Movie Preview - April 2012

We've been on a roll so far this year with record months in February and March. When all is said and done, February of this year will have given us three $100M movies. The Vow and Safe house have been at that mark for a while now while Journey 2 is knocking on the door with $98.5M. Last year there was only one movie, Just Go With It, that topped $100M in February, and that barely accomplished the feat. March of 2011 only had one movie top $100M as well, as Rango led last March's group with $123M. This year when the dust is settled we will end up with one $300M movie (Hunger Games), one $200M movie (Lorax), and at least one $100M (21 Jump Street). Can April keep this positive Box Office trend going?  Well, May will be huge and so will this summer, but at the looks of things, 2012 will cool off a touch as we pass through April. Lets take a look at what these four weekends have in store for us.

April 6th - 8th- Barring some surprise movie later in the month, this first weekend of April will be the biggest weekend of the month as it's two releases are possibly the only two movies that have a shot at breaking the $100M mark. First up, and releasing on Wednesday the 4th instead of Friday, is the 3D re-release of Titanic. This will be the 3rd re-release of the year and 4th since September. The most recent two re-releases didn't perform that well, but if I'm making a guess, I would say that Titanic fares closer to the Lion King in its success simply because of how popular it is. Personally I don't get the hype with it. It's just a 3 hour long chick flick that ends tragically and is placed in a historical setting. Yes, I can see how it can be popular, but not $600M popular. But that's just me. The same crowd that flocked to it before will probably flock to it again. And I don't know, maybe there will be a bunch of guys going that want to see if Kate Winslet looks even better in 3D, if you know what I mean. I personally will not be seeing it, if you didn't guess that already. But people will. And it only needs $160M to top Avatar domestically. Will it get that? I don't think so, but it will be fun to see how close it gets. The other release this weekend is is another movie I'll be skipping - American Reunion, the latest in the American Pie series. The American Pie movies do have a big fan base as all the previous three that hit theaters topped $100M, so the chances  that this one follows suite is pretty good. Although it could end up like a Scream 4 and just crash, but probably not. $40 million on the weekend will be enough for one of these two movies to dethrone The Hunger Games, as The Hunger Games will land somewhere in the 30M range on its third weekend. The likelihood of that happening is pretty good, although I don't know which one it will be.

April 13th - 15th- The most intriguing movie of this particular weekend in my opinion comes with the remake of The Three Stooges. Now my initial reaction to this is probably the same type of reaction that you and others have had. Why? The Three Stooges is a classic old TV series that many people love and deciding to do a new movie remake is quite daring because if it fails, people will be crying for your head. My initial thought is that this will be a dumb movie. However, the more I think about it, the more I am willing to guess that this movie will surprise people. Not that it is smart to trust one early user review on IMDb, but there is one up by someone who thought it would be dumb and ended up loving it. Another thing I didn't notice at first is that this movie is directed by the Farrelly brothers, who most people would them best for Dumb and Dumber. So could this movie turn out to be a really funny movie with a Dumb and Dumber feel? I think that is quite possible. Challenging The Three Stooges this weekend may seem like a randomly placed horror film in The Cabin in the Woods. However, randomly placed it is not as this weekend is Friday the 13th. So anyone who wants to see if this movie will give them a good scare, might want to give this movie a shot. The premise of the movie is pretty basic. You could probably look at the title and guess what it's about. There is a group of five friends that go to a cabin in the woods. Being a horror movie, its obvious that something goes wrong during their visit. It's written and produced by Joss Whedon and even includes Chris Hemsworth in the cast, both of whom will have a huge movie called The Avengers coming out a few weeks after this if you didn't know that already. Lastly, adding to a varied weekend is the action movie Lockout. Lockout has Guy Pearce teaming up with Lost star Maggie Grace and is about a man who is given a shot at freedom after being wrongly accused of a crime. To gain that freedom, he has to save the President's daughter from an outer space prison that is full of extremely violent inmates. It could be a good one for those wanting to get their action dose of the month.

April 20th - 22nd - This third weekend in April looks to be the weakest of April, thus opening the door for one of the movies from the previous weekend to take charge at number one if the holdover is good enough. But nonetheless, there are three new releases. One documentary and two book adaptions. Chimpanzee is the documentary coming from DisneyNature. If you remember African Cats from last year, it will probably be the same type of movie as that. And just like African Cats, it won't make much of a dent or scratch at all in the Box Office, but if you are interested in that type of movie, then be my guest. Tim Allen is the narrator. Now as far as the two book adaptions, I have read neither, so if you have you should be the one telling me about them, but the first one that looks like it will be the most successful release of the weekend is The Lucky One. The Lucky One is a novel by Nicholas Sparks who is best known for The Notebook and Dear John. It is about a marine who, after just serving in three tours in Iraq, travels to North Carolina to find the unknown girl who he believes was his good luck charm during the war. It stars Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling in the lead roles. Girls will be probably be swarming to this one as it looks to be the chick flick of the month. Last up for this weekend is Think Like a Man, which comes from the book by Steve Harvey. The movie is a comedy starring Chris Brown, Gabrielle Union, and Kevin Hart and the premise is that four friends decide to conspire to turn the tables on their women when they learn that the women have been using Steve Harvey's relationship advise against them.

April 27th - 29th - The final weekend in April has four movies coming out that are daring enough to open the weekend before the Avengers. They better hope that their grosses in this weekend are good because their is a good chance they get swallowed up when the entire country decides to go to the Avengers. First up are a couple of March cast-offs. And by that I mean two movies who were originally scheduled to release in March but shied away from those dates due to a very busy March, which will probably turn out to be a smart decision given the success of March. The first of those two that I will talk about is The Raven. The Raven is a fictional movie about Edgar Alan Poe. Now I say fiction because I assume that there wasn't a time in Poe's life where all of his stories came to life and haunted him and those around him. It looks like it is quite the thriller as it got slapped with an R rating for bloody violence and grisly images. The other March cast-off is The Pirates! Band of Misfits. This looks like a fun family animated film that all the kids and many adults should enjoy. It is the animation style of Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit. Now recently that type of animated movie hasn't done extremely well in the Box Office, but it should be decent with somewhere between $50M and $75M. It has been well advertised, so that should help it. Finishing off April, we have a pair of R rated movies for certain crowds to enjoy. The first of those two is The Five-Year Engagement. This movie is of the R rated comedy genre and features Jason Segal and Emily Blunt. The plot is self explanatory as the tagline reads, "A comedy about the journey in between popping the question and tying the knot." Personally, I hope my engagement doesn't last five years, but that's just a random side note. Last up for this April review is Safe. Safe is a high-powered action movie about a former agent who is trying to rescue a Chinese girl who was kidnapped by the Triads and then using a safe combination to outwit the Russian mofia, corrupt NYC officials, and the Triads.