Friday, December 03, 2010

Have It Your Way

There is only one new film getting a wide release this weekend--And that's the martial arts actioner starring Dong-gun Jang, Kate Bosworth and Geoffrey Rush called The Warrior's Way (reviews)....


If ya can find 'em-Here are the fresh films in limited bows: Darren Aronofsky's eyebrow raising psychological thriller Black Swan (reviews) with Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis; After many delays Jim Carrey is finally able to say I Love You Phillip Morris (reviews); The biopic 127 Hours (reviews) goes a bit wider; Already available On Demand  for weeks Ryan Gosling, Kirsten Dunst and Frank Langella discover All Good Things must come to an end (reviews)


Carl DiOrio of THR:

The guys changing marquees at the nation’s multiplexes get a breather this week, with just one movie set to open wide Friday. That compares to a whopping four wide openers during the last weekend’s Thanksgiving-stretched session.

That’s not to say Relativity-distributed The Warrior’s Way will be competition-free when it unspools in roughly 1,600 locations, and the martial-arts actioner is unlikely to open at No. 1. The top holdovers are likely to mark big drops from their opening tallies during a session known more for Christmas shopping than moviegoing, but at least a couple are certain to do substantial business.

Disney’s 3D-animated feature Tangled may manage to top box-office rankings in its second frame after ceding domestic bragging rights to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 last weekend in the Warner Bros. film’s sophomore session.

Tangled enjoyed a five-day debut of almost $69 million, with $49 million of that coming Friday through Sunday. So even with half as much box office this weekend, that would be a $25 million haul in its sophomore session.

Hallows Part 1 fetched $50 million last weekend and was thus sitting in a similar situation heading into the latest session while toting an incredible $230 million in cumulative domestic box office. Last weekend’s other new wide releases saw soft first frames, but this session represents a chance to display sturdy legs for Sony dance musical Burlesque, Fox romantic comedy Love and Other Drugs and CBS Films actioner Faster.

Relativity is strictly a distributor-for-hire on Warrior’s Way. A $42 million New Zealand project, the R-rated pic is set in the U.S. badlands and thus something of a Western.

Korean actor Dong-gun Jang plays an Asian warrior assassin forced to hide in a small town. Geoffrey Rush, Kate Bosworth and Danny Huston figure among additional cast directed by Sngmoo Lee, who also penned the screenplay.

Younger males form the target audience for Warrior’s Way, but must-see interest is slack. A bow in the middle single-digit millions looks likely.

Also this weekend, Fox Searchlight opens Natalie Portman starrer The Black Swan in limited release with 18 playdates in eight markets. The atmospheric suspenser is among a handful of prestige pics seeking to use kudos-season promos to fuel lucrative platform campaigns.

John Young of EW  Says:

Tangled to seize the reins from ' Deathly Hallows'

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