Box Office: Another Blood-Filled Life-and-Death Reject Report

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on October 25, 2007

Welcome to what is shaping up to be a fairly grizzly weekend at THE REJECT REPORT. This week we have two new movies going wide across America — the return of SAW IV, and the return of Steve Carell in Dan in Real Life. And Owen Wilson comes back from the almost-dead.

So here we go with the latest movies contending this weekend.

Saw IV opens up in over 3,000 cinemas and looks to me like it is one of the widest releases we have seen in weeks. It`s yet another big bloodfest for one of the highest-grossing horror franchises out there. The flick starts out with Jigsaw dead and two FBI profilers trying to solve Jigsaw`s final puzzle. One of them ends up abducted, and the games begin.

This flick has had quite a history before the MPAA. Originally it was going to be slapped with an NC-17, but they made a few cuts so now they are able to send the thing out as an R movie. So that`s why we are looking at decent numbers for this flick. The problem, though, is that a lot of people are fed up with what they call “torture porn”. People say they are fed up with all these bloodfests, and horror movies have had a hard time this year. So I`m going to go bearish and predict $27 million when everyone else is picking this flick to hit $30 mil. So that`s Saw IV.

In the movie Dan in Real Life from Buena Vista, Steve Carell plays Dan, an advice columnist who himself could use some advice. He’s a relationship expert who is recently widowed and looking to get back to dating, but unfortunately the first woman he falls for (Juliette Binoche) is the girlfriend of his brother.

Anyway, I am predicting $14 mil for this flick because I just do not think that Carell has recovered from Evan Almighty, which was just a pile of junk. He really needs to get back on his game. Also, Dane Cook is in this flick. Not good news.

Finally The Darjeeling Limited expands wide to 698 theaters and stars Owen Wilson. Yes, that’s right — this is the movie that Owen made just before his big suicide attempt, so he wasn’t able to go and promote the movie after it was released. Anyway, Adrien Brody and Jason Schwartzman are also in it. They play these three estranged brothers who take a train ride through India. So that`s what it is about.

This movie was in contention at the Venice Film Festival, so that`s how people first heard about this movie. Anyway, I say $6 million is my guess for this movie, because it`s not in a lot of theaters.

So here are my fearless predictions for this weekend.

There you have it! See you at the end of the weekend when we carve up the results. Carve up — get it? Not funny.

Read more articles by John Cairns