Movie Preview - August 2012 (part 1)

The start of August signifies that the Summer is coming to an end. In Hollywood it means most of the big summer movies have already happened and we are ready for the Fall movie fast that always happens before the big Summer movies and the big Winter movies. Having said that, there are always a few surprises in August and some late Summer hits. Last summer had Rise of the Planet of the Apes and The Help, but nothing else really. This August, while it won't be the most entertaining month of the year movie-wise, it should be fairly eventful when compared to previous Augusts. There is a possibility that this may be due to movie makers trying to avoid being drowned out by Spider-Man and Batman and releasing their movies in August instead, but who knows. There's also a chance that they could mostly all flop and thus give us a typical August, but we shall see. Here's how August shapes up:

August 3rd - 5th - When the Dark Knight was in theaters, it impressively pulled off a four-peat, winning weeks three and four by less that 5M each week. Now for whatever reason, The Dark Knight Rises is falling harder than The Dark Knight as it opened barely ahead and is now trailing by 30M after two weeks, so the chances of it pulling off a four-peat as well are somewhat slim, but possible. This upcoming weekend there are two movies coming out that will attempt to dethrone it after just two weeks as box office king. 30M-45M is probably what TDKR will end up with, so it will have to be a great showing, but could be possible. The big candidate to do this is Total Recall. Now it seems as if Hollywood is getting less creative and less original. Sometimes they do movies that are based off books and other times they do movies that are remakes of old movies. In Total Recall's situation, both are being done. Totall Recall is a remake of 1990's movie of the same title, which in turn is based off of the short story entitled "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K Dick. The 1990 was an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie that debuted to 25M on it's way 120M total. If this remake can match those numbers it will be considered a success. Now those numbers were pretty good for 1990, so if Totall Recall of this year gets the same attendance, it will be real huge. But Collin Ferrell is no Schwarzenegger, so that probably won't happen, but he's not a bad actor and has Kate Beckinsale and Jessica Biel around him, so there is worse things that have happened. It's an interesting action, sci-fi film that sounds like it has a crazy twist to it. What is real and what is not? Could be fun. The other movie that will attempt to knock down TDKR is the third Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie called Diary of a Whimpy: Dog Days. If you are uneducated about Diary of a Wimpy Kid, it is a newer book series that started in 2004 and now has 7 books out. It is unique because the books are in diary form. The diary of a kid, filled with notes and drawings of his daily adventures. The two previous movies have been fairly popular. Both opened up in the low 20M range, finishing above 50M. This third movie will probably do the same thing. It most likely won't beat TDKR or Total Recall, but it will make for a busy weekend to start off August.

August 10th - 12th - Yes, it is possible for The Dark Knight Rises to replicate The Dark Knight's four-peat, but I don't think that happens. There are four new releases and there is one of them that will most certainly top the charts. That is The Bourne Legacy. The three previous Bourne movies got increasingly popular with the third one opening to nearly 70M and finishing just north of 225M. Now I doubt that this fourth one will replicate that due to there being no Matt Damon, or Jason Bourne for that matter, but Bourne fans should still turn out in big numbers for this. At first I questioned them doing a Bourne movie without Jason Bourne, but that doubt quickly went away after seeing the Avengers. Jeremy Renner was ridiculously awesome as Hawkeye in that movie and thus I am confident that he will awesome in this movie as the lead role Aaron Cross. Better than Jason Bourne? Not possible. But still awesome. Besides Bourne Legacy, we have a pair of comedies coming out. The one that is more highly advertised and will most likely end up with more box office success is The Campaign. The Campaign will also be the more raunchy comedy as it gets the R rating. Now R rated comedies did great last summer as four of them topped 100M, but so far Ted is the only comedy to do so this summer, unless you count Magic Mike (more of a drama - but partial comedy). This movie has a great chance of breaking that trend and being another successful raunchy comedy. This one stars Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis. Will Ferrell typically does well with his comedies in the box office, his last one coming in 2010 with The Other Guys. The Other Guys opened to 35M and ended at 120M. I imagine this movie should do similar numbers. The fact that it is election season will help this movie as well. The other comedy coming out is Hope Springs. Hope Springs opens up on Wednesday the 8th, so it has a two day head start on The Campaign and a PG-13 rating which could bring a broader audience. It also has a cast of Steve Carell, Tommy Lee Jones, and Meryl Streep, which is intriguing. Steve Carell, though, already has a comedy flop on his record this summer, so this movie is no guarantee for success. Unless it gets great reviews it will likely get drowned out by Will Ferrell's comedy. Last up this week should be a real fun movie. Nitro Circus: The Movie comes to theaters on Wednesday the 8th as well. This brings Travis Pastrana and company together along with their insane and hysterical theatrics to the theaters for the first time. It is also heavily advertised as being in 3D. I'm not a huge 3D fan, but crazy stunts in 3D might actually be fun to watch. It won't do great in the box office initially due to it only opening in 800 theaters, but still.

(continue with part two)