Thursday, May 31, 2012

Movie Preview - June 2012

The month of May has come to an end, which means its time to look forward to the variety of movies that come out in the month of June. This past month was quite the amazing month, unless you were a movie maker not involved with the Avengers trying to make money on the movie you released in May. The Avengers dominated May and has already made it past $500M domestically and in a few days from now it will pass The Dark Knight's total to get the number 3 spot on the all time domestic chart. Worldwide it is about to pass Harry Potter 7.2 for third on that chart as well with $1.3B. This all in a month. Now it is currently ahead of Avatar and Titanic's pace thus far, but that won't last much longer. With that huge success, the only other movie to perform decently well is Men in Black III this past weekend. All the other major releases - Dark Shadows, Battleship, What to Expect When Your Expecting, The Dictator, and Chernobyl Diaries - have all been disappointing.  June, on the other hand, won't be lopsided like this. It will be much different as there several movies that should all be decent hits with no surefire dominant movie. It'll be a good change of pace before we see Batman and Spiderman dominate July.

June 1st - 3rd - The first weekend of June isn't always a great spot for movies to premier because typically there will several big May movies going strong with at least one or two big hits the last weekend. Well, as mentioned above, this isn't quite the case this year. Avengers has slowed down enough and Men in Black III won't be a huge obstacle for the first potentially big movie of June, Snow White and the Huntsman. Now this is the second of two Snow White movies, but the other one, Mirror Mirror, was a joke. This one looks like the real deal as the Huntsman looks like it is combining Snow White with Lord of the Rings in an awesome action packed Snow White movie that will probably be closer to the Grimm Brother's Snow White as opposed to the nice Disney version. A star-filled cast will lead the way in this with Kristen Stewart, Chris Hemsworth, and Charlize Theron as the lead roles. Most have been worried about Kristen Stewart getting the Snow White role, but early reviews say that she redeems herself after the her awful job in Twilight as Bella. The only other new wide release this weekend is For Greater Glory. This movie is a foreign film from Mexico and while it is a wide release, it is barely a wide release and won't make a huge dent in the weekend. Starring Eva Longoria as the biggest name here in the states, it is a movie about the Cristeros War.

June 8th - 10th - The second weekend in June provides us with an interesting battle for the top spot. First up is Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted. The first two Madagascar movies both had decent openings and with both of them being well liked, the third installment should be a popular choice amongst families, especially those with younger kids who adore the Madagascar characters. It is the first animated family movie of the summer and with no competition via other family movies, it should fare well at least until Brave comes out two weeks later. Fighting against Madagascar 3 for that top spot is the highly anticipated Prometheus. Prometheus has been hyped up for quite some time now and seems to be rather mysterious as it claims to be some sort of prequel to the Alien movies. It is directed by Ridley Scott and stars Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, and Charlize Theron in her second June movie in as many weeks. It recently got slapped with an R rating which shouldn't be too surprising given that the Alien movies were all rated R as well, but that fact could effect it's box office totals. It won't hit the huge blockbuster level that some people thought as only ten R rated movies have ever topped $200M with only one of those passing the $300M mark, but it should make a decent ripple in June. A win over Madagascar this weekend wouldn't be surprising and is what most people expect, but it should be a close race.

June 15th - 17th - Father's Day weekend this year brings us a few interesting choices. First up is the musical Rock of Ages. Rock of Ages is made by the same director who brought you Hairspray five years ago and is based on the Broadway show. It takes us on a nostalgic trip back to the musical world of the 80's. So those who love 80's music should enjoy this, unless of course you are not a fan of the lifestyle of 80's musicians, because it dives into that as well. It has quite the cast in it with Tom Cruize playing the lead role of fictional rocker Stacee Jaxx and along with Cruize is Malin Akerman, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Alec Baldwin, Russell Brand, and more. In the trailer it claims that it features the music of Def Leppard, Foreigner, Journey, Poison, and Twisted Sister. I imagine it will also bring more as well. Challenging Rock of Ages will be Adam Sandler with his new comedy That's My Boy. Now Sandler is generally good at attracting people to the theaters to see his movies. There will always be the typical Sandler fans that will go every time. Now he is also pretty good at avoiding the R rating with his comedies even when several of them have deserved it. This one however did not avoid it and got slapped with an R, so it will be interesting to see how much of that Sandler crowd will still go. Despite that it should be in good shape as the summer always brings a few popular R rated comedies. In this movie Sandler is back as his crazy psycho self as he plays a father who has a son in his early teens and after several years apart comes back into his life right before his son's wedding. It fits the Father's Day theme, so it might be a popular choice on Father's Day.

June 22nd - 24th - The last two weeks of June provide a plethora of movies as they all try to race and earn money before Spiderman and Batman take control of the Box Office in July. The final weekend of June provides four new releases and this fourth weekend has three. The biggest release of this weekend, which will also most likely be the top grossing movie of June, is Pixar's Brave. Now Pixar typically has a very good track record. Before last year's Cars 2, Pixar had a 9 movie streak stemming back to Toy Story 2 in 1999 where every movie they released topped $200M. Now, $191M isn't bad for a movie, but out of all Pixar's movies, the only movie that grossed less was 1998's A Bug's Life. Adjusting for inflation, Cars 2 is officially the least grossing Pixar movie and rightfully so. It was a terrible movie. But Brave should pick up where Pixar left off before the Cars 2 disaster as it looks like a fun, original movie with a tagline that reminds me a bit of Megamind. "If you had the chance to change your fate, would you?" By original, I mean a non-sequel because the change-your-fate idea in a movie isn't original, but Brave should a fun movie still and should put Pixar back on track. The second movie this weekend is a rather ridiculous one. My hope is that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter will kill off the vampire craze that has been going on in Hollywood for the last several years. Now this movie is based off the novel by Seth Grahame-Smith, who also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Yes, I hear the book is an interesting one and the movie could very well be a good, fun action movie, but the premise of the movie just makes me laugh every time I think about it and watch the trailer. The problem with that is that I know its not supposed to be a comedy. Come on, Abraham Lincoln hunting vampires? That is hilariously ridiculous. Moving on, the final movie of the weekend is Seeking a Friend for the End of the World. Hmmm... I wonder where they got the idea for that movie? This is the second R rated comedy of the month and stars Steve Carell and Keira Knightley and is what it sounds like. The world is ending and after the guy's wife leaves him, he goes and searches for his high school sweetheart.

June 29th - July 1st - This final weekend of June (yes, it does include one day of July) was supposed to be the GI Joe 2 weekend, but they wisely decided to postpone their release because coming out at this time would warrant a domestic gross of $50M - $75M max. Released next March it actually has a chance at crossing $100M. But now with it out of the way, it will be a complete grab bag for the top spot this weekend, which could very well end up being a 2nd win in a row for Brave. In competition to steal the throne from Brave will be two comedies, a drama, and a comedy/drama. Out of the four, the one that I imagine will draw the most attention is Ted. This is heavily marketed as the first motion picture from the creators of Family Guy. This is certain to unite the many Family Guy fans around the country as well as any other person who wants to watch an R rated comedy about a guy and his crazy talking teddy bear. It stars Mark Wahlberg as lead role and includes three people from Family Guy, including Seth MacFarlane himself as the voice of Ted the teddy bear. Movie number two is Magic Mike. This is the second R rated comedy of the weekend and fourth in three weeks. Not all of them will be huge, but one or two of them might break out and it will be interesting to see which ones will and which ones will flop. Magic Mike features Channing Tatum in his third major movie in the last four months. It is about Channing Tatum being a male stripper, which is totally appeasing (yes, that was sarcastic). This is also the movie that is a drama as well, so it might have more depth to it than Channing Tatum dancing around half naked in front of girls. If this kind of thing is for you, then be my guest. The movie that I think sounds most interesting this weekend is  People Like Us. Unfortunately it probably won't be the most popular movie of the month, but it could be a surprise hit, you never know. It's an interesting family drama where a man is asked to deliver $150,000 of his deceased father's fortune to his sister that he has never met. And of course some crazy plot twists happen along the way. It has an interesting cast of Chris Pine, Olivia Wilde, Elizabeth Banks, and Michelle Pfeiffer. The last movie of the weekend I think is useless. Tyler Perry Madea's Witness Protection. If you like these movies, then go ahead, but I'm not going to say any more about it other than it is being released.

No comments:

Post a Comment