First of all, there was the impressive opening of National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which certainly felt to me like one of those unnecessary sequels (i.e., Miss Congeniality 2, Big Momma's House 2) that struggling stars tend to put out just because they can. And make no mistake, coming off colossal bombs like Next and The Wicker Man, Nicolas Cage is struggling. I realize that Ghost Rider opened big, but I really think it was one of the films like Hulk or Norbit that makes all it's money in the first weekend, and word of mouth is so bad that they quickly collapse and wind up hurting their star's image in spite of what appears to be an impressive box office total.

So I was a little surprised that Book of Secrets pulled in $45.5 million from 3,832 theatres for a sturdy $11.8k average. A little disappointed, also, since the first one was such an underwhelming movie trying to capitalize on the whole Da Vinci Code-puzzle thing. I was also ready to blast Cage, who hasn't done anything really impressive since Adaptation. But then I find out that his next project is a crime thriller called Bankok Dangerous for the Pang brothers, who demonstrated impressive visual panache with The Eye and The Messengers, even if they were working with less than impressive scripts. I've got big hopes for those two, and I'm impressed that Cage sees that potential as well. And after that, he's attached to a very good script called Knowing that's being directed by Alex Proyas, another favorite of mine (more for The Crow and Dark City than I, Robot). So if Cage needs a paycheck and a hit to get some attention for these projects, especially Knowing, which has been kicking around almost as long as I Am Legend, well, that's the business we're in.

By the way, Bangkok Dangerous is a remake of an earlier Hong Kong Pang brothers movie that I've never seen. If anyone's seen it, I'd love to know if it's worth checking out.

And speaking of I Am Legend, it took a modest hit in it's second week, falling 55% to $34 million for a $137 million total. My guess is that the third act is hurting word of mouth, but a week later I find that I'm still thinking about the movie, and even though I'm not over-the-moon excited about it, I've been telling people that it's worth a look. I still can't say enough about how good Will Smith is; he's at least the equal of Tom Hanks in Castaway, and probably a little better. In a weaker year or a better movie, he'd be in the running for an Oscar nomination, but it's hard for Academy members to look past the sci-fi trappings. And that's too bad; a lot of award-worthy work goes on in genre films that critics and awards shows just ignore because the knee jerk reaction is that horror and sci-fi are just popcorn flicks.

A film not deserving of any awards recognition is Alvin and the Chipmunks, which, naturally, held up much better than Legend, dropping just 35% to $29 million and an $84 million total. But the holidays are always big for family films, unless it's The Golden Compass. Charlie Wilson's War opened to decent, but not spectacular business, finding itself in fourth place with $9.6 million from 2,575 theatres for a $3.7k average. The Mike Nichols flick is aimed almost squarely at adult audiences, who generally wait to hear if it's any good before turning out. Thanks to the generally warm reception, I expect it to have good legs through the coming weeks, especially if it nabs a few Oscar nominations (Philip Seymour Hoffman is almost a sure thing, as is Aaron Sorkin's script).

Posted in Industry , Moviegasm , Newsgasm by Sutter Cane at 2:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)
Last Comment: moasey on Dec 27, 2007 08:58 AM.