Next weekend, Alec Baldwin is The Boss Baby in Dreamworks Animation’s latest feature. Based on a 2010 childrens book, the pic has the SNL hosting record setter voicing a wiser than his years infant. Other voice over work is provided by Tobey Maguire, Steve Buscemi, Jimmy Kimmel, and Lisa Kudrow.
Baby arrives in the midst of a number of titles catering to younger audiences and their families. Beauty and the Beast will be in its third weekend and still posting large earnings. Power Rangers will be in its sophomore frame and Smurfs: The Lost Village will debut the weekend after.
Reviews haven’t been strong so far with just a 27% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That said, Baldwin has surely been visible as of late with his President Trump impression and Dreamworks has a mostly impressive track record in their animated division.
The competition is likely to be a factor keeping this from truly significant grosses, but I’ll still estimate Baby manages a high 20s to possibly low 30s birth.
The Boss Baby opening weekend prediction: $28.6 million
With all my box office predictin’ and such, I’ve slacked off a bit on my 2013 Summer Movie Preview. So far, I’ve covered sequels, action flicks, comedies, sci-fi entries, franchise hopefuls like The Lone Ranger and The Mortal Instruments, and superhero movie restarts Man of Steel and The Wolverine.
Tonight, I turn to films that are a bit harder to categorize. I begin with Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, the fourth adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel that stars Leo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire. It opens this Friday and I’ve already written about it extensively in my box office prediction post from yesterday. You can find that here:
This brings me to what could be my most personally awaited release this season: Nicolas Winding Refn’s Only God Forgives, out July 19th. Refn is the director of Drive, one of my favorite pictures of the last decade. Forgives re-teams the director with star Ryan Gosling in a tale that involves Thai boxing and a twisted criminal family. I’m trying my best not to know too much about it before I see it because I want to experience it like I witnessed Drive. That basically means I didn’t know much and was pleasantly, very pleasantly, surprised. Refn has proven himself to be one of the most exciting directors working today and I’m hopeful Forgives delivers on his promise he showed two years ago. Simply put, the potential is there for this to be all kinds of awesome.
On May 31st comes Now You See Me, a caper flick from The Incredible Hulk director Louis Letterier. Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Woody Harrelson, Isla Fisher, and Morgan Freeman, the plot involves magicians who get mixed up in heists. I gotta say, the trailers make Now seem like it could be fun, though I wonder whether this relatively small pic will break out in a season filled with would-be blockbusters.
One of the more curious titles to emerge this summer is Much Ado About Nothing (June 7). It is an ultra low-budget black&white adaptation of Shakespeare’s play that was shot in the director’s home in less than two weeks. The catch? That director is Joss Whedon, who also made something called The Avengers last summer. Whedon decided to go in a completely different direction here before he jumps on board with the breathlessly awaited Avengers sequel.
Sofia Coppola has proven herself to be a terrific director with such memorable pictures as The Virgin Suicides and Lost in Translation. On June 14th comes The Bling Ring, starring Emma Watson as a member of a group of thieves who prey on starlets like Lindsay Lohan. Bling is based on a true story and this one has real breakout potential, especially due to its ability to target the often-neglected female audience this season.
Inception and Dark Knight Rises star Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes his directorial debut with Don Jon, out in August. Gordon-Levitt plays a womanizer whose ways begin to change when he meets two women, played by Scarlett Johannson and Julianne Moore. He’s proved himself to be a fine actor over recent years and it will be interesting to see if Gordon-Levitt’s talents translate to behind the camera. NO TRAILER AVAILABLE AT PRESS TIME.
Finally, Amanda Seyfried stars in Lovelace, a biopic about Deep Throat porn star Linda Lovelace. This could be the type of role that garners Seyfried major critical attention, as long as its decent. NO TRAILER AVAILABLE AT PRESS TIME.
No porn star biopics in my next entry of the Summer Movie Preview as I’ll preview titles geared towards family audiences. Stay tuned!
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