Box Office Estimates May 31-June 2, 2013

This weekend was expected to be the calmest since Iron Man 3 came out and it certainly was.  While After Earth wasn't projected to make a lot of money, the box office of $27 million opening weekend was certainly a surprise as it was the lowest Will Smith summer movie opening of all time.  Fast and Furious 6 led the box office for the second week in a row with another $34 million for $170 million domestic gross so far. Probably the biggest surprise was that Fast and Furious dropped 64.5% and all of the other carryover movies in the top 8 all dropped over 50% this weekend.  Also, making the top 10 despite only opening in 161 theaters is the new Bollywood movie Yei Jawaani Hai Deewani.

Next weekend, The Internship and The Purge open up.  The Internship has a good chance of opening strong, but it's been a while since Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have been big summer draws.  The Purge being an R-rated horror movie will probably do fine, since it's been a while since the last horror film (Evil Dead in early April).

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	1	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$34,538,000	-64.5%	3,686	+28	$9,370	$170,377,000	$160	2
2	N	Now You See Me	LG/S	$28,050,000	-	2,925	-	$9,590	$28,050,000	$75	1
3	N	After Earth	Sony	$27,000,000	-	3,401	-	$7,939	$27,000,000	$130	1
5	3	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$16,400,000	-56.0%	3,585	-322	$4,575	$181,156,000	$190	3
4	4	Epic	Fox	$16,400,000	-51.1%	3,894	+12	$4,212	$65,161,000	$100	2
6	2	The Hangover Part III	WB	$15,930,000	-61.8%	3,565	+10	$4,468	$88,086,000	$103	2
7	5	Iron Man 3	BV	$8,006,000	-58.6%	2,895	-529	$2,765	$384,751,000	$200	5
8	6	The Great Gatsby (2013)	WB	$6,265,000	-53.7%	2,635	-455	$2,378	$128,256,000	$105	4
9	N	Yei Jawaani Hai Deewani	Eros	$1,651,000	-	161	-	$10,255	$1,651,000	-	1
10	7	Mud	RAtt.	$1,226,000	-36.8%	581	-131	$2,110	$16,866,000	-	6

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers.

Box Office Estimates May 24-26, 2013

What a weekend for Fast & Furious 6 as it had the third highest weekend worldwide gross of all time with $252 million and the biggest May opening 3-day weekend ever.  This is even more remarkable considering that it didn't cross $100 million in the United States, the support worldwide for these movies is breathtaking.  Meanwhile, The Hangover: Part III had a pretty disappointing opening, making less than 50% of what The Hangover: Part II made it's opening weekend.  Epic finished up 4th this week falling behind Star Trek Into Darkness in it's second week, but ahead of Iron Man 3 in it's 4 week.  Speaking of Iron Man 3, it officially moved up to the 5th biggest movie all-time with $1.14 billion, it's about $200 million behind 4th place, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2.

Next week, After Earth and Now You See Me open up.  After Earth has the most potential to make some bank this weekend considering the Will Smith star power, but I could easily see both of these movies having pretty soft openings considering all of the other choices available.

1	N	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$98,528,000	-	3,658	-	$26,935	$98,528,000	$160	1
2	N	The Hangover Part III	WB	$42,415,000	-	3,555	-	$11,931	$54,204,000	$103	1
3	1	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$38,000,000	-45.8%	3,907	+39	$9,726	$146,827,000	$190	2
4	N	Epic	Fox	$34,200,000	-	3,882	-	$8,810	$34,200,000	$100	1
5	2	Iron Man 3	BV	$19,424,000	-45.7%	3,424	-813	$5,673	$367,506,000	$200	4
6	3	The Great Gatsby (2013)	WB	$13,705,000	-42.8%	3,090	-460	$4,435	$114,432,000	$105	3
7	8	Mud	RAtt.	$1,928,000	-13.7%	712	-248	$2,708	$14,535,000	-	5
8	6	42	WB	$1,245,000	-55.7%	915	-1,465	$1,361	$91,049,000	$40	7
9	5	The Croods	Fox	$1,215,000	-59.8%	1,008	-1,365	$1,205	$179,238,000	$135	10
10	7	Oblivion	Uni.	$815,000	-65.1%	572	-1,505	$1,425	$87,280,000	$120	6

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers. 

Movie Review: PARKER

I'm forcing myself to write movie reviews for all movies that I see from now on, so be prepared for a lot of content coming through of this type.  I figured this is the only way I'll get better at writing movie reviews, but also a good way to talk about more movies than just the ones we talk about on the podcast.



My first movie review is of the movie Parker, which came out in January in movie theaters but just came out this past Tuesday on Blu-Ray/DVD.  Parker stars Jason Statham as Parker, who is just another version of Chev Chelios, Lee Christmas, Frank Martin, or the guy in The Mechanic, so basically it's Statham being Statham.  Parker is your anti-hero who helps a band of thieves, including one of my favorites Michael Chiklis, put together by Nick Nolte pull off a heist.  While on the way back from pulling off this heist, they start planning their next operation, this time with much higher stakes and a much bigger payout.  Parker is uncomfortable with this and his heist mates sense his disapproval and leave him for dead on the side of the road.  Parker obviously recovers from these attacks and goes to the location of the next robbery in order to get revenge on his former crew. Oh yeah, and Jennifer Lopez shows up too, mostly as a marketing ploy to try to get a female audience interested in what is very much a typical Jason Statham movie, which are usually targeted pretty predominately towards men.  Parker is directed by Taylor Hackford, who probably most recently famous for directing the Ray Charles biopic Ray, and also thrillers The Devil's Advocate and Proof of Life.

Overall, this movie was alright.  It truly is what you expect it to be, nothing more, nothing less.  If the Alice Eve underwear scene in Star Trek Into Darkness, that has been much talked about this week, was gratuitous there's an equally gratuitous scene with Jennifer Lopez stripping down to her skivvies so Parker can check her for a wire (or mostly so we can see J-Lo's bodacious bod).  The one thing you expect from Statham is some cool action scenes and witty one-liners which are largely absent from the movie, while there is some action it's mostly short-lived.  While the story was a little slow to develop and for the most part unoriginal, it was still good enough to be entertaining even while being predictable.  Considering the crop of videos available to rent this past month, you could spend your evenings in much worse way.

Raitng: 2.5 out of 5

Box Office Estimates May 17-19, 2013

Star Trek Into Darkness opened up with $84 million over the 4 days this weekend, which ended up being right about the same amount as the first one made, probably a little disappointing for JJ Abrams' and crew.  Iron Man 3 moved up to 9th all time worldwide for box office gross, passing Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and being about $11 million behind The Dark Knight Rises for 8th, which it should easily surpass next weekend.

Opening up next weekend are Fast and Furious 6, The Hangover: Part III, and Epic and it should be an interesting week to see who tops the box office.  Sadly, Star Trek's stay on top looks to be brief as The Hangover Part II made $85 million opening weekend and Fast Five made $86 million when it opened.  I'm sure it'll be really tight between those two for first and second place.  Not sure how well Epic is going to do because there doesn't seem to be as strong of a marketing campaign behind it, but seemed to do well opening overseas last weekend.

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	N	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$70,555,000	-	3,868	-	$18,241	$84,091,000	$190	1
2	1	Iron Man 3	BV	$35,182,000	-51.5%	4,237	-16	$8,304	$337,073,000	$200	3
3	2	The Great Gatsby (2013)	WB	$23,415,000	-53.2%	3,550	+15	$6,596	$90,159,000	$105	2
4	3	Pain and Gain	Par.	$3,100,000	-38.0%	2,429	-874	$1,276	$46,574,000	$26	4
5	7	The Croods	Fox	$2,750,000	-23.8%	2,373	-277	$1,159	$176,750,000	$135	9
6	5	42	WB	$2,730,000	-40.5%	2,380	-550	$1,147	$88,735,000	$40	6
7	6	Oblivion	Uni.	$2,222,000	-46.0%	2,077	-693	$1,070	$85,500,000	$120	5
8	8	Mud	RAtt.	$2,160,000	-14.9%	960	+108	$2,250	$11,588,000	-	4
9	4	Tyler Perry Presents Peeples	LGF	$2,150,000	-53.4%	2,041	-	$1,053	$7,858,000	$15	2
10	9	The Big Wedding	LGF	$1,100,000	-55.8%	1,443	-855	$762	$20,198,000	$35	4

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers. 

Gravity Trailer

Alfonso Cuarón is one of my favorite directors and Children of Men is one of my favorite movies and it's hard to believe that 7 years have passed since that movie was released.  Cuarón also did one of my favorite of the Harry Potter films, The Prisoner of Azkaban.  It's long overdue that Cuarón makes another film and finally he has and the trailer just went online for it last week, it's called Gravity and stars George Clooney and Sandra Bullock and it just looks astonishing.  Clooney and Bullock play two astronauts who become stranded in space after their space station is destroyed.  Sadly it does not come out until October 4, but here's the trailer to enjoy for the time being.

Box Office Estimates May 10-12, 2013

Iron Man 3 unsurprisingly topped the box office again this weekend raking in another $72 million, bringing it's total gross to a very impressive estimated $284 million in just the United States over the past 9 days. Boy was I way off on my projections for this week, thinking that Peeples could take The Great Gatsby at the box office as Gatsby dominated the 2-hole pulling in around $51 million, while Peeples took fourth with just $4.8 million, maybe the Tyler Perry fascination is coming to an end, we can only hope.

Star Trek Into Darkness opens up next Thursday and should be able to overtake Iron Man 3 in it's third weekend.

1	1	Iron Man 3	BV	$72,472,000	-58.4%	4,253	-	$17,040	$284,893,000	$200	2
2	N	The Great Gatsby (2013)	WB	$51,115,000	-	3,535	-	$14,460	$51,115,000	-	1
3	2	Pain and Gain	Par.	$5,000,000	-33.4%	3,303	+16	$1,514	$41,608,000	$26	3
4	N	Tyler Perry Presents Peeples	LGF	$4,850,000	-	2,041	-	$2,376	$4,850,000	$15	1
5	3	42	WB	$4,650,000	-23.2%	2,930	-415	$1,587	$84,732,000	$40	5
6	4	Oblivion	Uni.	$3,864,000	-31.5%	2,770	-660	$1,395	$81,655,000	$120	4
7	5	The Croods	Fox	$3,600,000	-14.3%	2,650	-265	$1,358	$173,215,000	$135	8
8	6	The Big Wedding	LGF	$2,500,000	-35.6%	2,298	-335	$1,088	$18,288,000	$35	3
9	7	Mud	RAtt.	$2,343,000	+8.4%	854	+278	$2,744	$8,363,000	-	3
10	8	Oz The Great and Powerful	BV	$802,000	-62.0%	774	-386	$1,036	$229,985,000	$215	10

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers. 

Top Box Office: May 3-5, 2013 Studio Estimates

While it's not suprising that Iron Man 3 dominated the box office this week, what is surprising is that it brought in the second highest gross in US film history this weekend with a whopping $175.3 million at the box office.  Avengers is number one still with a $207.4 million opening weekend.

Opening next weekend are The Great Gatsby and Peeples.  I would count on Iron Man 3 carrying it's positive buzz and taking the top spot in the box office again next week.  I wouldn't be surprised if Peeples was number 2 since Tyler Perry's audiences always seem to support his movies strong, especially opening weekend, and for The Great Gatsby to be disappointed with a third place opening.

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	N	Iron Man 3	BV	$175,300,000	-	4,253	-	$41,218	$175,300,000	$200	1
2	1	Pain and Gain	Par.	$7,600,000	-62.5%	3,287	+10	$2,312	$33,919,000	$26	2
3	3	42	WB	$6,210,000	-41.7%	3,345	-60	$1,857	$78,336,000	$40	4
4	2	Oblivion	Uni.	$5,797,000	-67.4%	3,430	-362	$1,690	$75,969,000	$120	3
5	5	The Croods	Fox	$4,225,000	-37.2%	2,915	-368	$1,449	$168,743,000	$135	7
6	4	The Big Wedding	LGF	$3,875,000	-49.0%	2,633	-	$1,472	$14,210,000	$35	2
7	11	Mud	RAtt.	$2,150,000	-3.0%	576	+213	$3,733	$5,158,000	-	2
8	13	Oz The Great and Powerful	BV	$1,822,000	+0.6%	1,160	-450	$1,571	$228,568,000	$215	9
9	7	Scary Movie 5	W/Dim.	$1,435,000	-58.2%	1,857	-876	$773	$29,603,000	$20	4
10	9	The Place Beyond the Pines	Focus	$1,298,000	-52.4%	1,162	-422	$1,117	$18,678,000	$15	6

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers. 

Movie Review: Iron Man 3

Obviously, one of the main focuses of Episode 55 of the AB Conversation podcast is Iron Man 3, so if you want to hear Anthony and I discuss this movie check that out.  One of my "New Year Pod Resolutions" is to do more written content for the website, including movie reviews.  I figure the only way I can get better at writing movie reviews and hopefully expanding the brevity of the podcast is by actually writing movie reviews, so let's go.



This summer movie season started off with a bang as Marvel Films knows how to make a blockbuster that sets the bar for all other movies in the summer months, in other words Tyler Perry Present's Peeples has some mighty stiff competition in Iron Man 3. Iron Man 3 continues the story of Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.), who is still recovering from the alien attack on New York and has replaced the partying part of his life with his obsession of being Iron Man and creating new sets of armor.  Meanwhile, the villain in this movie, The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) begins taking over the television airwaves nationwide claiming responsibility for a number of bombing incidents. When The Mandarin's latest bombing attack becomes personal to Tony Stark, the battle between Iron Man and the mysterious villain known as The Mandarin is on.

I regard the first Iron Man movie as one of the best comic book films of all time along with The Dark Knight and The Avengers, but was a little disappointed with Iron Man 2.  With this one changing directors from Jon Favreau (who still appears in the movie as Happy Hogan) to Shane Black, I was excited to see the franchise take on a different direction.  Shane Black has wrote some awesome movies like The Monster Squad, Lethal Weapon, and Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang (which put Robert Downey Jr back on the map and earned him the role as Iron Man).  Due to Black's propensity for action comedies, I was expecting this to be an even more lighthearted than Favreau's which had a good sense of humor to them as well, and I was not mistaken.  This is easily the funniest of the Marvel films as Tony Stark is firing out one liners like photon blasts.  Iron Man 3 may also have some of the best action sequences of any Marvel movie to date, or at least right up there with The Avengers, the sheer destruction that takes place is impressive.

I only had a few minor quibbles with Iron Man 3, the first being that it didn't set up any of the upcoming movies in Phase 2 of the Marvel films.  The first Iron Man had that epic moment at the end of the movie where Nick Fury showed up and movie history was set into place and Iron Man 2 had more Nick Fury as well as the debut of the Black Widow.  While this keeps the rich history alive, it does nothing to push Phase 2 into hyperdrive or set up Avengers 2.  The 3D was added in post and therefore doesn't really do much to add to the movie, if I were you I would just hold onto the surcharge amount and see the movie in 2D.  You would think in a big action blockbuster like this, something would stand out of the 3D, but sadly it does not.  While I liked the music for the most part, those that are expecting to hear AC/DC blasting when Iron Man makes an appearance will be sorely disappointed.

Writing a review about this movie is pretty pointless because pretty much everybody that wants to see this movie is going to hit the theaters and see it opening weekend and those that aren't probably aren't all that interested in the first place.  If you are an inbetweener, I highly suggest checking it out as it works great as an action-comedy as well as a superhero flick.  The exchanges between Tony Stark and James Rhodes, harken you back to the dialogue between Riggs and Murtaugh.  While the duo of villains were quality actors in the second Iron Man (Mickey Rourke and Sam Rockwell), I was blown away by how they handled The Mandarin (Ben Kingsley) and Aldrich Killian (Guy Pierce).  Ben Kingsley gives an amazing performance and his performance is reason alone to see this movie. Also a big kudos to Ty Simpkins' character Harley who plays off of Tony Stark so well and provides a ton of laughs and also Paul Bettany who never gets his due as the awesome voice of Jarvis. 

This action packed thrill ride is full of laughs and keeps re-inventing itself throughout.  While the there are still some contract issues to be sorted out and this very much ends the Iron Man trilogy, I would be very disappointed and surprised if this is the last we see of Tony Stark on the big screen.

4.5 Stars out of 5

If you like this movie, I recommend:



Read the comic book, the Extremis storyline in this movie is based on.

Top Box Office: April 26-28, 2013 Studio Estimates

Unsurprisingly the new Michael Bay movie, Pain and Gain, starring The Rock and Marky Mark went on to lead the Box Office this weekend.  The surprising part may be that it only made $20 million this weekend, as this is Bay's lowest opening weekend since The Island in 2005.  The only new release, the romantic comedy, The Big Wedding ended up getting fourth place and opening up very soft considering the cast involved with the movie.

Going out on a limb and going to predict that next weekend that Iron Man 3 movie is going to top the charts, if the buzz is any indication that movie is going to make some huge bank.  (*)

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	N	Pain and Gain	Par.	$20,000,000	-	3,277	-	$6,103	$20,000,000	$26	1
2	1	Oblivion	Uni.	$17,443,000	-52.9%	3,792	+9	$4,600	$64,731,000	$120	2
3	2	42	WB	$10,725,000	-39.5%	3,405	+155	$3,150	$69,079,000	$40	3
4	N	The Big Wedding	LGF	$7,500,000	-	2,633	-	$2,848	$7,500,000	$35	1
5	3	The Croods	Fox	$6,600,000	-28.5%	3,283	-152	$2,010	$163,025,000	$135	6
6	5	G.I. Joe: Retaliation	Par.	$3,620,000	-37.2%	2,707	-468	$1,337	$116,396,000	$130	5
7	4	Scary Movie 5	W/Dim.	$3,457,000	-43.8%	2,733	-669	$1,265	$27,494,000	$20	3
8	7	Olympus Has Fallen	FD	$2,768,000	-38.2%	2,334	-304	$1,186	$93,076,000	$70	6
9	6	The Place Beyond the Pines	Focus	$2,699,000	-45.1%	1,584	+42	$1,704	$16,205,000	$15	5
10	9	Jurassic Park 3D	Uni.	$2,310,000	-43.0%	1,848	-482	$1,250	$42,000,000	$10	4

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers.

Thor: The Dark World Trailer

Thory I didn’t post this sooner but the Thor: The Dark World trailer was posted online this morning and it looks like a slobberknocker.

The Wolverine Sneak Preview

The sequel to X-Men Origins: Jimmy Logan the Wolverine, just titled, The Wolverine is clawing up theaters on July 26, 2013.  To amp up for this Fox just released a six second trailer for the movie that they released on Vine, which is a really cool and interesting way to release this sort of content.  Needless to say you don’t get much but the six seconds you do have look pretty cool.  Check out the trailer here.

Veronica Mars Movie!!!!

This is probably the most exciting thing I’ve seen in a while and has HUGE potential to shake the geek landscape for years to come! 

For those that don’t know Veronica Mars was a show that aired on UPN and The CW from 2004 to 2007, it had a rapid cult following but little more than that.  That really was a damn shame since this was one of my favorite shows of not just this time but all time and I know Anthony feels the same way.  I even showed Julie this little show about a high school girl becoming a detective, which she thought sounded hella-lame at the time and it even made her fall in love with this show.  All three seasons are affordably priced on Amazon, especially seasons 1 and 2 which are going for $12.49 and $11.70 each respectively right now. 

Ever since Veronica Mars ended, the fans, cast and crew of Veronica Mars wanted to do a movie however Warner Bros. which owns the rights to the Veronica Mars series has said no.  And understandably so since cult TV shows being turned into movies hasn’t been proven as a money maker yet.  Brilliantly however, Rob Thomas (Executvie Producer and not the front man for Matchbox Twenty) and Kristen Bell (star of the show) had a brilliant idea, if the people that love the Veronica Mars show and are dying to see another 2 hours of it in movie form want to fund the movie, will Warner Bros. allow this movie to happen?  That answer is yes.

With that the Veronica Mars kickstarter was launched among the masses a few hours ago and has already reached almost $650,000 including some of my very own.  They have lots of cool packages to pick from starting with $10 and getting a digital copy of the script to $10,000 for a speaking role in the movie (Already gone!).  For $25 you get a t-shirt, $35 for a digital version, $50 for a DVD, $75 for a poster, $100 for a Blu-Ray/DVD combo, and a lot more from there.

Anthony and I are tremendous believers in Kickstarter’s potential to do good.  Not only can you fund things that you want to see but also get rewards for helping out the movie in it’s early stages and it’s nice to see things like that this have a ravenous following being able to support something that want to see.  This is such a great time for fandom.  To see something like Veronica Mars be able to pull together it’s followers and make a movie is fantastic.  This is the future.  This is where the new wave of entertainment begins.  Kevin Smith had this same idea with Red State (pre-Kickstarter) and this is the perfect avenue to tell if ideas like these are going to be successful.  I truly believe that this is just the beginning of how your entertainment dollars are going to be spent.  There will always be things like Star Wars and Marvel Comics movies that won’t need Kickstarter.  This is the largest funding campaign in Kickstarter history for a film and if this is successful, this will lead to more things getting the same treatment.

Considering it’s got 29 more days to go and is looking like it’s on track for $2,000,000, but they’ll certainly take more and every little bit helps this movie become bigger and better.  It’s great that we’ll see a Veronica Mars movie in our lives in the very near future (or at least after Kristen has her baby).  You can head on over to their Kickstarter page and help fund this movie right now.  I have included their awesome video from the Kickstarter page here featuring many members of the cast and it makes me want to see this movie even more!