Notable Openings This Weekend: A Walk Among the Tombstones, The Maze Runner, This is Where I Leave You, Tusk
Following boring weekend after boring weekend, we finally have an eclectic barrage of movies to discuss. Do I think any of these films look amazing!? No. But at least they aren’t The Identical and Dolphin Tale 2. We got Liam Neesons, Kevin Smiths, young adult adaptations, and a crap load of B-level stars in one movie, so enough fiddling around. Let’s get to it.
We’ll start with bad asses over sixty. Just when you think a Liam Neeson movie is going to tank, it ends up doing solid box office numbers that it otherwise had no business doing. Taken. Unknown. The Grey. Non-Stop. Oddly enough, it’s Neeson’s franchise movies that bomb, such as The A-Team and Battleship. While A Walk Among the Tombstones seems horribly under advertised and fairly “ho-hum,” I’m not betting against Liam Neeson. It will be a challenge to get to #1, but Neeson’s latest will do solid business.
The movie poised to be #1 is the latest round of young adult novel roulette — The Maze Runner. You know the drill: Flat acting. Awful dialogue. Cheaply made While not every young adult adaptation succeeds (The Host, The Mortal Instruments), this one is well placed in September, and has a heavy action feel. This should do well, and the inevitable sequel will be announced two days later.
“Hey Dan, you’re an absolute moron. You don’t think a movie with Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Adam Driver, Rose Byrne, Corey Stoll, Connie Britton, and Timothy Olyphant is going to do well?” Nope. I know when you see a large cast of names like this, people tend to get all excited and project it to do very well. With the exception of Rose Byrne, all these names are for a niche audience, I’m sorry. Not a lot of people watched Arrested Development. Not a lot of people watched Friday Night Lights. And not a lot of people watched 30 Rock. The film also looks downright terrible. I can’t say it will bomb, as I’m sure it wasn’t made for a ton of money, but this is a one and down in the top five.
While Tusk is technically a wide release this weekend, it’s not in many theaters. It’s not making the top five or anything, but should do well per theater. I’m not a Kevin Smith fan, but this one seems to be getting decent buzz. Expect Tusk to expand in the coming weeks.
How Will It All Break Down…
The tweens rule the day with Maze Runner, followed by old man action star. This is Where I Leave You gets “left” behind. Yup. I went there.
TOP 5 BOX OFFICE PREDICTIONS
1) The Maze Runner — $35 Million
2) A Walk Among the Tombstones — $21.5 Million
3) No Good Deed — $12 Million
4) This is Where I Leave You — $10.5 Million
5) Dolphin Tale 2 — $9 Million
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Daniel Cohen is the Film Editor for Pop-Break. Aside from reviews, Daniel does a weekly box office predictions column, and also contributes monthly Top Tens and Op-Ed’s on all things film. Daniel is a graduate of Bates College with a degree in English, and also studied Screenwriting at UCLA. He can also be read on www.movieshenanigans.com. His movie crush is Jessica Rabbit. Follow him on Twitter @dcohenwriter.
