The Reject Report: Some Brave Predictions!

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on September 14, 2007

Welcome to what is shaping up to be another lonely week for movie fans at The Reject Report. Lonely, because, well, YOU will be the ones who will be lonely at the theaters this week, because nobody’s going to show up. What movies are playing? The Brave One, Dragon Wars, Mr. Woodcock, any number of them. But everyone at home is still wating for Jessica Alba to show up in Good Luck Chuck, or for Ben Stiller to break hearts as The Heartbreak Kid. Who wants to see this latest stuff, really, other than dedicated movie fans?

What good is it going to a movie where no one is in the theater to watch it? I remember when I finally saw Bobby last fall, and it screened in a theater that had only about three people in it. That’s the situation we are faced with right now. And it’s too bad, because a lot of the fans are following this Toronto festival that’s going on and are probably in the mood to see movies at the local theater. Fat chance there will be anyone there, though, other than yourself.

Anyway, here are the movies playing this weekend.

The Brave One is a drama thriller from Warner Bros., to be released in something like 2,700 theaters. It stars Jodie Foster as a radio talk show host whose world collapses when she is brutally beaten and the love of her life killed. So she ends up going on a vigilante hunt after the people who ruined her life.

Given the star power of this movie you would expect it to finish Number One, so that’s my prediction. But how the heck is this going to do any better than the $14 million that 3:10 to Yuma made last week? Beats me. I think $13 million is a good bet for this movie, which would be in line with what the box office usually is this time of year. (Which is terrible, by the way.)

Dragon Wars, also known as D-War, is an action fantasy movie from Freestyle Releasing. It’s a South Korean flick directed by Shim Hyung-Rae and is apparently one of the biggest-budgeted movies ever to come out of that country. South Korea is also better known these days as the place where you release American movies in advance of the American release date, just to stop video pirating from happening. But I digress. Dragon Wars is about this guy who is given this powerful pendant and told to meet and find the reincarnation of his boyhood love, so that they can do battle with dangerous serpent Buraki and a bunch of monsters. Jason Behr and Robert Forster are in it.

About time we had a monster movie to go see. All the Godzilla freaks ought to like this one. But it’s likely not to be a big box office hit on this side of the world, although it did do very well in South Korea. In its first five days of release in South Korea it made $20 million dollars, and that was weeks ago. I don’t think it will do that well in America, though. $6 mil would be my guess.

Mr. Woodcock is a New Line comedy starring Billy Bob Thornton, Seann William Scott and Susan Sarandon. Scott plays this guy who was tormented in school by the demented gym teacher Mr. Woodcock, played by Thornton. Well guess what, it’s years later and the demented gym teacher is dating Scott’s mom, played by Sarandon. Worse, they want to get married! So Scott sets out to bust them up. Sounds like fun stuff, but likely not a big boffo box office. Maybe $8 million.

Rats. It’s not shaping up to be a fun week at the box office. There are also a lot of movies such as Eastern Promises and In the Valley of Elah that are out this weekend, and they’ve received a lot of writeups. But they aren’t in a lot of theaters, so a lot of you folks stuck in middle America are going to be all out of luck.

My predicted box office:

That’s it for now! See you later this weekend for the box office recap here at The Reject Report, which I bravely predict to be dismal. Again.

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