Friday, June 15, 2007

Silver Screen

Superheroes and a super sleuth will duke it over the weekend--as the only new films to open wide today:

The first family of comics is back in Fantastic Four Rise of the Silver Surfer (reviews); And Emma Roberts (Daughter of actor Eric Roberts and niece to actress Julia Roberts) brings popular teen detective Nancy Drew (reviews) to the cineplex for the first time...



Ian Mohr and Dave McNary of Variety:

After Sony scored big with its Marvel superhero pic "Spider-Man 3" last month, Fox flies this weekend with its own Marvel sequel, "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer," in 3,957 theaters.

Pic looks sure to muscle away the B.O. crown from Warner Bros.' "Ocean's Thirteen." But tracking suggests that it will bow below the $56 million its "Fantastic" predecessor hit in its July opening two years ago. Pic is tracking well with males, but women are lagging behind in interest

Last weekend "Ocean's Thirteen" had been tracking to outdo the last pic in Steven Soderbergh's heist series, but the ensembler came in $3 million below the first three days of "Ocean's Twelve."

Counterprogramming against "Fantastic" -- in 2,612 -- is Warner Bros.' PG-rated "Nancy Drew," the revival of the kid-lit mystery series.

Add to the mix Disney's sneaks for its Pixar pic "Ratatouille" on Saturday.

Holdovers include Universal laffer "Knocked Up," which has been hanging tough.

Overall, B.O. has cooled a bit lately after a socko start to the summer. Ticket tallies were off 11.8% last weekend from the same frame a year ago. But the year is still outpacing 2006 overall by 5.2% through last weekend...


Read the entire article here...

Joshua Rich of Entertainment Weekly writes of this latest round of the ongoing box office battle:

The ''Fantastic Four'' sequel should leave ''Ocean's Thirteen'' and the new ''Nancy Drew'' in its wake...

Critical reaction for the latest FF flick is on par with the first film--not all that great...But audiences, myself included, liked it enough to warrant a sequel...Will the sequel follow the same path? I will let you know soon after I see the film, later today...

Next Up: Steve Carell picks up where Jim Carrey left off as the chosen one in Evan Almighty...

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