Currently, people are predicting a hundred million dollar weekend for Star Trek Into Darkness, a number that may be made possible by the fact that the studio opened the film on Wednesday night. The film pocketed $3.3 Million from those shows, and has a full day today to rake in extra cash so it can say that it crossed the nine digit mark by Sunday.

And this is where, at least from my perspective, some reporting on these numbers feel like people are in the bag. Take, for instance, this Hollywood Reporter piece. They say “Based on pre-release tracking, Star Trek Into Darkness is expected post a four-day debut of $100 million, notably ahead of the $75 million opening of Abrams’ Star Trek reboot in 2009.”

So let’s analyze that for a second. Number one, this picture has an additional day of box office to make money, so what kind of comparison is that? Number two, the film is in 3D (the first wasn’t) and on way more Imax screens (Imax has become a much bigger deal in the last four years), so it should make more money by nature. Number three, there’s been a modest amount of inflation. If this is all put together, it suggests that for the direct comparison of the three day to three day, Star Trek Into Darkness is set to open to less ticket sales than its predecessor. But whatever, it’s been anointed, or at least it seems that way.

It’s unfair to compare a three day opening to a four day opening, but let’s face facts here, Paramount, J.J. Abrams, etc. need the extra day. Next weekend is Memorial Day weekend, and it offers both The Hangover Part III and Fast and Furious 6. And all three movies are targeted at the exact same audience: men ages 16-34. And though Trek won’t die next weekend, the competition is fierce for that audience, and I feel like next week’s pictures have more of an appeal to that demographic. Which may also be why early tracking numbers skewed low for Trek. There’s just too much competition for young men. But they need a solid opening, and they need international. the film cost $190 (supposedly), so this is looking like a break-even as it seems likely to dip 50% for Memorial day, which means around $200 domestic.

Reviews have been mostly positive, and Iron Man 3 is old at this point, so they should do well this weekend, which will keep up Abrams and Co. reputations. But this doesn’t look like a home run by any stretch. If they can get it over $100 Million domestic opening weekend, they can declare a victory of some sort. But there’s no guarantee that international will match the domestic numbers or exceed them, and this won’t have the same sort of legs as the first film did. We shall see.

So let’s get on with the predictions:

1. Star Trek 12 - $78.5 Million (for the three day)
2. Iron Man 3.5 – $28 Million
3. The Great Gatsby -  $23 Million

And then Sunday we’ll talk about this some more.

What are you going to watch this weekend?

2013 is looking to be a pretty epic summer of entertainment, and there’s delights virtually every week. But one of our most anticipated films of the summer is Guillermo del Toro‘s Pacific Rim. The latest trailer makes its case and then some, as it features great robot money shots followed by more awesome robot vs. monster fighting.

Sons of Anarchy‘s Charlie Hunnam leads a TV-heavy cast that includes The Wire‘s Idris Elba, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Charlie Day, Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi and del Toro’s totem actor Ron Perlman, who team up to stop the Kaiju from taking over the planet and wiping out the humans. They do so by designing and fighting in giant robot suits that are connected to their nervous system (it seems). Here’s the latest trailer:

There are a number of new shots here, and the one going under the robot as it walks is impressive and should prove if the film’s 3D post conversion was worthwhile. At this point, after all the ads, Pacific Rim either has a concept hooks you or it doesn’t, and though the trailers haven’t spent much time on character development, now is not the time to show if the film has anything going on under the surface. Now is the time to sell the spectacle, and this looks chocked full of it. And though it may not be for everyone’s taste, we can bet it will be big in Japan. Pacific Rim is set to hit theaters July 12.

Are you down for Pacific Rim?

When Rio made its way to theaters in April of 2011, it was a surprise hit, netting over $140 Million domestically and nearly half a billion worldwide. Which meant that they were going to have to make a sequel. And so they did. Rio 2 is hitting theaters next April, and until then here’s a teaser trailer.

As a teaser trailer, it does exactly that. It teases the return of the main characters from the first movie, which includes the birds played by Oscar nominee Jesse Eisenberg, Oscar winners Jamie Foxx and Anne Hathaway, the dog, and more. It doesn’t offer too much talking (it seems the only one who gets a line is Jemaine Clement), and there’s no actual footage from the movie.  Here’s that teaser:

Fox’s Blue Sky studios has churned out a couple of hits like the Ice Age franchise, Robots, and they’ve had luck adapting Dr. Seuss to the big screen. The question is if that’s enough now that Fox also has DreamWorks Animation. The animation studios seem different enough that they can both exist, but Dreamworks Animation is the bigger dog and usually puts out two films a year, one in the summer, one in the winter, and most hits. Where Blue Sky, other than the Ice Age movies, has mostly put their films out in the off seasons. Which makes us curious if Blue Sky is nervous or thinking about moving. Rio 2 opens in theaters April 11, 2014.

Will you shake a tail feather to see Rio 2?

The term “viral video” is close to meaningless as studios and companies have latched on to the idea. They don’t spread like keyboard cat, with interested parties passing them videos amongst themselves, they spread because a studio launches them into the world and tell everyone about it. World War Z is the latest movie to embrace this craze by suggesting that crisis in the world is effecting us all. Take a look.

This is a well put-together clip that doesn’t highlight the zombies or star Brad Pitt, but suggests that this is more of a disease film — more Contagion than 28 Days Later. Of course, it also suggests that the events in the movie are happening at a much slower pace than seems to be suggested from the previous marketing. The video ends with the invite to go to crisiszero.com, but (in what appears to be a bad case of planning) that just links to the UK website for the movie. Here’s that viral video:

This is a mostly smart ad campaign for a movie that’s trying to turn its image around. The film was made famous for having seven weeks of reshoots, and a totally scrapped original ending, with a handful of writers brought in to “fix” the movie. Word was that director Marc Forster had lost control on the project, but later reports surfaced (whether true or not) that the film was testing well — which is a pleasant surprise after Paramount screened footage for internet journalists to a mostly “meh” response. But this is the first beat of the big drum as marketing going to be gearing up for the film, which is scheduled to hit theaters June 21.

Does viral marketing hook you?

For whatever reason Warner Brothers delayed the release of Cloud Atlas until now, which is surprising as it came out in October, and most films have a four to five month window before the hit home video. Well, we’re glad it’s here. It’s a very strong week for catalog titles as well, so check out what’s hitting this week.

New:

• Cloud Atlas: The Wachowskis and Tom Tykwer put a lot on the line to make one of the most expensive independent films ever made, and assembled a cast that included Tom Hanks and Halle Berry, and yet it was weird and near three hours long, and people had weird make up, so it was not met with the sort of acclaim that leads to awards or box office. Oh well, it’s a great movie, and hopefully one more people will discover on home video.

• Dexter: The Complete Seventh Season: With Dexter’s Eighth season its last, now people can catch up on the latest season, which ended on a great cliffhanger.

• Texas Chainsaw – 3D: The latest semi-sequel semi-remake of the original 1974 film is in 3D, which makes it totally different than the other remake/sequels. Totally different.

Classics:

• 3:10 to Yuma (1957), Jubal: Two westerns from Delmer Daves are entering the Criterion collection. Both are worth catching, and the original 3:10 to Yuma is not only better than the remake (no duh), but also (perhaps because it was written by Elmore Leonard), plays like an early version of Out of Sight.  

• The Amazing Spider-Man, Angels & Demons, Battle: Los Angeles, Ghostbusters, Glory, The Karate Kid (2010), The Other Guys, Spider-Man (2002), Taxi Driver, Total Recall (2012) (Mastered in 4K): Sony has decided to remaster some of their biggest hit films for Blu-ray with 4K transfers. This is sort of like their Superbit line on DVD. Picture quality is said to be vastly improved, especially on Ghostbusters, so there’s that.

• Battlestar Galactica (1978): The TV movie/pilot of the original BSG is a Best Buy exclusive. It’s quaint but fun.

• Crimewave: Sam Raimi’s second film suffered at the hands of its independent financers, who forced a new lead on him and the film was taken away from him in editing. It was also something he wrote with the Coen Brothers. So it’s definitely a curio worth checking out, even if it is horribly compromised.

• In the Cut / Trapped, Mr. Sardonicus / The Brotherhood of Satan, The Nines / Slipstream, Physical Evidence / The Anderson Tapes, Universal Soldier: The Return / Second in Command : The latest batch of Mill Creek double features offers some good films in the mix, like the Sidney Lumet film The Anderson Tapes. Mileage will vary.

• Leave Her to Heaven,  Philadelphia: The latest 3,000-only limited editions from Twilight Time include the film that won Tom Hanks his first Oscar. So strange that a film like that is not something the studio would want to handle themselves. Heaven is a noir masterpiece.

What are you picking up this week?

Hollywood believes in recycling, so it’s no surprise that Gremlins, the surprise hit of 1984, is finally getting around to being remade. On the surface, there’s no way this sounds like a good idea in any way, shape or form.

Bloody Disgusting reports that the people currently involved in producing the remake are Seth Grahame-Smith and David (son of Jeffery) Katzenberg. Grahame-Smith has two films that he wrote last year, Dark Shadows and Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. He also had his people give him favorable press for doing a polish on the Fantastic Four reboot. It’s possible that Dark Shadows got away from him, but Lincoln is definitely more his film. Make of that what you will.

The first question with something like this is always “Why?” And the answer is always “Money!” One wishes Hollywood would pursue more original projects, but that’s not the cultural climate we live in these days. But the big concern (at least before a frame is shot) is if they’re going to go with CGI Gremlins. One of the reasons (among many) that the original worked is because of the puppetry. One wonders if the amount of CG it could require could make puppets the cheaper alternative. You never know.

Perhaps the biggest surprise of this news is that one of Steven Spielberg‘s Amblin movies is getting the remake treatment. Yes, Poltergiest is being remade, but Spielberg always seemed to have less control over that project. And if this goes forward, it’s possible that other Spielberg-produced or directed movies could be next.

Would you want to see a new version of Gremlins?

Though Iron Man 3 still ruled the weekend, The Great Gatsby exceeded all expectations and made over $50 Million this weekend. The obvious joke would be to suggest that a lot of book reports must be due for the end of the school year. Yeah, that’s the obvious joke.

As this is the start of summer, you can see the vacuum-like effect of the new summer movies. Everything else is doing less than five million. But that may be good in the sense that there’s only one new picture next weekend, and two for memorial day, so a ten to a twenty screen theater may hold on to a Pain and Gain or The Croods to have more than five pictures.

Iron Man was off by nearly 60%, but it should clear $300 Million during the week, and though it will probably keep dropping, it’s already made a lot of money. Huge hit. It seemed possible that it could hit half a billion domestic, but now $400 Million seems more likely. It all depends on how well it weathers the next two weekends. It’s already nearing a billion worldwide, and should cross that this week as well.

But this weekend, it’s hard not to fancy The Great Gatsby. Early predictions were much lower, but the movie came on strong in midnights and with its Friday numbers. Star power may have made this the hit it might be, as Leonardo DiCaprio is a worldwide draw. And the film’s success all depends on how it plays internationally as Gatsby cost over $100 Million to make. But with these numbers they’ll clear $100 Million domestic and could get to $300-$400 worldwide when all is said and done, which would make this a hit. We’ll see how it plays at Cannes.

With so few other pictures out there, it’s possible that Pain and Gain will limp over $50 Million dollars, which means that if it does any business internationally, it should be in a good box office place. But if anyone hoped to make money off the film, their hopes lie on home video. Peeples opened this weekend, and was produced by Tyler Perry. It’s DOA.

Otherwise, it may be worth mentioning that Oblivion is going to break even, but that’s just about all it’s going to do.

Reality Check: I though Gatsby was going to do terrible business. I was wrong.

What did you watch this weekend?

With NBC announcing their scheduling decision for next year, they’ve made the bold step to renew Parks and Recreation, while cancelling 1600 Penn, Whitney, Guys with Kids, and Up All Night.

For the most part the shows they’ve cancelled have floundered, with Up All Night one of their most problematic (it was going from a one camera to a three camera show and lost some cast members). None of these were strong performers, nor made much of a dent in pop culture.

What’s fascinating about Parks and Recreation‘s renewal is that it’s been critically acclaimed since its second season, but has never been a strong performer. NBC’s Thursday nights has spent thirty years being one of their most successful evenings, and specifically with comedy as Thursday’s have had Cheers, The Cosby Show, Seinfeld, Friends, and The Office and even more hit shows. Perhaps they hope to rebuild their place with this night (NBC’s ratings have been very low of late), and having Parks as the anchor to whatever they bring in makes sense.

But the big question left with the renewals is what’s going to happen with Community? The long struggling show has made it to four seasons, with the last a reduced order 13 episodes, but one more season would get it into syndication territory, and it’s not like NBC has anything better to put on Thursday. Either way, it’s a decision that will leave some happy and others upset. We’re guessing we’ll get an answer in the next couple days.

Are you happy that Parks is returning? Do you want Community back?

The second week of May has been a place where Warner Brothers has released their fumbles. The second weekend of May has launched Dark Shadows, Speed Racer, and Poseidon, though they did have some luck with 2004′s Troy. Other studios have had more luck with the date (2009′s Star Trek and 2011′s Bridesmaids). What does that say about The Great Gatsby? Absolutely nothing, even though it is another fumble (at least domestically).

Look, Baz Luhrmann‘s film was supposed to come out for the Oscar season last year, and though there are films that have come out in the summer that have won awards (and earlier, like films that have premiered in January at Sundance), its best hope for any prizes this year are technical nods. By moving it’s a slightly troubled production, and the name power here would mean more if there were some prizes on the near horizon. If there was a campaign around Leonardo DiCaprio‘s performance in the film, it’s possible he would have been nominated last year, though it’s hard to imagine he would have topped Daniel Day-Lewis, but having eight nominations while still playing could have gotten the film to a hundred million domestic.

Currently they are coming out in the summer season, and it’s possible that they’ll get to sixty or seventy million. But the production cost way more than that, and The Great Gatsby is one of the great American books, which means it’s not going to play as well in — say — China or Russia.

The other problem that’s self-evident is that this was a terrible idea on paper, and though execution may be viewed differently, not only is this a misguided film to throw money at from a blockbuster perspective, it’s the sort of thing that the critical community is not going to give an easy pass to as they might something like Iron Man 3. Regardless if the critic has read the book or not, this requires a more serious approach (from the critic), which often leads to harder reviews. And you sort of need critics on a picture like this. It’s also systemic of how a nation – who may or may not have read this book in college or high/middle school – feels about the book.

I think if the marketing had been able to sell a simple aspect of the story, things might have different. If they could sell Daisy and Gatsby’s love. But that’s not the book. And that’s the problem. But everything bad or perceived to be bad about this film… on some level this could have been a Titanic. That’s what they were thinking.

So, let’s get some numbers up:

Iron Man 3 - $80.3 Million

The Great Gatsby - $26.5 Million

That could be on the low end of things for Gatsby, and those numbers would be a disaster for Warner Brothers, who may or may not have written this film off a long time ago. At least they have Man of Steel and Pacific Rim.

What are you going to watch this weekend?

It’s funny that when many people watch the trailer for Captain Phillips, the first reaction is often that it has a Zero Dark Thirty vibe. It’s funny because director Paul Greengrass has been a pioneer of the psuedo-documentary style since his 2002 breakthrough film Bloody Sunday. Here he directs Tom Hanks in a true-life story of a pirate attack on an American vessel.

The ripped from the headlines film does have the feel of a documentary, which has been Greengrass’s style in films like Bloody Sunday, United 93, and his two Bourne entries, Supremacy and Ultimatum. Hanks is playing a real person who wrote a book about his encounter with the pirates, which led to government intervention. Spoiler, we guess that means that Hanks character survives. Here’s that trailer:

The only other cast member listed is Catherine Keener, so it’s more than likely we’re with Hanks for the majority of the film. And this trailer seems to keep itself confined to the first thirty minutes of the movie, which is smart. We’re just getting the set up here. Hanks may already have two best actor Oscar trophies, but this looks like the sort of role that should at least get him nominated again. Captain Phillips is scheduled to be released October 11.

Do you think Tom Hanks might win a third Oscar?

So this amounts to “Good casting in Auteur films” day, we guess. Variety reported that Garfield has signed on to play Father Rodrigues in Scorsese’s Silence, who — acording to Variety is “a 17th-century Portuguese Jesuit who travels to Japan with a fellow priest amid rumors that Rodrigues’ mentor has abandoned the Church.” And so much like his turn as Eduardo Saverin in The Social Network, this American-born, British-raised actor will be asked to play Portuguese here. Likely this compromise is being made because Garfield is a great actor (watch him in Never Let Me Go to see him give a powerhouse performance) and also Spider-Man.

It’s almost strange that Benicio del Toro and Paul Thomas Anderson hadn’t worked together yet, which makes del Toro’s casting in Inherent Vice all the more exciting. The Wrap says that he’ll be playing a lawyer who doesn’t practice criminal law, but still gives advice to the film’s main character, private investigator Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix). This makes it sound like it might be played comically, which could be a lot of fun. As we said before, this all sounds a lot like Robert Altman’s The Long Goodbye, which is great news.

Who else should join Inherent Vice?

One of the year’s most talked about films is already hitting Blu-ray, but that’s partly because of the way it was made. Upstream Color and Jack Reacher are the highlights of the week, with a ton of new catalog titles hitting as well. Saddle up for some expenses, fellow collectors.

New:

• Fringe: The Complete Fifth Season: Fringe was one of those shows that was always close to cancellation, so it’s good for fans that the series got to close out its run on its own terms. And now all seasons are on Blu-ray so there’s that.
• Jack Reacher: Though it was released with little fanfare, it’s possible that Jack Reacher will be the start of a new franchise for Tom Cruise. Working with writer director Christopher McQuarrie, this was one of the most pleasant surprises of last year’s December films.
• Mama: Jessica Chastain stars in this Guillermo del Toro-produced horror movie that did fairly well at the box office. Perhaps because it was PG-13, or perhaps because it was a solid (if forgettable) spook-a-blast.
• Superman Unbound: Warner Brothers is warming up for the release of Man of Steel, so this cartoon version of Superman should both whet and sate appetities.
• Upstream Color: Shane Carruth is one of the oddest and most interesting working filmmakers. Upstream Color is his second film, following the note perfect Primer, in this story of damaged love. What it all means is up to the viewer, but it’s an unshakeable cinematic experience.

Classics

• Babe: Pig in the City, In the Name of the Father, Jesus Christ Superstar: Universal’s latest catalog dump offers one of Daniel Day-Lewis’s best performances, and one of the most underrated kids films ever made.
• Band of Outsiders: One of Jean-Luc Godard’s most charming films, it’s nice to see that Criterion is looking to upgrade all of their Godard films to Blu-ray.
• Brubaker, The Great Escape, One Hour Photo, The Verdict, Viva Zapata!, White Men Can’t Jump: More catalog dumping from Fox. The Great Escape on Blu-ray? Sounds like heaven.
• Fortress, Fresh, Full Frontal, The Grifters, Heaven, Hellraiser VII: Deader. The Hoax, Jersey Girl, Mother’s Boys, The Nameless, She’s So Lovely, Teaching Mrs. Tingle: Echo Bridge is releasing a lot of Miramax’s back catalog, and between Fresh and The Grifters, there’s some great movies here.
• An Officer and a Gentleman, Runaway Bride, Sparkle (1976): Warner Brothers now controls Paramount’s back catalog Blu-ray releases, and so they’ve put out one of the best 80’s movies, and a totally forgettable Julia Roberts rom-com.
• Shanghai Noon / Shanghai Knights: The first film felt like a breath of fresh air with its casting of Owen Wilson and Jackie Chan, the second felt like reheated leftovers. Don’t know if either holds up particularly well, but it’s nice they’re on Blu-ray to check.

What are you picking up this week?