The Weekend Warrior: The SpongeBob Movie, Jupiter Ascending, Seventh Son

After three weeks of Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper dominating the box office, what would happen if it actually managed to make it a fourth week in a row at #1? It’s a crazy concept, but nothing’s been stopping it so far. Even with three new movies opening on Friday, all of them have some potential but are also hindered by their share of issues, so one might wonder if they’re just going to suffer the same fate of all the other movies that have tried to make a mark against Sniper.

The film does look somewhat odd because it has the characters coming into the real world as 3D animation and interacting with humans which sometimes works (as in The Smurfs) and sometimes doesn’t (as in The Smurfs 2). Actually that’s a good example of how hit family movies don’t always deliver hit sequels, and that sequel was released fairly closely to the earlier blockbuster hit. Waiting ten years for another movie is definitely taking a chance on Paramount and Nickelodeon’s part, because you’ve lost the momentum created by the original movie.

There’s still something to say about the namebrand value of SpongeBob SquarePants especially among kids, since the show is still popular, and the movie will offer the same level of fun, being from the same creators of the show along with Tom Kenny and Bill Fagerbakke providing voices of their popular characters, joined by the likes of Antonio Banderas and Frankie Muniz. It’s also the only movie that doesn’t have some of the issues that the others are facing, and while it probably won’t get stellar reviews, it’s also the movie that’s going to be least affected by reviews.

While I don’t think it will open quite as big as the previous movie, I think it’s still good for $20 million, which may be enough to be #1 for the weekend, depending on whether American Sniper rallies post-Super Bowl or has run its course.

It would make sense that having big stars like Tatum and Kunis would be a big selling point for the movie although they’ve been doing the bare minimum in promoting the movie, and even Oscar nominee Eddie Redmayne is doing his best to distance himself from the movie to keep it from hurting his campaign.

That leaves the Wachowskis to sell the movie, their last film being David Mitchell’s time-spanning anthology Cloud Atlas, starring Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Ben Whishaw and more, which they adapted with Thomas Tykwer. It opened with a weak $9.6 million in October 2012 and made $27.1 million domestic, which is pretty awful considering how much it cost. (It added another $100 million overseas, but I don’t think that would even cover the production costs.) This one is probably just as expensive—we’ve heard word of it costing something like $175 million, which is crazy even by today’s blockbuster standards. It’s obviously great that there’s some original science fiction being created, but not being based on a known property means that it’s relying entirely on the Wachowskis and their cast to sell it.

This looks like a pretty epic FX-heavy science-fiction movie going by the trailers and commercials, but good luck figuring out what the movie is about, because that’s one thing that hasn’t come across at all in any of the trailers. Buzz on the movie has generally been pretty bad even with it having a secret screening at the Sundance Film Festival last week and that could put off a lot of the discerning moviegoers that might give the Wachowskis a chance.

The Wachowskis’ latest could win Friday with their fans rushing out to see their latest movie after weeks without something new or fresh to see, but it’s going to quickly tail off after that, falling behind The SpongeBob Movie and American Sniper, which means it’s gunning for second or third place at best.

Seventh Son is another novel adaptation that suddenly found itself being greenlit in the fervor following the success of the “Twilight” movies, but many of those movies have failed and Seventh Son doesn’t seem like it will be joining the plus side of the ledger.

If you consider the fact that the movie was first pushed by Legendary Entertainment at their very first Comic-Con panel way back in 2011, before the movie had even begun shooting, and then started filming in early 2012 with plans to release in 2013, it’s become one of those “whatever happened to” movies that we get from time to time. (Like 2013’s 47 Ronin for instance.) Legendary brought Seventh Son back to Comic-Con in 2013 when it had already been pushed back to January 2014 but then Legendary left their home at Warner Bros. and set up a new deal at Universal and Seventh Son was one of the movies that went along with it, as it got delayed a full year.

Now I don’t know about you, but when a movie gets delayed that much and finally gets a release without much fanfare in early February, my “bad movie sense” goes off, and it doesn’t take an expert to realize that Legendary Pictures probably knew they had a dud and have just delayed the inevitable as long as possible.

Even though it’s opening fairly wide, this one will be fighting for the fantasy sci-fi crowd against Jupiter Ascending, and will probably be lucky to open with $10 million especially since it’s coming into a market where few movies are faring well.

This Week’s Updated Predictions:

(The gallery has not been updated, only the numbers below)

UPDATE: Definitely going a bit bigger on two of the new movies since it seems like time for things to break out a bit after the domination of American Sniper over the past few weeks.

1. The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water (Paramount) – $28.8 million N/A (up 8 million)

2. Jupiter Ascending (Warner Bros.) – $20.7 million N/A (up 1.9 million and one spot)

3. American Sniper (Warner Bros.) – $19.5 million -38% (up .5 million, but down one spot)

4. Seventh Son (Universal/Legendary) – $10.6 million N/A (up .2 million)

5. Paddington (TWC-Dimension) – $5.3 million -35%

6. Project Almanac (Paramount) – $4.6 million -45%

7. Black or White (Relativity) – $3.8 million -39%

8. The Imitation Game (The Weinstein Company) – $3.5 million -30%

9. The Boy Next Door (Universal) – $3 million -51%

10. The Wedding Ringer (Sony/Screen Gems) – $3 million -48%

Next Week: 

Possibly one of the most anticipated movies of the year, at least among housewives, is the “romantic” S&M drama Fifty Shades of Grey (Focus/Universal) which hits theaters just in time for Valentine’s Day. Acting as counter-programming for the guys who are able to stand up to their wives and girlfriends and see a movie they’d rather see is Matthew Vaughn’s R-rated take on spy films, Kingsman: The Secret Service (20th Century Fox), starring Colin Firth, Samuel L. Jackson, Taron Eggerton and more.

This Week’s Must-Sees

Ballet 422 (Magnolia)

Director: Jody Lee Lipes

Stars: Justin Peck

Of Note: This documentary takes an inside look behind the scenes of the New York City Ballet’s 422^nd production choreographed by 25-year-old up-and-comer Justin Peck, who has been commissioned to create “Paz de la Jolla,” a new ballet for the 2013 Winter Season. The film gives you an unprecedented look at how ballets are created at the NYC Ballet from conception to opening night.

Other Limited Releases of Note:

The Voices (Lionsgate)

Director: Marjane Satrapi

Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Anna Kendrick, Gemma Arterton, Jacki Weaver

Of Note: The director of Persepolis tries her hand at horror-comedy with Ryan Reynolds playing a man who goes after his office crush (Gemma Arterton, who let’s face it, is EVERYONE’s office crush), but when she turns him down, he starts taking advice from his talking cat and talking dog, each offering conflicting advice on what to do about it. Also starring Oscar nominees Anna Kendrick and Jacki Weaver, it opens in select cities and on VOD Friday.

Outcast (eOne Films)

Director: Nick Powell

Stars: Nicolas Cage, Hayden Chistensen, Yifei Liu

Of Note: An epic Chinese martial arts movie that teams Hayden Christensen (his first movie in years) and Nicholas Cage as two warriors who must fight side by side in battle to take back the throne.

Love, Rosie (The Film Arcade)

Director: Christian Ditter

Stars: Lily Collins, Sam Claflin

Of Note: Based on Cecelia Ahern’s novel, Lily Collins and Sam Claflin play two friends since the age of 5 who have to face the “complexities of life, love and everything in between” as they try to decide whether to be friends or something more.

Listen (Mance Media)

Director: F.C. Rabbath

Stars: Jacob Harrelson, Callie Haskins, Joshua Mikel, Sergio Soltero, Zac Pullam

Of Note: A guy obsessed with music who has trouble connecting with people learns that he can hear music in people which helps him relate.

Boy Meets Girl (Cinephile International Pictures)

Director: Eric Schaeffer

Stars: Michael Welch, Michelle Hendley, Alexandra Turshen

Of Note: A coming-of-age romantic comedy about three Kentucky twenty-somethings including a transgender girl named Ricky who falls for a beautiful barista, forcing her friend Robby (Michael Welch) to face his feelings.

Call for Help (Studio)

Director: Lior Etziony, Michal Hanuka

Of Note: A documentary that follows the Global Disaster Immediate Response Team as they help out in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti.

You can post any comments or questions below, or you can get in touch with the Weekend Warrior on Twitter.

Copyright 2015 Edward Douglas