Movie Preview - May 2012

After record setting months of February and March, April slowed down quite a bit. The movie that made the most money in April was March holdover, The Hunger Games. Out of the new releases, the highest grossing movie was Think Like a Man, which has only been out for two weeks now, but has already earned 60M. Titanic 3D and American Reunion were the two titles that were projected to join the 100M club, but both movies barely made it past 50M. Now in all fairness to April, the new releases weren't high budget films that were expected to do well, so this was expected. But now April is over and it is time to look forward to May. Now May doesn't have a whole ton of new releases, but it has several big releases and one release that will be huge, so May should do a very good job of kicking off the Hollywood Summer. So let's jump into it.

May 4th - 6th - It's here! After literally years of anticipation, the wait for The Avengers will finally end as it is released on Star Wars Day, May the 4th. We've all been waiting patiently and impatiently ever since Nick Fury showed up in the after-the-credits scene of Iron Man back four years ago in 2008. It is quite the huge risk for Marvel to do what it has done, being that they have released 5 movies to prepare for this one and built the anticipation for that long. That strategy would turn the Avengers into either the biggest bust of all time or the biggest success of all time. And luckily for both the makers of the movie and the fans, it looks to be the latter. Early reviews started showing up early in April and on top of that, most of the world got the movie this past weekend and people love it. Many are calling it the best comic book movie of all time. It has exceeded many people's extremely high expectations, and that is impressive. All the hype and build up will lead it to a huge opening weekend, one that could break the Harry Potter finale's opening weekend record. Great word of mouth and popularity could cause a great hold that will propel it to at least 400M domestically and even a total in the 500M club wouldn't surprise me at all. Reports are that it has already made $218M internationally in just a few days in theaters.

May 11th - 13th - Most movies are wisely deciding to avoid opening up in the shadow of the Avengers, but there is one movie that isn't afraid of shadows. Yes, Dark Shadows. In Dark Shadows we are once again treated to the sometimes brilliant, yet most times crazy duo of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp. Dark Shadows is a story about a vampire who gets released into the modern world after two hundred years of captivity. It's partially a horror, vampire film, but more accurately it is a comedy. And just remember it is Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, so prepare yourself accordingly. The Burton / Depp combo is typically a success when it comes to the box office and this one shouldn't do too bad, but if it has aspirations of getting to first place in the box office, those aspirations may never be achieved as the Avengers should easily dominate again in its second weekend.

May 18th - 20th - At this point I still imagine that Avengers will be growing strong and has a good chance of three-peating. Now the Hunger Games made four weekends in a row and while the Avengers will end up making more money than the Hunger Games, the Hunger Games came out in an April month that had very little competition, so in a busier May, the Avengers will most likely get dethroned either this weekend or the next weekend. The movie with the best chance of stealing the top spot will be Battleship. Now since this movie was announced, I have thought it was a silly idea. And I still think it is, but it could be a good movie. The issue is that it is based off the game Battleship. That game has pretty much no storyline except for you shooting down your opponents ships. You can't make a movie out of that. But they have. And in doing so, they naturally have to create a whole storyline and make up a bunch of characters. And of course they added aliens, because that's the cool thing to do nowadays. So the movie will have about nothing to do with the game, but oh well. It has already came out internationally. In fact in some places it will have been out for nearly two months by the time the US gets it. We get it last, which is kinda weird. Reviews on it are only mediocre, so its nothing to look forward to, but it might be entertaining. There are also two other movies that are coming out this weekend that will be overshadowed by the Avengers, Battleship, and possibly even Dark Shadows. But they will have their own targeted audiences that will go see them. The first is The Dictator, which actually gets a head start with a Wednesday debut. The Dictator is an R-rated comedy that stars Sacha Baron Cohen and Ana Faris and is about a dictator who does everything in his power to make sure democracy doesn't come to his country. Last for the week is What to Expect When You're Expecting, which is a PG-13 rated romantic comedy inspired by the book of the same name. The title kinda gives a description of the movie. Its about the drama that happens during pregnancy and impending parenthood. In it is the story of five different couples, which include several big names, a few of which are Cameron Diaz, Jennifer Lopez, Dennis Quaid, and Chris Rock.

May 25th - 27th - If Avengers hasn't been dethroned by this point, then this is the weekend that will do it in. Now I sound harsh by saying that, but don't think into it too much, the Avengers will still be a solid 2 or 3 this weekend. Men in Black III will certainly take the crown this last weekend of May. The first two did decently well, but not on epic proportions. This third one will attempt to pull off a Toy Story 3 type performance in that it has been ten years since the second one and fifteen since the first. Doing a sequel that long after the original is quite risky, but can work out. Now, Men in Black is what it is. You either love it or hate it, but either way you know what type of movie you are getting yourself into if you decide to go. This third entry has Will Smith's character Agent J go back in time to save Agent K's life. Last up, we get an oddly placed horror film with Chernobyl Diaries. Horror films typically don't attract a huge audience and add that on to the fact that it is coming out in summer and it doesn't look to bright for this movie. I think that there might be five people who go and see it. However, if you want to join in with those five and see if you can get scared pretty good, then by all means, be my guest!