Well, when I said 3-D would fall from the top of the box office I once again spoke too soon. How to Train Your Dragon has apparently won what proved to be yet another weekend photo-finish at the box office, edging out Kick-Ass by an estimated $250,000 with a haul of $20 million.

I’m surprised because I expected Kick-Ass to do a lot better and perhaps attract more superhero fans. Maybe this is a sign of trouble — maybe people are getting tired of seeing superheroes at the box office. I know it was a different style of movie, being satirical and all, but it seemed to get good reviews. Maybe it just appealed to too niche an audience.

Anyway, it was made on a low budget of under $30 million, so it ought to be able to get its money back. Kick-Ass did decent business, but people expected bigger things. I suppose the real story is how well How to Train Your Dragon continues to do week after week. It’s downright rare for a movie to fall from first place and then regain it, or at least come close to regaining it, in the fourth weekend out. The movie has now made a domestic total of $158,618,000.

We’ll see if these results hold up on Monday. Don’t you hate these photo finishes, though? This is two weekends in a row now. It makes it hard to write a column when you don’t know for sure who won or lost. In any event, even if Kick-Ass does manage to eke out the weekend victory, it won’t be a spectacular win, that is for sure.

As for the other new wide release Death at a Funeral, it finished not far off the pace at $17 million.

There isn’t a lot more for me to add to what turned out to be a fairly modest April weekend at the theaters:

1. How to Train Your Dragon – $20,000,000
2. Kick-Ass – $19,750,000
3. Date Night – $17,300,000
4. Death at a Funeral (2010) – $17,000,000
5. Clash of the Titans (2010) – $15,770,000
6. The Last Song – $5,800,000
7. Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? – $4,180,000
8. Hot Tub Time Machine – $3,545,000
9. Alice in Wonderland (2010) – $3,500,000
10. The Bounty Hunter – $3,200,000

That is all for now! Come back again later this week for another edition of the Reject Report!

Welcome to another week of The Reject Report, where we are anticipating strong showings by two new wide-release movies at the box office: Kick-Ass and Death at a Funeral.

Hopefully we’ll also get a more clear-cut result than that photo-finish between Clash of the Titans and Date Night last week. As it turned out, Clash ended up on top once the Sunday loot was finally counted, which means it’s officially six weekends in a row where 3-D has finished on top at the box office. Anyway, I think it’s safe to say the streak ends this weekend. It has to, one of these days.

I’ll begin with Death at a Funeral starring Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Luke Wilson, Danny Glover, Regina Hall, Tracy Morgan and the rest of the large cast, mainly African-Americans. Basically, this is the African-American version of the British film from about three years ago of the same name. In it, the family gathers at the funeral of the patriarch of the family, only for it to turn into a big debacle when some big secrets come to light.

The movie rolls out in 2,459 locations which is not an enormous amount, so I don’t have a lot of confidence that it will finish in first place. I do think there’s an audience for this movie and its cast, and people seem to be in a mood to laugh these days. I am going to say $20 million for Death at a Funeral, which is pretty much in line with all the rest of the predictions I see for this movie.

More: Read Neil Miller’s review of Death at a Funeral

Then you have Kick-Ass, based on the comic book of the same name from director Matthew Vaughn , whose cast includes Aaron Johnson, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Grace Moretz, Nicolas Cage, Lyndsy Fonseca and Mark Strong. Johnson plays this teenager who decides to turn into this real-life superhero called Kick-Ass. Except he doesn’t have any superpowers. Well, why let something like that get in the way of your dream to be a superhero, right?

This is being released into over 3,000 locations and is highly anticipated by the folks who are interested in comic-book movies and the like, so it should get a big audience. It is kind of vulgar and loaded with expletives, though, so that may keep people away. I do think there is enough buzz out there, though, to take this movie to $28 million dollars — and the weekend domestic box office title.

More: Read Neil Miller’s review of Kick-Ass from SXSW

So here is the predicted final weekend numbers as I see it:

1. Kick-Ass $28 million
2. Death at a Funeral $20 million
3. How to Train Your Dragon $18 million
4. Clash of the Titans $15 million
5. Date Night $14.9 million
6. The Last Song $6 million
7. Why Did I Get Married, Too? $5 million
8. Alice in Wonderland $3.3 million
9. Hot Tub Time Machine $3 million
10. The Bounty Hunter $2.8 million

So that’s it for now! Back at the end of the weekend when we may have a kick-ass box office result to tell you about here at the Reject Report!

We had a sense that this was going to be a very tight “Clash” at the top of the box office — and indeed, this weekend’s box office result turned out to be too close to call.

According to the estimates from Sunday, Date Night has hauled in $27.1 million and has eked out the box-office win over Clash of the Titans, which reportedly made $26.85 million. But the result was really too close to call and there’s a bit of dispute about whether Date Night’s really has a box office “victory” or not. I’ve seen this sort of thing before where a studio would claim a box office victory on Sunday, and then the real weekend numbers would report a different story by Monday.

So I really don’t have a lot to say right now, other than the fact that Date Night, Clash of the Titans and How to Train Your Dragon were very closely bunched together at the top this weekend:

1. Date Night – $27,100,000
2. Clash of the Titans (2010) – $26,875,000
3. How to Train Your Dragon – $25,350,000
4. Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? – $11,000,000
5. The Last Song – $10,000,000
6. Alice in Wonderland (2010) – $5,600,000
7. Hot Tub Time Machine – $5,430,000
8. The Bounty Hunter – $4,300,000
9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid – $4,100,000
10. Letters to God – $1,250,000

As an aside, How to Train Your Dragon has been doing strong business week after week, and is now up to a domestic gross of $133,891,000.

I guess we will have to wait and see if Date Night’s “victory” holds up. That’s all for this weekend, and we’ll see you later this week for another box office preview here at the Reject Report!

We are in for a fairly light weekend as far as new movies are concerned, but the actual box office race promises to be no less interesting, because Clash of the Titans faces a stiff challenge from Date Night.

Before we go forward, a bit of an announcement from me. As our editors here already know by now, I have decided to step back from writing The Reject Report column in the near future to concentrate on some of the other things I have been doing in journalism. Lately, my role as a news reporter has expanded at the Battlefords News-Optimist and Regional Optimist newspapers, where I work here in frozen Canada. I’ve added a new newspaper column and more blogging to my activities, which is all good, but it really has made it difficult for me to have any sort of life. So I will be dialing back a bit from movie writing at least in the short run, although I do plan to continue to contribute some pieces here at Film School Rejects in the future as time allows.

I’m not sure exactly yet what I plan to do at the site in the future. I might do another column, or I might not. In any event I plan to enjoy some much needed time off while I consider what I might want to do next. In the meantime, we’re still working out details of the transition and so on, so once we have all that figured out we’ll let you know.

Now on to the week’s movies, and we’ll begin with a bit of an unusual entry this week. It’s a movie from Vivendi Entertainment called Letters to God. It’s a Christian-themed movie based around a young boy who is stricken with cancer and whose letters to God inspire people around him.

It’s opening in nearly 900 locations. That isn’t a lot of locations but is enough for this movie to have a shot at a Top Ten finish. Now, I know what a lot of people are saying: “who wants to see Letters to God?” Well, a lot of people were saying the same thing about that Christian-themed Kirk Cameron movie Fireproof, which ended up surprising a lot of people by making $33 million in its run a couple of years ago. Based on that experience, I say never count out the power of the born-again Christians to make an impact at the box office.

Anyway, I think $4 million is my guess for Letters to God.

Now on to the comedy Date Night, which ought to make for a really good “Date Movie” when you thing of it. It stars the two stars of Thursday “Must-See-TV”, Steve Carell and Tina Fey. Also in the cast are Mark Wahlberg, Taraji P. Henson and James Franco. In this movie, Carell and Fey play a married couple who liven up their marriage by going on a Date Night at a seafood restaurant, and all heck breaks out as the couple ends up wrapped up in a case of mistaken identity.

I think this movie is going to look really good to a lot of people fed up with a lot of these offerings they are seeing at the theaters these days. Their big-screen efforts may have had some hit-and-miss results as of late but both Carell and Fey are considered comedic geniuses, particularly on TV. So I think they are going to be a draw for a lot of people.

The big question, though, is whether Date Night can topple Clash of the Titans from first place. I happen to think Clash is going to take a gigantic drop from its haul from last week. I just get the sense that people are just not impressed enough with this movie, and most of the people who wanted to see it probably have, already. So I think Clash will drop to $28 million. Date Night is going to be in over 3300 locations and I am going to go out on a limb and predict that it will win the weekend box office by a hair. $29 million.

There are also a few limited release movies out there, but I don’t expect any of them to do enough business to crack the top Ten. My daring forecast for this weekend is as follows:

1. Date Night $29 million
2. Clash of the Titans $28 million
3. How to Train Your Dragon $19 million
4. Why Did I Get Married Too? $13 million
5. The Last Song $8 million
6. Hot Tub Time Machine $6 million
7. Alice in Wonderland $5 million
8. The Bounty Hunter $4.1 million
9. Letters to God $4 million
10. Diary of a Wimpy Kid $3.5 million

That’s it for now. We’ll be back again this weekend for another box office roundup here again at the Reject Report!

The story of the weekend is that Clash of the Titans became the latest 3-D movie to finish on top of the box office with a weekend haul of $61 million. If you count its Thursday showings the overall haul is $64 million.

Warner Bros. is crediting 3-D showings for bringing in 52 percent of the gross. As a result, you can further expect studios to look at these numbers and say in unison “Holy cow! Now we have to make every potential blockbuster movie in 3-D!” Still, the haul for Clash is lower than what it was for 300, which this movie has been compared to. So maybe the fans are starting to get a little bored with seeing fantasy flicks of this type and are getting wise to all the 3-D hype out there.

As for Tyler Perry, what can I say? He packs them in again for Why Did I Get Married Too? to the tune of $30 million. That movie is Exhibit A for the people who will say you don’t need 3-D to do well at the box office.

Still, three of the top five movies at the box office this weekend were in 3-D: Clash of the Titans, How to Train Your Dragon and Alice in Wonderland. So that fact will be Exhibit A for the people at the studios interested in making as much money as they can. That, plus the fact that it’s now five straight weekends in a row for a 3-D movie at the top of the box office — and do we need to mention Avatar again and all its success, too?

In any event, the 3-D debate continues and this weekend’s box office results are going to be more grist for the mill of the 3-D lovers and 3-D haters.

1. Clash of the Titans (2010) – $61,400,000
2. Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too? – $30,150,000
3. How to Train Your Dragon – $29,200,000
4. The Last Song – $16,203,000
5. Alice in Wonderland (2010) – $8,267,000
6. Hot Tub Time Machine – $8,000,000
7. The Bounty Hunter – $6,200,000
8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid – $5,525,000
9. She’s Out of My League – $1,463,000
10. Shutter Island – $1,462,000

Happy Easter and we shall see you again later this week for another Reject Report!

We have a busy Easter weekend ahead here at the Reject Report with three new movies on tap: The Last Song, Why Did I Get Married Too, and Clash of the Titans.

I’ll talk about The Last Song first, starring Miley Cyrus in a coming-of-age drama based on the Nicholas Sparks novel. Andther Sparks novel, Dear John, took the weekend box office when it opened earlier this year. This one opened on Wednesday night in a little over 2,600 theaters and won the day’s domestic box office with $5,125,103.

I expect it will take the Thursday night title as well and probably settle in to a $15 million three-day weekend and probably $20 million for the four-day Easter period against all the rest of the competition out there.

The other two new movies this week roll out Friday and are expected to do brisk business. One of them is Why Did I Get Married Too from proven box-office performer Tyler Perry. This is the sequel to the 2007 movie which opened Number One at the box office and grossed $55 million domestically. The sequel’s cast includes Perry, Janet Jackson, Tasha Smith and Jill Scott, and the film focuses on familiar topics such as relationships and fidelity.

I fully expect this movie to do as well as other Tyler Perry movies have done over the years — there is always a ready-made audience out there for his flicks and we haven’t seen one of Perry’s movies for a little while, so I think there is an appetite built up to see this one. I expect a three-day total of $24 million and a four-day haul of $33 million.

Finally we have Clash of the Titans, the remake of the 1981 film of the same name. This one stars Sam Worthington as Perseus, son of Zeus, who leads his team into a battle that includes gods, monsters, and everyone else.

This is expected to do big numbers this weekend, although there has been some controversy about the 3-D conversion. This was shot in 2-D and famously converted by the Warner Brothers studio into 3-D for release — to take advantage of the huge cash cow of 3-D at the theaters. I don’t know whether movie fans will be impressed; people are wise to these studios doing tacked-on 3-D for movies.

In any event, a lot of the predictions are for a $70 million weekend. I am convinced it will pull in a little more than that because of the 3-D and all the hype, so $75 million is my prediction for the three day period and $92 million for the four day Easter weekend.

So that is what I see happening this weekend:

1. Clash of the Titans $75 million
2. How to Train Your Dragon $28 million
3. Why Did I Get Married Too $24 million
4. The Last Song $15 million
5. Alice in Wonderland $13 million
6. Hot Tub Time Machine $7 million
7. The Bounty Hunter $6 million
8. Diary of a Wimpy Kid $5.5 million
9. She’s Out of My League $3 million
10. Green Zone $2.5 million

So that’s it! See you this weekend when we find out who gets the box-office Easter eggs here at the Reject Report!

Well, it’s not on the same level as Monsters vs. Aliens, Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa, Kung Fu Panda or some other movies, but it’s still $43 million for the much-acclaimed How to Train Your Dragon, in 3-D.

As I have said before, I really think this movie will pick up business over a number of weeks as opposed to right away, and it seems well-positioned to do that. Also, this is the fourth weekend in a row where the top-grossing movie in the land is in 3-D, a streak likely to continue next week with Clash of the Titans.

What’s kind of odd this weekend was that the totals at the theaters were as low as they turned out to be, considering the big pricing news from the chains. I read on CNN that the AMC and Regal chains had chosen this weekend, of all weekends, to hike their prices for 3-D movies by an extra couple of bucks. And you already had to pay extra for 3-D already!

Good grief, these theater chains think the moviegoing public is a bottomless pit of money that will throw money at any 3-D movie no matter what. These folks think all you need to do is release a movie in 3-D and release it, and people will go see it.

Well, if the ticket prices keep going up, people might get fed up and take their money elsewhere. Keep in mind there are also a significant amount of 3-D haters out there who complain about getting eyestrain watching these movies with these glasses. These folks have just been handed a big excuse to not go to the movies with these price hikes.

Personally, I’m as big a 3-D fan as they come, and I’m incensed by this news of price hikes. I imagine I’m not alone. I don’t know why these movies didn’t do better business overall, given the latest price hikes at some of these theaters. You would have thought the extra prices would have padded these totals more for some of the 3-D offerings. In any event, it was a bit of a down weekend. The results:

1. How to Train Your Dragon – $43,300,000
2. Alice in Wonderland (2010) – $17,300,000
3. Hot Tub Time Machine – $13,650,000
4. The Bounty Hunter – $12,400,000
5. Diary of a Wimpy Kid – $10,000,000
6. She’s Out of My League – $3,526,000
7. Green Zone – $3,350,000
8. Shutter Island – $3,175,000
9. Repo Men – $3,048,000
10. Our Family Wedding – $2,200,000

And yes, Avatar dropped from the Top Ten for the first time based on the estimates — dropping to $2 million. It’s down to 930 locations now in distribution and doesn’t appear to be in a good position to make it to $800 million domestic. Right now it’s at $740,408,000.

The other news is that Hot Tub Time Machine did nothing, even though there were people playing this movie up as the next Hangover. It didn’t do anywhere near that kind of business. It opened at $13 million, which might have been decent business in 1986, but nowhere near top spot in 2010. Still, the movie’s budget was low, so it’s all good.

Also, Chloe opened in 350 locations and did $1,002,000 in business.

So that is it for this weekend at the movies. Coming up this next week is the much-anticipated box-office bonanza Clash of the Titans. See you later.

It’s shaping up to be an interesting weekend at the box office with a couple of promising-looking new movies How to Train Your Dragon and Hot Tub Time Machine rolling out in an all-out attempt to finally knock off Alice in Wonderland as the top-grossing movie in North America.

I think this is definitely, finally, the weekend that Alice gets toppled after three weeks on top. It should drop down to about $20 million this weekend, which would make it duck soup for these other two movies that are being released wide this weekend.

We’ll start by looking at Hot Tub Time Machine, a raunchy comedy starring, among others, John Cusack and Rob Corddry. Basically it’s about a bunch of guys whose lives are on the skids who go to a ski resort and hop into a hot tub which actually turns out to be a time machine. They are transported back to 1986, where they realize they have this one shot to turn around their hapless messed-up futures.

A while ago, when the trailers first came out for this flick, a lot of people looked at it and just about vomited. They thought this movie was going to be trash and garbage, for sure. The last couple of weeks, though, has seen the tide turn bigtime, and people are now saying this movie could be the next The Hangover. That’s the kind of comparison a movie like this wants. I think a lot of people are in the mood for a raunchy movie like this one and that’s why I am predicting $22 million.

The next movie is a CGI-animated picture from the folks at DreamWorks called How to Train Your Dragon. The story is about a young Viking called Hiccup, whose only desire is to grow up and kill dragons. That is until he meets a friendly dragon who makes him rethink his feelings on the whole matter. Jay Baruchel voices Hiccup, and Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson are also in the cast.

For a while, this movie seemed to keep a very low profile, but the buzz for this movie has been really strong. It’s been scoring at 95 percent at Rotten Tomatoes this week, and there’s a lot of enthusiasm for the special effects. My expectation is this will be one of these movies that will do strong business for weeks on end — perhaps not on the same level that Avatar did early on, but close. You get the idea. Also, the theater count is over 4,000, so a good weekend is pretty much guaranteed.

I am not sure how this movie will do, to be completely honest, but I’m going to predict $60 million. I’d predict higher, except I think this movie has been sort of a best-kept secret compared to a lot of other movies. It’s really looking to me like its strength at the box office will be felt in the weeks ahead as opposed to right away. Also, I should add that this movie will also be seen in 3-D (like just about every other big movie at the theaters these days, it seems) and should get a nice box office bump as a result.

I could be wrong about the box office prediction, though. Heck, I usually am wrong, anyway. My fearless forecast:

1. How to Train Your Dragon $60 million
2. Hot Tun Time Machine $22 million
3. Alice in Wonderland $18 million
4. Diary of a Wimpy Kid $13 million
5. The Bounty Hunter $9 million
6. She’s Out of My League $4 million
7. Green Zone $3.8 million
8. Avatar $3.6 million
9. Repo Men $3.5 million
10. Shutter Island $3.2 million

As an aside — both these movies are getting people saying good things about them, and I sure hope they do live up to the hype. Personally, I think it’s great and refreshing that we are finally getting some movies that seem to have an effort put into them and are not the usual total trash we have come to expect in the early part of the year.

Usually it’s around this time of year, though, when the movies at the theater start to get a little better anyway. It must be spring. By the way, it’s only five more weeks until May, and blockbuster season.

That is it and that is all for now. I’ll see you again — in the future! — on Sunday when we count the gross for the weekend again here at the Reject Report!

There wasn’t much in the way of surprises at the domestic box office as Alice in Wonderland continues to tear up the box office with another first place finish and a haul this weekend of over $34 million. Its total haul is now up to an impressive $265 million.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid did well enough to get to $21 .8 million — more than a lot of people thought it would get, so it has to rank as good news for that movie.

As for The Bounty Hunter, all I can say about that one is that these studio executives who greenlight these movies can’t expect Jennifer Aniston to show up and automatically save their crummy flick all by herself. You have to come up with something that’s a good movie, otherwise you’ll get a third-place $21 million haul and not much else — just like you did this weekend.

So there! That’s my rant for this weekend. The numbers:

1. Alice in Wonderland (2010) – $34,500,000
2. Diary of a Wimpy Kid – $21,800,000
3. The Bounty Hunter – $21,000,000
4. Repo Men – $6,151,000
5. She’s Out of My League – $6,015,000
6. Green Zone Uni. $5,963,000
7. Shutter Island – $4,755,000
8. Avatar – $4,000,000
9. Our Family Wedding – $3,800,000
10. Remember Me – $3,300,000

That is all I have to say this week. I am going back to watching basketball on TV now, and I will see you later this week for another Reject Report!

So here we are, week three of Alice in Wonderland at theaters, and the big question right now is still whether any of the movies rolling out this weekend have a chance to stop it – even ones starring Jennifer Aniston. The Bounty Hunter, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Repo Men, The Ghost Writer and The Runaways are in theaters in significant numbers. But do any of them have a chance to beat Alice? Not unless any of them get to somewhere in the vicinity of $33 million, which I think is the probable finish for Alice this weekend. How will they fare? Let’s stack them up one by one, shall we?

First of all, The Runaways features Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning and Michael Shannon in a drama/biopic about legendary rocker Joan Jett.

I don’t think it’s going to do very well this weekend. First of all, it’s onlyin 244 locations, so it’s a fairly limited release to begin with. Second of all, Kristen Stewart is starting to suffer the same typecasting problems that Rob Pattinson has: Twilight syndrome. And the Twilight fans don’t care about any movie other than Twilight anyway, so good luck getting an audience out for this one. I think this is getting $3 million, max. (Also: Read our review of The Runaways)

Next, we have The Ghost Writer, a thriller starring Ewan McGregor, Pierce Brosnan and Kim Cattrall that is written and directed by Roman Polanski. Yes, that guy who is in big legal trouble at the moment. It started in limited release on February 19 and now expands to 819 locations.

The problem is that this isn’t a large number of theaters that this movie is in, and I think it’s going to be very hard-pressed to make the Top Ten. I say this maybe gets $3.5 million. (Also: Read our review of The Ghost Writer)

Next up is Repo Men, starring Jude Law, Forest Whitaker and Alice Braga. It’s set in a future where humans can artificially prolong their lives by buying their expensive artificial organs from the big corporation “The Union” on credit. But what if you can’t afford to pay up? Then the Repo Men go after you and your vital organs, that’s what.

I think this movie will ring true for a lot of people hit by the economic crisis, and the mortgage crisis and all that other stuff. They practically feel already as if they are under siege, and that’s why I think this movie got made — because it fits the times. The problem is the movie is in only 2,500 theaters, not an outstanding amount. So once again, this will fall short of real contention and should end up with a haul of $12 million.

We then have the movie Diary of a Wimpy Kid, which is based on Jeff Kinney’s books of the same name. It’s a combined animation-live action movie that includes a cast featuring Zachary Gordon, Robert Capron, Steve Zahn, Rachael Harris, Devon Bostick, Chloë Moretz, and Conner and Owen Fielding,

I don’t know what to make of this movie. It is getting fairly decent distribution into 3,077 locations, and yet I don’t detect a groundswell of enthusiasm out there for this flick. I just don’t see a ton of people lining up to see this movie, but it will do enough business to get up to around $16 million.

Finally, we come to The Bounty Hunter, starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler. In this movie, Gerard the bounty hunter finds out that his latest assignment is to track down … his ex, a newspaper reporter. Fun stuff.

This flick is rolling out in 3,074 locations, a fairly decent number but nothing outstanding. The big problem here is the reviews. They are terrible. But then again, why I am not surprised? This is March, and this is usually the pit of bad romantic-comedy season at the movies. I am sure the star power of the two leads, especially tabloid-fodder Ms. Aniston, will draw in people. I guess the studio is counting on the action in the movie to draw in guys. Good luck with that — when guys hear the words “Jennifer Aniston” these days they usually automatically think “chick flick”. (Also: Read our review of The Bounty Hunter)

It’ll do all right, I suppose. $25 million is my guess. And you know what that means — it means Alice in Wonderland will again hang on to first place. Honestly, this movie has been killing the competition lately at the box office. I have real trouble believing it will lose this weekend to this crop of movies, which I think will just cancel each other out as far as drawing audiences is concerned. My guess for the weekend:

1. Alice in Wonderland $33 million
2. The Bounty Hunter $25 million
3. Diary of a Wimpy Kid $16 million
4. Repo Men $12 million
5. Green Zone $7 million
6. She’s Out of My League $5.5 million
7. Shutter Island $5.3 million
8. Avatar $4.8 million
9. Remember Me $4 million
10. Our Family Wedding $3.7 million

So there you go. See you later this weekend to find out whether The Bounty Hunter catches Alice in Wonderland – or whether any of these movies will, period.

There were no really big surprises this weekend at the box office, as Alice in Wonderland continued to make a ton of money. It finished with a $62 million weekend, which on its own is one of the biggest March weekends ever, and its overall domestic haul has now hit an impressive $208 million.

There really isn’t much to say about the four new movies that were rolled out this weekend. Not a lot was expected, and boy, these movies didn’t disappoint on that score. I would have thought Green Zone might have done better, given Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass’ involvement, but it has been getting some less-than-good word of mouth from a few people who are grumbling the movie is anti-American, and so on. Personally, I think people are just fed up with war movies in general — we’ve seen a lot of movies that deal with this type of subject matter do nothing at the box office.

Also, Robert Pattinson fans refused to show up for Remember Me. Or maybe they did — the true die-hards, anyway. The rest didn’t bother to show up. At least it cost less money to make than Green Zone, though: Green Zone cost upwards of $100 million to make.

The others did about as much business as expected. The totals:

1. Alice in Wonderland (2010) – $62,000,000
2. Green Zone – $14,535,000
3. She’s Out of My League – $9,600,000
4. Remember Me – $8,300,000
5. Shutter Island – $8,140,000
6. Our Family Wedding – $7,600,000
7. Avatar – $6,600,000
8. Brooklyn’s Finest – $4,290,000
9. Cop Out – $4,230,000
10. The Crazies – $3,650,000

For those of you wondering how much The Hurt Locker made, it finished with a weekend haul of $828,000, bringing its overall domestic haul to $15,700,000.

So that was the box office on what proved to be a big “who cares” weekend for a lot of movie fans. Honestly, these four new releases did nothing to set the world on fire, that’s for sure. As a result, it’s a second easy weekend on top for Alice in Wonderland. It’s in really good shape to make a run at $400 million, based on this weekend’s showing.

Next weekend, The Reject Report chases after Jennifer Aniston in The Bounty Hunter; plus we’ll also figure how how a few other movies might do at theaters. See you then.

Welcome to another weekend of movies here at the Reject Report, and it sure looks like it’s shaping up to be another weekend for Alice in Wonderland to dominate the box office. Not that there isn’t going to be plenty of competition out there this week, looking to knock Alice off. Four new movies will be rolling out in wide release this weekend: Green Zone, Our Family Wedding, Remember Me and She’s Out of My League.

After last weekend’s mammoth opening for Alice, I am expecting a big drop this week. Let’s face reality; it’s really younger audiences that are interested in this movie. When that happens, the drops tend to be pretty pronounced. My guess is that everyone who was going to see it went last weekend, and we may see a drop of over 50 percent, down to $55 million. Even if it’s a really disastrous drop down to $40 million or so, I think this flick is still assured of a first-place finish, no matter what. I just don’t see any of these other contenders beating that.

Looking at the weekend’s movies: Our Family Wedding is a comedy rolling out in over 1,600 locations, starring Forest Whitaker, America Ferrera and Carlos Mencia, and it focuses on the stress and strife leading up to the big wedding.

It seems like this flick is going to have a low profile compared to these other new movies this weekend, and I am looking at a haul of around $7 million.

Next up is Remember Me, a PG-13 romance movie starring Robert Pattinson. (AAAHHH!!!!! Robert Pattinson!!!) So just based on that, the movie should make a lot of money, right? Not if it’s only on 2,200 screens, it won’t. Also in the cast are Emilie de Ravin, Pierce Brosnan and Chris Cooper, among others.

I don’t know what to make of the box office for this movie. I think a lot of the Twilight freaks may end up going just based on the casting, but without this guy in the movie I think the box office falls flat on its face. Ny feeling is it will get $13 million.

Next is She’s Out of My League, rolling out in almost 3,000 theaters and starring Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve and Mike Vogel. Baruchel plays this hopeless, insecure dude who winds up dating a hot chick who, as they say, is out of his league.

Here’s my issue with the movie: it looks lame. Very lame. For whatever reason it looks exactly like the kind of retread comedy that we’ve seen before. I dunno how many “loser-tries-to-score-with-a-babe” movies we have seen over the years, but it’s a lot of them, and many of them aren’t very good. It just looks like a stale idea to me. So I am figuring it will only rake in $10 million and then die a sad death at the box office.

Finally, we have Green Zone, which is in over 3,000 theaters this weekend for what will be the widest release of the new releases. Matt Damon stars in this Paul Greengrass-directed thriller that takes place in the international Green Zone in Iraq. Also in the cast are Amy Ryan, Jason Isaacs, Brendan Gleeson and Greg Kinnear.

This looks likely to get the most audience of any of the new movies this weekend, but that’s all you can say for it. Based on the tracking I see, audiences are kind of divided on this movie: they either love it or hate it. The critics seem divided as well. So my guess is $20 million, which seems to be the default total for movies that get that sort of reaction.

So there you have it — a typical March weekend for the four new movies and another likely domination for Alice in Wonderland. At least, that is what I expect will happen this weekend. If Alice fails to repeat on top, I’ll eat my hat.

The likely finish as I see it:

1. Alice in Wonderland $55 million
2. Green Zone $20 million
3. Remember Me $13 million
4. She’s Out of My League $10 million
5. Shutter Island $8.5 million
6. Our Family Wedding $7 million
7. Brooklyn’s Finest $6.8 million
8. Avatar $6.2 million
9. Cop Out $4.5 million
10. The Crazies $3.5 million

May I also add that we can expect NO Oscar bounce for Avatar, given its limited haul of hardware at the Academy Awards. As for The Hurt Locker, it is getting hardly any distribution even though it is the Academy’s Best Picture of the Year. It’s in just over 300 theaters, so I don’t expect it to get into the Top Ten at all. It’s estimated haul so far is around $14.7 million. There are movies that make that much money in one night!!

For a movie that had so much acclaim even before the Oscars were handed out, it really has had a really hard time getting people out to see it. Maybe it will get some sort of Oscar bounce this weekend, but I don’t think it will be nearly enough for it to make any impact at the box office, especially since the movie is already out on DVD.

So that’s it for now! We’ll see what happens this weekend with Alice and the rest of these movies here at the Reject Report!

Well, we kind of figured that Alice in Wonderland would set the top box office opening of 2010, but I dunno how many people predicted this: $116 million!

Now, I know that there was ticket-price inflation due to 3-D and so on, but still, even Avatar only opened to $77 million, and that was the biggest 3-D movie of all time. This, however, ranks as the biggest opening for a 3-D movie of all time.

Not only that, but this is the greatest opening of all time for a movie in the month of March, and for that matter, of any movie opening in any month before May. It also ranks as the sixth-greatest opening of all time. Not bad for a movie opening at this time of year.

The movie made $41 million on Friday and $45 million on Saturday, averaging $31,196 per location. Well over half of its locations were 3-D (and therefore benefited from the increased ticket prices for 3-D.)

So there you have another record falling, and as I have said before, it is really getting ridiculous the number of records that keep on falling for no good reason every week. As I have said, it has to be these ticket prices. Three big factors, I think, for why this was such a moneymaker: it was in 3-D, Tim Burton made it, and Johnny Depp was in it. There were likely a few other reasons.

Brooklyn’s Finest finished its opening weekend a distant runner-up. The weekend estimates are as follows:

1. Alice in Wonderland (2010) – $116,300,000
2. Brooklyn’s Finest – $13,500,000
3. Shutter Island – $13,300,000
4. Cop Out – $9,145,000
5. Avatar – $7,700,000
6. The Crazies – $7,016,000
7. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief – $5,100,000
8. Valentine’s Day – $4,270,000
9. Crazy Heart – $3,350,000
10. Dear John – $2,850,000

So there you go, another record falls by the wayside. And they say the month of March is no good for blockbusters — not any more.

Back with another Reject Report later this week, where we shall ponder whether the Alice in Wonderland gravy train will continue for a while longer.

Welcome to another 3-D edition of The Reject Report, where we take a look at the box office prospects for this big Oscar weekend. And with the Academy Awards on the minds of a lot of people you would think there will be a lot of people showing up at the theaters. This weekend we have two new wide releases in Top Ten contention: Brooklyn’s Finest, and of course Alice in Wonderland in 3-D, directed by Tim Burton.

We’ll begin with Brooklyn’s Finest, a gritty action feature from director Antoine Fuqua starring Don Cheadle, Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke and Wesley Snipes. The story revolves around three different Brooklyn cops with three different backgrounds, all of whom end up at the same dangerous scene.

We have not seen a heck of a lot of gritty crime movies at the theaters during the past few months ,though we have seen the recent revival of the buddy-action movie in Cop Out. These just don’t seem to show up as often as they used to. Whether there’s an appetite for this one remains to be seen. I think this will do some business, but not an enormous amount, given it is only rolling out in just under 2,000 locations. I am predicting a modest $11 million.

Watch the Brooklyn’s Finest trailer:

Next up from Walt Disney Pictures is Alice in Wonderland, featuring the performances of Mia Wasikowska, Johnny Depp, Matt Lucas, Michael Sheen, Helena Bonham Carter and other favorites. In this one, a 19-year old Alice returns to the fantasy world she encountered as a young girl.

Alice is being shown in almost 3,800 domestic locations and, importantly, has booted out Avatar from plenty of IMAX and 3-D locations. So this is going to be a really big drop-off weekend for Avatar, down to around $8 million.

Watch the Alice in Wonderland trailer:

Alice, though, is going to go through the roof. It’s going to benefit from plenty of locations and those high 3-D ticket prices, so expect a cool $72 million opening this weekend for the most anticipated movie of the year so far.

The likely finish:

1. Alice in Wonderland $72 million
2. Shutter Island $12.5 million
3. Brooklyn’s Finest $11 million
4. Cop Out $9 million
5. Avatar $8 million
6. The Crazies $7.8 million
7. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief $6 million
8. Valentine’s Day $4.5 million
9. Dear John $3 million
10. The Wolfman $2 million

That is it for now! See you later this weekend as we find out the fate of Alice here at the Reject Report!

Well, the best opening weekend for director Kevin Smith still wasn’t enough as Cop Out was nosed out by Shutter Island for its second straight winning weekend at the box office.

In third place was The Crazies with a good $16.5 million haul. The other piece of big news is that Avatar just passed the $700 million domestic mark this weekend as its record-breaking haul continues. It is now up to $706.9 million domestic and $2.5 billion worldwide.

Overall, no real surprises this weekend at the box office:

1. Shutter Island – $22,200,000
2. Cop Out – $18,565,000
3. The Crazies – $16,521,000
4. Avatar – $14,000,000
5. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief – $800,000
6. Valentine’s Day – $9,505,000
7. Dear John – $5,000,000
8. The Wolfman – $4,123,000
9. Tooth Fairy – $3,450,000
10. Crazy Heart – $2,540,000

So there you have it. Like I said, it wasn’t all that “crazy” a weekend at the box office, but it’s still more money for Martin Scorsese (with Shutter Island now up to $75 million), and the best opening ever for Kevin Smith (his previous best opening was $11 million for Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back), and James Cameron’s movie now has made $700 million domestic. All in all, it’s been a weekend of riches for some famed directors.

That is it for now. Back later this week for another Reject Report!

Welcome to another Reject Report, where the big question this weekend is whether Bruce Willis, Tracy Morgan and Cop Out can help the movie-going audience escape from Shutter Island. Also, The Crazies is due out this weekend as well in wide release.

It’s going to be a tall order for any movie to top Shutter Island this week, frankly, after last weekend’s $41 million opening. The size of the opening almost guarantees a good box office haul this weekend of something like $24 million. So that is the minimum benchmark this weekend for all the competitors out there and even that may not be enough to win the box office for any of the other movies out there.

On to the new movies rolling out. I’ll begin with The Crazies which is opening up in almost 2,500 locations this weekend. It’s a remake of the 1973 movie of the same name and stars Timothy Olyphant, Radha Mitchell and Danielle Panabaker in a story where the residents of a small town in Iowa are suddenly plagued by insanity.

I am not sure how well this will do but given the appetite out there for scary movies I have to think this is going to do some business. I am predicting $14 million.

Watch the trailer for The Crazies:

Now on to Cop Out, which of course stars Bruce Willis and Tracy Morgan as a couple of cops hot on the trail of a stolen baseball card. The director is none other than Kevin Smith (Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back etc. etc.)

I’m definitely interested in seeing this movie because it’s a Kevin Smith movie and I happen to like the buddy-cop genre. Here’s one problem, though: the film is getting panned left and right. Rotten Tomatoes has it at 14 percent! Here’s a second problem: Kevin Smith-directed movies traditionally don’t do a ton of business. The only saving grace is that Bruce Willis movies have traditionally done a lot of business. But Die Hard this is not.

Watch the Cop Out trailer:

Oh, what the heck: I am predicting $21 million for Cop Out, which will mean Leo DiCaprio and Shutter Island will “luck out” and win the box office for a second weekend in a row. My prediction for the weekend finish:

1. Shutter Island $24 million
2. Cop Out $21 million
3. The Crazies $14 million
4. Avatar $13.5 million
5. Percy Jackson $9 million
6. Valentine’s Day $8 million
7. The Wolfman $5 million
8. Dear John $4 million
9. Tooth Fairy $3 million
10. Crazy Heart $2.5 million

Oh, and as an aside: Avatar will hit $700 by the end of the weekend.

That’s it for now! Back with the results this weekend here at the Reject Report!

As expected, Shutter Island was the winner at the box office this weekend. What was not so expected was the margin of victory: it raked in $40 million dollars and finished ahead of Valentine’s Day by an easy $23 million.

Well, I suppose that’s what you can expect when a movie is the sole new wide release of the weekend — it should win, darn it. There is one thing I don’t understand, though, and it is this: Shutter Island represents the best weekend opening ever for both Leonardo DiCaprio and director Martin Scorsese.

It’s at this point where I am scratching my head. Scorsese has made legendary movies like Goodfellas and The Departed, Raging Bull and the rest of these classics. Yet it just so happens that he gets his personal best opening in 2010 for Shutter Island, which a lot of people say is a good movie but not one likely to be remembered as one of his greatest classics ever. Some are even saying they didn’t like it at all. Yet it’s his best opening ever and by a large margin, too! There has got to be some big-time ticket price inflation going on at theaters, man, if Shutter Island is able to set the Scorsese record best opening of all time. I can understand it doing better than Goodfellas or Raging Bull because those were made a long time ago, but Shutter Island outpaced The Departed’s opening weekend totals by a good $14 million. And that movie went on to win the Oscar.

And on the subject of DiCaprio, this is my turn to point out that Shutter Island’s opening was better than Titanic’s open by a good $12 million. Which makes no sense, either.

It’s as if we’re at the point where all you need to do to set some sort of box office record is simply make a movie and get it into wide release, and that’s it. Look at Avatar as Exhibit “A” for that statement: its record-setting domestic box office haul is now $687 million, it is closing in on becoming the first movie in history to hit $700 million domestic. Yet the ticket prices for this flick are through the roof because of 3D.

Even Valentine’s Day set a record with $63 million over the four-day President’s Day weekend. Is the TV really that bad these days that the movies are the only option for people? It has to be the ticket prices. In fact, I know that’s the reason, because it really is costing an arm and a leg to go to these multiplexes and see movies on the “big screen” in stadium seating.

Anyway, enough said. My point is simply that it’s getting too ridiculous with these “records” that keep falling every week, and I’m rapidly getting to the point of cynicism about it all. “Another record fell? Which one?! Really?!”

The weekend numbers:

1. Shutter Island – $40,200,000
2. Valentine’s Day – $17,160,000
3. Avatar – $16,100,000
4. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief – $15,300,000
5. The Wolfman – $9,846,000
6. Dear John – $7,300,000
7. Tooth Fairy – $4,500,000
8. Crazy Heart – $3,025,000
9. From Paris with Love – $2,500,000
10. Edge of Darkness – $2,210,000

Back later this week when we figure out what box office record will fall next here at the Reject Report.

Well, Valentine’s Day is over, so is President’s Day, and it’s on to another week at the movies here at the Reject Report. This week looks fairly calm on the movie front. We have only one new release, Shutter Island, doing battle against the usual holdovers such as Valentine’s Day, Percy Jackson, Avatar and the rest of them. My personal feeling is that Avatar is going to continue to hold up fairly strong yet again and rake in somewhere around $18 million. Valentine’s Day, though, is going to drop like a rock after setting the President’s Day four-day weekend record of $63 million, and the reason is pretty obvious: Valentine’s Day is over.

So is this movie. $24 million is all this is going to get.

So it’s on to Shutter Island, which is the much-delayed Martin Scorsese thriller starring Leonardo DiCaprio. DiCaprio plays Teddy Daniels, one of the two U.S. marshals investigating the disappearance of a mental patient from a hospital for the criminally insane in Massachusetts, presumed missing on Shutter Island. There is much more to the story than just this, though. Roll the video:

Mark Ruffalo, Ben Kingsley, Michelle Williams and Max Von Sydow also star in this movie, which is based on the 2003 novel by Dennis Lehane.

Obviously, this movie is going to benefit by being the only new feature film in wide release in a number of places. Its theater count is approaching 3,000 and it’s been getting very positive though not earth-shattering reviews, so I am expecting quite good business. I have no doubt this will win the weekend box office; my guess is it may approach $30 million but may not quite get there. $29 million is my guess for Shutter Island on opening weekend.

Watch the Shutter Island trailer:

So my prediction for this weekend is as follows:

1. Shutter Island $29 million
2. Valentine’s Day $24 million
3. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief :$20 million
4. Avatar $18 million
5. The Wolfman $17 million
6. Dear John $9 million
7. Tooth Fairy $4 million
8. Crazy Heart $3.6 million
9. From Paris with Love $3.5 million
10. Edge of Darkness $3 million

That is all for now. Who knows, maybe I’ll even get this prediction right, for a change. See you later this weekend as we figure out who got voted off the box office Island here at the Reject Report.

Well, it’s fair to say theater owners fell in love on Valentine’s Day with all the money they were reaping in. And with President’s Day on Monday the money promises to keep rolling in.

Valentine’s Day was, as expected, the first place finisher at the box office — but the haul was a much better than expected $52 million! Well, I suppose that’s what happens when you fill a movie with just about every big name from Hollywood.

It looks like a lot of boyfriends got dragged to the cinemas to see this flick. And the Hollywood crowd is expressing its usual shock over the fact that women actually go to the movies (as if Sex and the City and the Twilight movies were a fluke)! Now the big headline from Hollywood is all about how this is “yet another big movie driven by female audiences” and how to expect more movies aimed at women so Hollywood can finally take advantage of this untapped market.

This is news? Females have been going to movies for years, and only now does Hollywood figure out they should maybe make some movies for them.

Also, it was a good weekend for the two runners-up, Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief ($31 million) and The Wolfman ($30 million). So it was a really big weekend for all the new releases and for the box office in general.

Meanwhile, Avatar fell to fourth place. Still, what’s remarkable is that it still made a chunk of money, hauling in $22 million. Its overall record domestic haul is now $659 million dollars! Wow.

The weekend results:

1. Valentine’s Day – $52,410,000
2. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief – $31,100,000
3. The Wolfman – $30,627,000
4. Avatar – $22,000,000
5. Dear John – $15,300,000
6. Tooth Fairy – $5,600,000
7. From Paris with Love – $4,740,000
8. Edge of Darkness – $4,585,000
9. Crazy Heart – $4,000,000
10. When in Rome – $3,429,000

That’s all for now! Back with another preview of the weekend box office later this week with another Reject Report!

Well, it is certainly odd to go into a weekend without Avatar as either the defending weekend champion or even as a favorite to win the box office — but that is exactly the situation we are facing this weekend at The Reject Report.

Now, Avatar did manage to get back on top of the box office again on Monday and maintained its edge over Dear John through this week, but it seems clear (especially after last weekend’s box office defeat after seven straight winning weekends) that we are finally going to be finished reporting on Avatar box-office glories once and for all. That is: unless a situation arises where all these of these new movies flop on the weekend, which I think will NOT be happening. It was a great record-setting run, and money will still be made to add to the records, but I think this movie is finally done as far as first place is concerned at the domestic box office.

The new wide releases seeking weekend victory are Valentine’s Day, Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief, and last but not least, The Wolfman.

Frankly, it’s turned into a much tougher prediction than I anticipated it would be earlier in the week. I had thought Valentine’s Day was going to win just a few days ago, but now I’m not so sure. Some of the notices being written up about the flick are putting a real damper on things. So it’s going to be a tight race at the top, in my opinion.

First on my list is Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief, based on the 2005 fantasy/adventure novel by author Rick Riordan. Here, Logan Lerman plays the teenager Percy Jackson who finds out he is the demigod son of the Greek god Poseidon. The cast features Alexandra Daddario, Brandon T. Jackson, Jake Abel, Pierce Brosnan, Catherine Keener, Uma Thurman and Sean Bean.

I have to think there is an audience out there for this flick — it’s based on the series of popular novels, it is aimed at the fantasy crowd, and I would imagine family audiences will be interested in seeing it since, well, there hasn’t been much out there for families as of late. It’s also in a sizeable number of theaters, over 3,300. So I think that translates into a healthy $25 million.

Watch the Percy Jackson trailer below:

Next up is The Wolfman, which is based on the 1941 movie of the same name. It stars Benicio del Toro as Lawrence Talbot, who upon being bitten on the neck ends up with the curse that turns him into the Wolfman. Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt and Hugo Weaving are among the cast.

It’s going to be in about 3,200 theaters, similar to the other new wide releases, and I think it will manage to sneak past Percy Jackson to a haul of $26 million. My feeling is: this is a horror movie, and horror movies always seem to do fairly well.

Watch The Wolfman trailer below:

Finally, we have Valentine’s Day, directed by Garry Marshall. It’s set in LA and features a huge cast including Ashton Kutcher, Jennifer Garner, both Jessicas (BIel and Alba), Anne Hathaway, Topher Grace, Julia Roberts, Bradley Cooper, Eric Dane, Patrick Dempsey, Kathy Bates, and a host of other people.

Based on the casting alone you would think this movie would be set for an easy box office win this weekend (especially now that Avatar is fading into the sunset), but here’s the problem: the reviews are terrible! Really awful, something in the 13 percent range at Rotten Tomatoes. Oh, I hear you — they don’t matter. All right, then, I predict $33 million for Valentine’s Day. Heck, the date crowd needs to see something.

Watch the Valentine’s Day trailer below:

So the likely finish this weekend, as I see it, is as follows:

1. Valentine’s Day $33 million
2. The Wolfman $26 million
3. Percy Jackson $25 million
4. Avatar $18 million
5. Dear John $17 million
6. From Paris with Love $4.5 million
7. Tooth Fairy $4.1 million
8. Edge of Darkness $3.8 million
9. Crazy Heart $3.5 million
10. When in Rome $3 million

That’s it for now — see you Sunday when we find out who wins the Valentine’s Day weekend here at the Reject Report!