The Reject Report Gets Dumped by Sarah Marshall

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on April 17, 2008

Welcome to another week of box office speculation and prognostication here at the Reject Report! It appears things are definitely looking up as far as theater business goes in the next few weeks. We have the Judd Apatow production Forgetting Sarah Marshall, we have the Al Pacino thriller 88 Minutes, and the action flick The Forbidden Kingdom. So let’s get right to it, starting with Kristen Bell.

Forgetting Sarah Marshall is the much ballyhooed comedy about this hapless dude Peter, played by Jason Segel (of “How I Met Your Mother” fame). His girlfriend is big TV star Sarah Marshall, played by real TV star Kristen Bell (of Veronica Mars fame). Anyway, Peter is dumped by Sarah, who runs off with this rock-star dude played by Russell Brand. Peter goes crazy without Sarah in his life. And the real fun starts when he goes to Hawaii and winds up running into Sarah and her new beau. Arrrrgh!!! Basically it’s about this guy’s quest to get over this girl. Mila Kunis is in the cast playing one of the resort employees. Of course Jonah Hill (Superbad) and Paul Rudd (Knocked Up) are in the cast as well.

From what I gather, from a pure comedic standpoint this movie should get the Judd Apatow franchise back on track after the critical and commercial failure of Drillbit Taylor and the box office flop of Walk Hard. Apatow co-wrote this with Segel and Nick Stoller directed it. It’s pretty raunchy, from what I hear. Segel shows his privates on-screen during the breakup scene, which seems typical of these Judd Apatow-produced comedies. These movies seem obsessed with male body parts. Man, Apatow really needs to quit showing this stuff.

Anyway, I have no idea how middle America is going to handle this scary sight of Segel naked. I know everyone is saying this movie could be one of the funniest movies of all time, but I think it only gets $25 million just because of this scene alone. I think it is going to scare a lot of customers away. I think, though, the word of mouth will be very strong and the movie will get good business in week 2. Forgetting Sarah Marshall is in 2,700 theaters and is distributed by Universal.

The Forbidden Kingdom is rolling out on 3,000 screens and features Jet Li and Jackie Chan in their first on-screen pairing. The story is about an American teenager (Michael Angarano) who is obsessed with martial arts. A discovery leads him back in time to ancient China, where he is charged with the task of freeing the ancient warrior the Monkey King. In his quest he is joined by Lu Yan (played by Jackie Chan) and by Silent Monk (Jet Li) and his band of warriors.

This movie is being distributed by your friends at the Weinstein Company. The Weinstein Company!!!! The same wonderful folks who brought you Superhero Movie and who DIDN’T bring you Fanboys. Needless to say, the vast fanboy community that protested the Weinstein Company over its handling of the (non-)release of Fanboys will not be impressed, and will definitely not show up. In fact, I think a lot of people aren’t going to show up and $16 million is the likely take for this flick. But don’t worry, I am sure it will make a lot of money in Asia.

Last among the big three releases to go wide this weekend is 88 Minutes, starring Al Pacino. And before I get into the synopsis all I have to say is that the buzz for this movie is among the worst of any flick that has come out this year. Even worse than Fool’s Gold?! Possibly. Pacino plays a forensic psychiatrist for the FBI who receives a death threat claiming he only has 88 minutes to live. So he has to find out who’s behind this threat in the next 88 minutes or, well, he’s dead. The cast also features Benjamin McKenzie, Alicia Witt and Leelee Sobieski, among others.

One of these movie shows I watched on TV made sure to mention that this movie runs some 110 minutes. That’s 22 minutes longer than the title of the movie!! Anyway, that’s just one of the many reasons why people are ridiculing the movie before it even hits these theaters. I am only picking this movie to get $8 million in 2,000 theaters, and that’s about it.

So those are the main wide releases. There are also plenty of other movies in limited release right now in the big cities including the Morgan Spurlock-directed documentary Where in the World is Osama bin Laden? That is being expanded into 100 theaters this weekend and should make a decent amount of money, but nothing spectacular. Who is distributing this movie, you ask? Why, who else — your friends at the Weinstein Company again! Somehow I don’t think the vast fanboy community will be too interested in this movie, anyway.

So here is what I see for the box office this weekend.

There you have it, folks! Back at weekend’s end when we go through the damages here at The Reject Report!

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