The Reject Report: WALL-E, Wanted Roll Out

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on June 27, 2008

Welcome to another Reject Report as we hit one of the more crucial stretches of the movie calendar. What happens over the next four weeks may determine whether theaters end up in the black for the summer — or in the toilet. Last week, Mike Myers’ toilet humor sent ticket sales right into the dumpster all over North America, but things may well pick back up again this week. Two highly-regarded and highly-anticipated movies — WALL-E and Wanted — roll out, and I have to say the box office has got to be good. Because if these two movies do not clean up at the box office this weekend with good ticket sales, there is going to be no hope left for the summer, because this is the peak season. It’s as good as it gets right now. So enjoy, popcorn movie fans. Quit your whining and head to your local cinema.

We begin, starting with WALL-E.

WALL-E is from the Disney-PIXAR studio line and is a bit of a passion project for the studio that’s been long on the drawing board. Director Andrew Stanton conceived of WALL-E before Toy Story was even made, based on the simple question: what if mankind had to leave and forgot to turn off the last robot on earth?

The movie is about WALL-E, a waste-allocation load-lifter robot who spends years doing exactly what he is programmed to do: lift the trash. The year is 2700, and the humans have left earth a long time ago, and they are anxious to return home. They send a search-robot named Eve to earth to check up, and Eve stumbles upon WALL-E. And of course WALL-E falls in love with Eve and ends up chasing her across the galaxy when she leaves to report her findings back to the earthlings.

This movie is billed not so much as a science fiction story as a love story, and some others have mentioned the “green” implications of the plot line. In any event, this movie has been in the works for a long, long time and is considered the last of a long line of original PIXAR movies that finally has made the silver screen. The critics are hailing this movie left and right: I checked Rotten Tomatoes this morning and WALL-E was running at 97 per cent. Ninety-seven per cent!! That’s pretty good.

I have to think this is going to do big business. I feel there is a pent-up demand from people to go see a family movie, or a good animated movie. Plus, the sci-fi freaks are going to want to see this one, too, so I think this is going to appeal to a lot more than the usual PIXAR audience. This is also rolling out on something like 3,900 screens. I am going to be absolutely fearless in my prediction and predict $74 million for WALL-E. I am being a little bullish here compared to a lot of other prognosticators, but keep in mind, the Shrek movies made even more money when they were released (at least, the last two did). And I have to think this will out-do Kung Fu Panda, so $74 million is my prediction.

Also rolling out wide across North American screens is Wanted, directed by Timur Bekmambetov. Once again, we have a movie rolled out based on comic books — in this case, a miniseries by Mark Millar by the same title. (Needless to say, the vast fanboy community is going to show up to this one, too. This is shaping up to be a big weekend for the fanboys. But this movie is also getting critical raves, too, so this is shaping up to being a big weekend, period.)

James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman and Angelina Jolie make up the all-star cast. McAvoy plays Wesley Gibson, a cubicle-chained office nobody looking for “a lotto ticket out of my boring existence.” Turns out his father, who he thought had died soon after he was born, only died last week. And was one of the greatest assassins who ever lived. So Gibson is recruited to join the Fraternity of Assassins, and McAvoy and Jolie train this guy to bring out his special powers that he has within him so that he can avenge his father’s death.

I dunno about you, but I’m excited by this movie. This sounds like it’s going to be packed with action, and let me tell you: the action fans are really STARVED. So I think this is going to do really well. And of course, Angelina Jolie has a lot of fans and is a regular in these gossip columns and entertainment magazines and TV shows. So a lot of girlfriends will likely be dragged to the theaters, just to see whether the rumors about Jolie being anorexic are true.

I am predicting $35 million for Wanted, which in any other weekend would be a pretty good showing, but this weekend it’s going to pale in comparison to WALL-E’s totals.

So there you have it! Here are the projected box office totals for what’s rolling out on theaters this weekend:

That about does it for right now. Check back at weekend’s end as we find out what movie goers “wanted” to see. Yes, I had to throw my usual puns into the article again. Well, so what?

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