Comedic holiday hijinks ensue next weekend as Office Christmas Party RSVP’s into theaters. The R rated pic features a cast of familiar faces including Jason Bateman, Jennifer Aniston, Olivia Munn, T.J. Miller, Jillian Bell, Courtney B. Vance, Rob Corddry, Vanessa Bayer, Matt Walsh and Kate McKinnon. Josh Gordon and Will Speck handle directorial duties and their previous effort was 2010’s The Switch, which featured Bateman and Aniston.
The Paramount release could benefit from both its cast and the fact that drunken and wild work XMas bashes are something many can relate to. Party comes from a story originated by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, who wrote The Hangover. It also has no competition in the second weekend of December in its genre.
I’ll predict a decent number of moviegoers attend this Party to the tune of a mid to high teens debut.
Office Christmas Party opening weekend prediction: $18.4 million
At long last, the heist comedy Masterminds hits theaters next weekend after much delay. Whether or not it’s able to steal some box office dollars is very much in question. Director Jared Hess broke through in a big way 12 years ago with his sleeper hit Napoleon Dynamite. His follow-up, 2006’s Nacho Libre with Jack Black, was a critical letdown which still managed to make $80 million domestic.
Since then, Mr. Hess’s efforts have been little-seen and poorly reviewed efforts. 2009’s Gentlemen Broncos? 2015’s Don Verdean? Anyone? Masterminds had the whiff of a return to form, but it’s been mired in the financial distresses of its studio, Relativity. The pic was originally scheduled for release in August of last year and then October (hence its trailer having been around for quite some time).
The talent involved here is serious – Zach Galifianakis, Kristin Wiig, Owen Wilson, Jason Sudeikis, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. That’s three new Ghostbusters by the way – even though the ladies shot that reboot after this. Recognizable stars aside, I have a feeling that all of the delays and a fairly quiet marketing campaign will hurt Masterminds immensely.
I’m tempted to go really low — like $4 million, folks. I believe this may manage to reach a bit beyond that. Double digits seems like a reach, however.
Masterminds opening weekend prediction: $6.3 million
After over a quarter century of dormancy, the Ghostbusters have been rebooted with a female team and an appreciation for what came before it. Maybe too much appreciation. The 2016 iteration may not be ‘fraid of no ghosts, but perhaps it is of its own 1984 shadow and what followed it.
The concept here isn’t much different. Take a talented director (Paul Feig) and fill the leading roles with SNL related stars. Here it’s Melissa McCarthy (a favorite SNL host) along with former cast member Kristin Wiig and current ones Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones. They’re the new Ghostbusters and the New York City setting is the same. Wiig is a Columbia professor who once cowrote a paranormal related book that she’s trying to forget about. McCarthy is her coauthor who’s now stuck in a dead-end job at a technical college along with McKinnon (she handles gadgets). Jones is an MTA employee who finds that ghosts are real in the bowels of the city’s subway. The NYC setting provides one of the most abnormal moments here when the team chows down on Papa Johns pizza. In New York City?!?!?! Product placement is vital, people…
Ghouls and goblins begin to sprout up in the Big Apple and soon the foursome find themselves in business, even if the city’s leaders don’t wish to acknowledge the presence of them or those they’re hunting. The Annie Potts secretarial duties are handled by a game Chris Hemsworth, showing off the same occasional comedic abilities he showed in another subpar 80s relaunch last summer, Vacation.
And there’s cameos by way of the franchise before it – both in human and special effects form. They serve more to make us nod in knowing appreciation than actually laugh. As for the Ghostbusters themselves? McCarthy and Wiig acquit themselves fine and have their strong moments, as does Jones. The weakest link is McKinnon, whose over the top antics work well in five minute SNL sketch bursts but seem out of place and rather annoying here.
Perhaps what hinders Ghostbusters from being a satisfactory experience is the fact that the melding of science fiction and comedy felt fresh over 30 years ago with Ivan Reitman’s original. Since then, we’ve seen everything from Men in Black to more obvious (and less pleasing) knock offs like Evolution and The Watch to name just a couple. The injection of a gender change isn’t enough to make this feel new and the CG effects add nothing out of the ordinary either. It is the ghosts of genre past that ultimately haunts what we see here.
One of the biggest summer 2016 mysteries will be answered next weekend when the Ghostbusters reboot hits theaters. 32 years after the original became a smash hit (with a less beloved sequel that followed five years later), the Columbia Pictures property is a hopeful franchise yet again. This follows years (decades in fact) of rumors about the comedic paranormal team making a return to the big screen. A third go round with the original cast never materialized, so the series has undergone a makeover with Paul Feig taking over directorial duties and a female ghostbustin’ cast donning the iconic uniforms.
Like they did in 1984 – the Ghostbusters have a strong “Saturday Night Live” connection consisting of frequent host Melissa McCarthy and current and former cast members Kristin Wiig, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones. Chris Hemsworth takes over secretarial duties in the part made famous by Annie Potts. OG ‘Busters Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Ernie Hudson (along with Sigourney Weaver and Potts) are said to cameo.
This is the fourth collaboration between Feig/McCarthy. They’re previous pics (Bridesmaids, Heat, Spy) have grossed $169M, $159M, and $110M, respectively. This is a whole new ball game that comes with a different set of expectations, however. For starters – the budget is a reported $154 million with a studio likely hoping for a domestic haul in the $200 million range.
That could be a challenge. The word of mouth for Ghostbusters has not been overwhelmingly positive and underwhelming trailers had a little something to do with it. The first trailer even earned headlines for being the most disliked trailer in YouTube’s history. Buzz aside, it’s been marketed relentlessly in recent weeks.
The release poses a whole bunch of questions that won’t be answered until its opening: will younger viewers turn out for a franchise that’s laid dormant for nearly 30 years? Will the negative trailer reaction greatly hinder its potential? If and when the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man returns, is it the same one from the original or his offspring?
Ghostbusters, even with the lengthy time passed between entries, is still a massive brand name and the name alone should get it to a $40 million opening. How much above that number seems to be the real question. I’ll predict that it falls just under $50M in the opening weekend. How it plays out in subsequent weekends will answer the question for the studio as to whether those grosses make them feel good.
Ghostbusters opening weekend prediction: $47.3 million
Thirteen years after the original made a major splash at the box office, Finding Dory hits theaters next weekend and looks to reinvigorate a somewhat slumping marketplace. The Disney/Pixar release is, of course, the sequel to 2003’s now classic Finding Nemo. Director Andrew Stanton is back, as are the voices of Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks. Plenty of other familiar faces make their voices heard here – Diane Keaton, Bill Hader, Idris Elba, Eugene Levy, Kate McKinnon, Ty Burrell, Ed O’Neill, and Dominic West among them.
The summer of 2016 has seen a host of sequels not matching up to their originals. Some of them have been family programming, like Alice Through the Looking Glass and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows.
It is highly likely that Dory will not suffer the same fate. In fact, the real question seems to be whether or not this will score Pixar’s largest opening weekend in its now 21 year history. That honor currently belongs to another sequel, 2010’s Toy Story 3, which debuted with $110.3 million. Dory is currently said to be tracking a bit above that. I believe it will surpass that number, but probably not by much (though with the sequelitis occurring recently, I do feel a touch of nervousness with this prediction). Still, if anything can break through – it’s this.
In order for it to score the second biggest animated premiere in history, it’d need to top the $115.7 million earned by last summer’s Minions. To get to #1, Dory would have to swim past the $121.6 million gross of Shrek the Third from 2007. It’s possible that it could achieve either one of those records.
I’ll predict Dory falls below Shrek and just above Minions to earn the #2 animated debut stateside and also set the Pixar record. That would go a long ways toward washing the bad taste out of the Mouse Factory’s mouths for Looking Glass and last fall’s The Good Dinosaur, which was the first Pixar title to lose money.
Finding Dory opening weekend prediction: $117.3 million
For my Central Intelligence prediction, click here:
The Angry Birds Movie, out next weekend, marks a first as the animated tale is our inaugural film to be based on an app. Millions worldwide have spent countless hours flinging those ill-tempered fowls into various structures and we’ll soon find out whether they wish to spend a couple of hours watching them on the silver screen.
Based on the Rovio Entertainment game, Birds features the voices of many familiar names including Jason Sudeikis, Josh Gad, Danny McBride, Maya Rudolph, Sean Penn, Bill Hader, and Peter Dinklage. Reviews have been mixed with a 47% Rotten Tomatoes rating.
Frankly, Angry Birds is a big question mark. A high-profile family friendly animated flick should perform quite well in the month of May. However, without the Disney brand or well-established franchise tag (Ice Age, Rio, Madagascar, etc…), it’s unclear whether kids and their parents will flock (get it?) to this.
The range of possibility for this opening is wide, but I’ll go with a mid 30s debut.
The Angry Birds Movie opening weekend prediction: $34.5 million
For my Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising prediction, click here:
Four was the magic number today in movie news. Four as in this morning, the first trailer for the reboot of this summer’s The Fantastic Four was unveiled. You may recall when 20th Century Fox released two movies based on the iconic comic book in 2005 and 2007 with a cast that included Jessica Alba and Michael Chiklis. They did decent business at the box office but critics and fans mostly disapproved. The reboot’s cast includes Miles Teller, Kate Mara, Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Bell. Josh Trank, who burst upon the scene with his sleeper hit Chronicle, handles directing duties. The trailer certainly indicates a more serious tone than what we saw a decade ago. The picture is out August 7.
Four is also a significant number based on news we’ve been waiting to hear for some time. Ghostbusters is finally working its way back to the big screen with a highly comedically talented group of women being the ones who got the call. Paul Feig, maker of Bridesmaids and The Heat, directs and he’s enlisted previous collaborators Kristin Wiig and Melissa McCarthy as part of the quartet. Obviously this marks a Wiig-McCarthy reunion and Feig’s fourth pic with McCarthy (their third feature Spy is out this summer). The other two Busters are current SNL cast members: Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones.
At one time it was thought that a traditional third pic in the franchise would eventually see the light of day. However it never materialized partly due to Bill Murray’s reported reluctance to return. By the time of Harold Ramis’s untimely passing year, director of the original two Ivan Reitman made it clear he had no interest in exploring a continuation. The new Ghostbusters is expected for release in summer 2016.
It will certainly be fascinating to watch how these two new rebooted foursomes resonate with moviegoers in the near future.
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