Each Thursday we look at what is going to be coming out in theaters this weekend, show you the trailers for the big releases, predict the box office winner and just generally give you enough of a carrot to pull you through the rest of the work week. September 16th brings two old franchises back with Blair Witch and Bridget Jones’ Baby, and Oliver Stone’s biopic of the polarizing Edward Snowden. Will any of them be able to knock Captain Sully off the top spot at the box office?
Three things that seem to be in the wrong decade are hitting theaters this weekend: Blair Witch, Bridget Jones, and Oliver Stone. Despite the fact that it’s probably ten years too late, and that its title’s use of the apostrophe makes my brain hurt, Bridget Jones’s Baby has gotten very positive reviews. It is nice to see Renee Zellweger back in something, even if it is something that I will never in a million years go and see. Oliver Stone hasn’t had a film impact the box office since 1991’s JFK, and I don’t expect Snowden to be any different. Middling reviews, and a polarizing subject aren’t going to bring out people to the box office in September.
Blair Witch was originally entitled The Woods during production to hide the fact that it’s actually a continuation of the franchise that inflicted the “found footage” genre on us 17 years ago: The Blair Witch Project. Then at Comic Con, SURPRISE, the film was revealed as Blair Witch, and I still don’t care. I resisted watching the original for ages, but it was such a phenomenon that the curiosity got the better of me and I agreed to go watch the film with some friends when it came out on video. I saw The Blair Witch Project literally in a cabin in the woods at night (don’t ask). It was, and remains, one of my favorite comedies of all-time. Girls were screaming and jumping and I was just rolling over how bad it was. This was not a popular opinion on “scary movie night”, but the film has provided me with nearly 20 years of mocking material, so I can’t completely hate it. Guys, if you want to do a reunion when this hits Blu Ray, I will actually watch it, but I will not promise not to cover it in laugh-spittle.
Blair Witch (Callie Hernandez, R, 1hr 29min)
Bridget Jones’s Baby (Renee Zellweger, Colin Firth, R, 2hr 2m)
Snowden (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Shailene Woodley, R, 2hr 18min)
HOW DID WE DO LAST WEEK?
KT picked Sully to easily win last weekend’s box office and the film about the Miracle on the Hudson did so with $35.0 million (the largest opening for any film Clint Eastwood has ever directed). The critically reviled thriller When The Bough Breaks finished in second place with $14.0 million (Lifetime prediction record 25-3).
WHO WILL WIN THE WEEKEND?
This is tough. Probably the toughest call in a few months. I don’t thing Bridget Jones or Snowden have any chance of overcoming Sully, which is performing better than Captain Phillips did at this point in its run, bringing in steady money this week. The x-factor is how excited horror fans are going to be about a Blair Witch Project revival? If it had better reviews, I might pick it, but we’ll stick with Sully for a repeat and see if we’re right next week.
I will never understand the career of Oliver Stone. I’m not even a particular admirer of his early work, from ages ago, back when his films made money, but now that it’s been a decade and a half since a film of his turned a profit, I don’t get why he is still given money.
The worst thing I can say about Stone is this: given his politically charged, sometimes topical, usually incendiary subject matter (Natural Born Killers, Nixon, W, World Trade Center, Snowden) he ought to the foremost pop artist/chronicler of our times. And he so isn’t.
I don’t look down on women who go see films like Bridget Jones’s Baby. I know some highly intelligent ones who can’t resist. If Arnold were still starring in action movies, I would be going to see those. I don’t judge.
Back in the day, I was told that the Blair Witch Project would finally be the horror movie that scared the bejesus out of me. Finally I broke down and went to see it. My party line at the time was that the filmmakers turned a lack of production values into a virtue, but inside I was wondering if I was the subject of some kind of experiment. Were a group of scientists waiting to see if I would give into a herd mentality and agree with everyone about something absurd, like Blair Witch being scary?
Luckily I get to see Sully this weekend, because I haven’t yet.
LikeLike
Captain Sully will make it all ok.
LikeLike