adminAt the moment, surveys suggest both movies are on track to pull in somewhere around US$17,5 million each.
“Scary Movie 5” is the latest instalment in the long-running franchise from The Weinstein Company’s Dimension label that dates back to 2000. Malcolm D Lee, who last directed 2008’s “Soul Men”, has taken over the directing reins, and the cast is something of a rogue’s gallery of bold-faced names including Charlie Sheen, Lindsay Lohan, Simon Rex and Ashley Tisdale.
Rated PG-13, it will open in 3 402 locations.
The previous film in the series, “Scary Movie 4”, opened to US$40 million in April, 2006. But there have been a lot of variations on the horror spoof since then, like “A Haunted House”, starring Marlon Wayans, which opened to US$18,1 million this past January so Dimension isn’t looking for “Scary Movie 5” to post the kind of numbers its predecessors saw.
The new “Scary” cost just US$19,5 million, and the company is looking for an opening in the mid-to-high teen millions. Also in the on-bat circle — get ready for lots of baseball metaphors this weekend is 42, financed by Legendary Pictures, whose CEO Thomas Tull personally produced, and distributed by Warners. Written and directed by Brian Helgeland from “A Knight’s Tale”, the film stars Chadwick Boseman as Robinson, who integrated baseball when he joined the Brooklyn Dodger line-up in 1947.
Also on hand is Harrison Ford as the Dodgers general manager Branch Rickey.
Warners has paved the way for the movie, which carries a US$40 million price tag, with an extensive word-of-mouth screening programme — it showed it to various teams, including the Los Angeles Dodgers during spring training and it launched showings on Thursday night. Yesterday, the PG-13-rated movie will be played in 3 002 locations throughout North America, and the studio is anticipating an opening weekend gross of about US$15 million.
It may not be immediately clear, though, which of this weekend’s two new wide releases will ultimately have the upper-hand.
Appealing to younger movie-goers, “Scary” is likely to be the top film. But then “42” — which is expected to attract older male sports fans but could also expand to include African-
American audiences and women drawn to its love story could play stronger on Saturday. Sony/Tristar’s “Evil Dead”, which led the list last weekend with a US$25,8 million bow, is expected to drop the 45-50 percent that is typical of horror movies. So that should leave room for “Scary” and “42” to contest for the top-two spots. – imdbPro.com
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