The Weekend Warrior

ComingSoon.net's The Weekend Warrior offers a preview of the new releases opening on Friday, August 26, including the Guillermo del Toro-produced horror movie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (Film District), the Luc Besson-produced Colombiana (Sony/TriStar Pictures) starring Avatar's Zoe Saldana and Paul Rudd's ensemble comedy Our Idiot Brother (The Weinstein Company). This week's "The Chosen One(s)" are directorial debuts from two women directors, Vera Farmiga's Higher Ground (Sony Pictures Classics) and Maryam Keshavarz's Circumstance (Roadside Attractions).

Last weekend was a bloodbath at the box office with all four new movies bombing, and frankly, we don't think any of the new movies look like they can get the box office out of the doldrums which means that DreamWorks' The Help is looking for an unprecedented second weekend at #1 after opening in second place three weeks ago

ComingSoon.net's The Weekend Warrior offers a preview of the new releases opening on Friday, August 19, including the remakes of Conan the Barbarian (Lionsgate) and Fright Night (DreamWorks and Robert Rodriguez's fourth family adventure Spy Kids: All the Time in the World (Dimension). Also, Anne Hathaway and Jim Sturgess star in the romantic drama One Day (Focus Features).

We're midway into August and you know what that means? It's the time for studios to dump all of their bad movies that haven't been able to fit into the rest of the year but they still feel is worth being remembered as a "summer movie."

Granted, that doesn't mean that all of this weekend's movies are bad or that they'll bomb, but the odd are certainly against them, and it doesn't help that three of them are 3D movies in a summer where the format has been losing support from moviegoers. If that wasn't bad enough, for the second week in a row, we have two R-rated movies vying for the same male audience, both of them harking back to the more innocent times that were the '80s.

But before we even get to them, we'll go out on the limb with xiayun at BoxOfficeFollower and agree that DreamWorks' The Help has a damn good chance at winning the weekend as it adds a few hundred more theaters and builds upon the positive word-of-mouth from its solid opening weekend. It should hold well, leaving second place for one of the three new movies:

ComingSoon.net's The Weekend Warrior offers a preview of the new releases opening on Friday, August 12, including Final Destination 5 (New Line), the action comedy 30 Minutes or Less (Sony) starring Jesse Eisenberg, Danny McBride and Aziz Ansari, the female ensemble period drama The Help (DreamWorks) and the self-explanatory Glee: The 3D Concert Movie (20th Century Fox). This week's "The Chosen One" is Asif Kapadia's new Formula 1 racing doc Senna. Although the Weekend Warrior has generally had a good summer in terms of our predictions, this August is particularly tough because there are more potential franchise movies being extended into the slower weekends of August. While the second weekend is still a potentially strong one, there are a four movies released this weekend and at least two of them are fighting for the same audience, which is also the audience for last week's hit prequel Rise of the Planet of the Apes which exceeded most expectations. We expect it to pull a surprise second weekend at #1 despite the competition.

ComingSoon.net's The Weekend Warrior offers a preview of the new releases opening on Friday, August 5.

The last month of summer kicks off with two fairly high concept movies, one linked to a famous movie franchise of the '70s, the other a comedy teaming two burgeoning stars who have both done their fair share of hit comedies.

With solid brandname value from the popular franchise of the '70s and a very different CG-driven take on the concept, Rise of the Planet of the Apes (20th Century Fox), starring James Franco and Freida Pinto, hopes to offer a new take on the prequel to the '70s classic Planet of the Apes. Also opening this weekend and trying to get business away from the high-profile action-thriller is something like the sixth or seventh R-rated comedy this summer, The Change-Up (Universal) with Ryan Reynolds and Jason Bateman switching bodies for comedic results. This week's "The Chosen One" is the new Alex Gibney-Alison Ellwood doc Magic Trip (Magnolia) about Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters' 1964 cross-country road trip.

ComingSoon.net's The Weekend Warrior offers a preview of the new releases opening on Friday, July 29, including Jon Favreau's Cowboys and Aliens (Universal/DreamWorks), Sony's The Smurfs and Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling in the romantic comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love (Warner Bros). Instead of a "Chosen One" this week, we're recommending a bunch of movies including Kevin Macdonald's Life in a Day (National Geographic), Joe Cornish's Attack the Block (Screen Gems) and Fred Cavaye's Point Blank (Magnolia.

ComingSoon.net's The Weekend Warrior offers a preview of the new releases opening on Friday, July 22, including Marvel Studios' Captain America: The First Avenger, starring Chris Evans, and Will Gluck's R-rated rom-com Friends with Benefits (Screen Gems), starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. This week's "The Chosen One" is the French Holocaust film Sarah's Key (The Weinstein Company) and in "The Battle Cry," we look at a couple essays claiming the "death of geek" and the "death of fanboy culture."

ComingSoon.net's The Weekend Warrior offers a preview of the new releases opening on Friday July 15, including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (Warner Bros.) and Disney's new Winnie the Pooh. This week's "The Chosen One" is Errol (The Fog of War) Morris' documentary Tabloid (Sundance Selects).

ComingSoon.net's The Weekend Warrior offers a preview of the new releases opening on Friday, July 8, a battle of the comedies with the R-rated ensenble comedy Horrible Bosses (New Line/WB) taking on Kevin James as Zookeeper (Sony). Which will come out on top? Read on! This week's "The Chosen One" is Beats, Rhymes and Life: The Travels of a Tribe Called Quest (Sony Pictures Classics) with an Honorable Mention to James (Man on Wire) Marsh's Project NIM (Roadside Attractions).

ComingSoon.net's The Weekend Warrior offers a preview of the new releases opening over 4th of July weekend on Friday, July 1, but first, on Tuesday night we get Michael Bay's Transformers: Dark of the Moon (Paramount). On Friday proper, we get Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts' in Larry Crowne (Universal) and the teen travel movie Monte Carlo (20th Century Fox). This week's "The Chosen One" isn't a movie but is in fact the annual New York Asian Film Festival as it celebrates its tenth anniversary.

ComingSoon.net's The Weekend Warrior offers a preview of the new releases opening on Friday, June 24 including the latest from Disney•Pixar and their second sequel Cars 2, as well as Cameron Diaz and Justin Timberlake in Bad Teacher (Sony). This week's "The Chosen One" is the comedy doc Conan O'Brien Can't Stop while in "The Battle Cry," we look at some of the better movies released this year and why we think some might be nominated for Oscars if the Academy had to pick today.

« Older Posts
Follow ComingSoon.net on Twitter
MORE MOVIE & GAMING NEWS