SPEARE'S TIPS: THE FILMS OF 2/27: Jonas Brothers, Street Fighter

Are you salivating yet? Are you experiencing numbness and/or tingling in your extremities? Are you suffering from insomnia, tachycardia or elevated blood pressure at the approaching release of Watchmen, which, as of this Friday, will be but a fortnight away? For those of you who have waited months, years, or decades for this adaptation, the wait is nearly over.

But, regrettably, those of you hoping that I will be dissecting the myriad possibilities for this epic-in-the-making will have to wait another week. For today, I will be chewing on the releases of February 27th (yes, both of them), which, now that Assassination of a High School President has flown south for the winter, now constitutes the entirety of the Fantaverse schedule for that weekend.

I’m not going to waste a lot of words talking about Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience (G) for three reasons: first, because the strategy and box-office predictions for films of this nature tend to be much more cut-and-dried than in most other genres; second, because I am a full-grown man approaching middle-age without the benefit of offspring, I have little or no ACTUAL knowledge of the primary characters in this film, and hence; third, to go on at length about it would presuppose that I actually gave a flying fig about this movie.

Not that I have anything against the Jonas Brothers, mind you; every generation of preteen and teenage girls has had their contemporarily-aged pop idols to drool over, pin up on their bedroom walls and inside their lockers, and couple with their own names inside little hearts on their notebook covers. Shaun Cassidy, Leif Garrett, The New Kids, N’Sync, Backstreet Boys… every few years the latest flavor of candy-coated kiddie pop comes along, and they make a huge splash, and the Brothers Jonas, comprised of Kevin (the oldest), Nick (the youngest), and Joe (the other one), are no different. I expect history will follow the usual pattern; they’ll release a few albums, make many millions of dollars, until all of them hit their mid-to-late-20s, at which point they’ll be replaced by the latest “flava” and take jobs at the local Applebee’s with the Hanson Brothers.

If the Hannah Montana concert movie and the more recent High School Musical 3: Senior Year have taught us anything (besides how much better OUR teenage pop culture was, snark), it’s that films like this tend to do very, VERY well in its first couple of weeks, and then drop off tremendously after that. For you see, everyone who has any interest in this movie will undoubtedly have seen it (multiple times) by the time its second weekend is up, which means that you can count on it to make, in its theatrical run, just over double what it cops in its first three days.

Early estimates have this film opening in the mid-$20 million range, which, if the formula holds, means about $50 million when all is said and done. It will undoubtedly win its weekend, and come in second the following weekend (as only Watchmen will be rising to compete with it). Say, ten or eleven Top 5 points, five or six PTA, and an atrocious User Rating. For $19 in Ultimate ($18 in Box Office), if you’re going to take this one, you’d better hope that this is the exception to the teen-music-film rule.


I had pretty much weaned myself off video games by the time Street Fighter hit the shelves and the arcades. (Punch Out and Karate Champ were about as close to hand-to-hand combat games as I ever got. Wow, talk about dating oneself…) But apparently, it’s one of the most enduring and popular video games of all time, and, not surprisingly, it has been made into a large-screen film, entitled Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li (PG-13), another iffy prospect from the brain trust at Fox.

The movie stars Kristin Kreuk (Eurotrip) as the titular Chun-Li, and the supporting cast includes the Black Eyed Peas’ Taboo, Michael Clarke Duncan, Moon Bloodgood and Robin Shou. The bad-ass villain here, M. Bison, is played by… Neal McDonough (who played the so-not-scary baddie in 88 Minutes). This is not director Andrzej Bartkowiak’s first foray into video-game adaptations, having helmed the dead fish known as Doom in 2005 (as well as gritty street-fighting dramas Cradle 2 the Grave, Exit Wounds and Romeo Must Die). Honestly, does ANYONE think this one is going to break the bank?

Movies like this are usually pretty predictable: decent action, below-average acting, and special effects that range from bargain-basement to still-pretty-far-from-state-of-the-art, which is understandable, given that studios are not going to be pouring nine-figure budgets into producing films like this. Street Fighter will only run you $6 in all leagues, and it might be a good pick, placed as it is. This is a weekend that will probably produce extremely low numbers, which means that an $8 million opening may be good enough for second or third place (depending on how Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail opens and how much legs Friday the 13th has). If it can scratch out four Top 5 points and a User Rating around 6.0, hey, you got your money’s worth.


My predictions for the weekend of February 27-March 1:

1. Jonas Brothers: The 3D Concert Experience - $28 million
2. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail - $16 million
3. Friday the 13th - $10 million
4. Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li - $8 million
5. He’s Just Not That Into You - $7 million


If you are reading this within a few days of my posting it, know that the pricing list for the upcoming March-May season is nearly complete. The pricing-by-committee format makes its debut, thanks to the contributions of Chienfantome, geezer, Buscemi, numbersix and SuperShaan. Oddly enough, the person who SUGGESTED this format, Swedgin!, is perhaps-not-so-unusually tardy in getting his numbers in. Tempus fugit, Swedge!

One way or another, you can expect me to post a complete list on numerous threads by this weekend, as well as sending them to your various e-mails. Give your beleaguered moderator a break and get your rosters in EARLY, okay????

Well, that will do it for this week. Next week, some mildly anticipated film about retired superheroes coming forward to help solve the murder of one of their own. What was it called again?

Later!



ETA: Swedge got his list in, and the March-May pricing list will be out very soon.[b]

Current players with postponed films on their rosters (EVERYONE LOOK FOR THEIR NAME!!):

annyonggob888 - Accidental Husband - FY Ult2, HY Ult2
annyonggob888 - New York - FY Ult1, HY Ult1
BanksIsDaFuture - New York - HY Ult1
BanksIsDaFuture - Youth in Revolt - FY BO1
chugsthemonkey - Perfect Getaway - FY Ult2, HY Ult2, Oscars
chugsthemonkey - Youth in Revolt - FY BO1, HYBO1, Oh Nine
Dantic - Assassination - FY Ult1, HY Ult1
delfinasu - Assassination - HY BO2
delfinasu - New York - HY Ult1, FY BO1, HYBO1
Haasing1986 - New York - FY Ult1
JackO - Accidental Husband - FY Ult1, We'll Be Back
jfs556 - Assassination - FY BO1, FY BO2, HY BO1, Oh Nine
Keyser Soze - Assassination - FY BO2
leestu - Assassination - FY Ult2, We'll Be Back, Oh Nine
leestu - New York - HY Ult1
leestu - Perfect Getaway - Envelopes
leestu - Youth in Revolt - HY BO2
lillylovelost - New York - FY Ult1, HY Ult1
Lordagoth - Assassination - FY Ult1, HY Ult2
mfrendo - Assassination - FY BO2, HY BO1
mfrendo - New York - FY Ult1, FY Ult2
NSpan - New York - FY Ult1, FY Ult2, We'll Be Back, Oscars
numbersix_99 - Assassination - HY Ult1
packpaljs - Assassination - FY Ult1, HY Ult1, We'll Be Back
rasgriz - Youth in Revolt - Oh Nine
SuperShaan - Assassination - FY BO1, FY BO2, HY BO1, Oh Nine, Pushing the Envelopes
Swedgin! - Assassination - HY Ult1, HY Ult2, FY BO1
Swedgin! - New York - We'll Be Back
thegreenarrow - New York - FY Ult1, HY Ult1, FY BO1, HY BO1
thegreenarrow - Perfect Getaway - FY Ult2, HY Ult2
TheJMan - O'Horten - FY Ult1
TheJMan - Possession - FY BO1
Tonberry3001 - Youth in Revolt - HY BO1
transformers2 - Assassination - FY Ult1, We'll Be Back
undeadmonkey - Accidental Husband - We'll Be Back
undeadmonkey - All About Steve - FY Ult2, HY Ult2, BO FY2
wesvolk - Assassination - FY Ult1, FY Ult2, HY Ult2, We'll Be Back

made my replacement hope it works out.

I'll take The Janky Promoters and pray it doesn't get delayed.

... and it did. Haha.