopic Saint Laurent with $35,200 and the adaptation of the bestseller The 100-Year Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared grossing $32,400. Other exclusives included docs I Am Big Bird and The Seven Five and the epic restoration of The Apu Trilogy.

Friday Box Office Estimates

The drop of Avengers: Age of Ultron from the number everyone was talking about last Saturday, $82 million or so, is 74%. But taking away the Thursday previews from that number, the actual number for Friday was $57.8 million, which makes the Friday-to-Friday drop just 63%. This Friday is $7.8 million off the second Friday gross of the first Avengers and the $85 million weekend estimates currently floated would suggest a Friday-to-weekend ratio of just under 4x Friday, when the history suggests a maximum of 3.5x, making $75m is about the max. And Hot Pursuit was neither hot nor pursued.

Wilmington on Movies: Hot Pursuit

Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergera play two gals on the run in South Texas in the new movie Hot Pursuit: Reese is a diminutive fussbudget blonde by-the-book cop named Cooper and Sofia is a statuesque sexpot drug cartel wife named Daniella Riva. And they’re so much better than the movie itself that you wonder if the two costars might be deliberately outshining their own vehicle. Watching this nitwit show (as Todd McCarthy accurately described it), I wouldn’t put it past them.

The DVD Wrapup: 50 Shades, Selma, Mr. Turner, The Nun, Snuff and more

Although some of the lovemaking is inarguably sensual, the contract-negotiating scene is the only one that rivals the best passages choreographed by Adrian Lyne in 9½ Weeks or in such classics of the sub-genre as Belle du Jour, Secretary, Crash, The Story of O or The Image. As difficult as it is to take potshots at a picture that’s made more than a half-billion dollars in worldwide distribution or might match that in DVD/VOD/Blu-ray revenues, I still think we have a long way to go before mainstream audiences are allowed a real taste of non-generic eroticism,

Wilmington on Movies: Welcome to Me

Welcome to Me suffers from personality disorder too: an inability to tell all these potentially funny jokes with the joyous buffoonery that would make them ignite on screen—say, to explode with some of the wild devilish relish that an old-fashioned make-‘em-laugh comedian like Red Skelton put into his classic media satire: the ‘40s mock radio commercial for “Guzzler’s Gin.” (“Smooth! Smooth!”)

Wilmington on Movies: Avengers: Age of Ultron

What should I say about Avengers: Age of Ultron? Is it too much of a good thing? Maybe. But consider the possibilities that stretched before it, as well as all the doors that were already closed when all the deals were struck.