Al Pacino Lends Voice To 'Despicable Me 2'

I expect Al Pacino’s “acting style” to come through the animation in his first ever voice work as the lead villain in Despicable Me 2.  It's reportedly the same role originally left by Javier Bardem and Pacino stepping in makes me wish it was a motion-capture film.  Who knows what kind of character is expected since, I would assume, both actors are very different from one another.

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Danny Devito Speaks For The Trees in 'The Lorax' Debut Trailer

The trailer for the most recent adaptation of the Dr. Seuss novel, The Lorax, was released earlier today.  It's being brought to us from Illumination Entertainment, the same studio that made Despicable Me, and looks to be following a similar style to the commercially and critically successful 2008's adaptation of Horton Hears a Who.  The film's released plot summary states that it is about, "Ted, an idealistic young boy, who tries to find the one thing that will win him affection of the girl of his dreams.  To do so, he must discover the story of the Lorax, the grumpy yet charming creature who fights to protect his world."

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Box Office - Big Weekends for 'Inception' and 'Salt'

A terrific week for people who love movies, from the big doings in San Diego at Comic-Con to the box office, where Christopher Nolan's Inception had a huge win over a very competitive Angelina Jolie and Salt. The movies combined to made $80 million, both meeting or beating their pre-weekend expectations. That's pretty rare and it points to the great word of mouth for Inception and the fact that sometimes movie stars (Angelina Jolie) really are game changers.

For Inception, it means a second frame drop of only $19 million, a drop of just about 30%, and that's atypical. It should mean the film will enjoy a very long life at the box office, but it could also mean people were wary about it on opening weekend, got reassurance that it was good, and checked it out. If it's still holding 50% or more next weekend, then this thing will make money through Labor Day. Nolan's film is at $140 million and change after ten days, a very good number considering how hard it could have been to sell a movie like this. Again, we'll wait to see what next weekend looks like in terms of a long-term benchmark, but it could get to $240 million or more if it doesn't drop over 40% or so next weekend. I'm sure that's a dream scenario - pardon the pun - for Warner Bros.

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Box Office - 'Inception' Leads 'Salt' On Friday

It could be a close race at the top this weekend, but it looks like Inception will rule for another week, starting this session with evidence of less than a 40% drop from last week. Its Friday performance was just enough to beat Salt, the new Angelina Jolie movie, but even with its second-place beginning, Salt might make more money than earlier projections indicated.

First, let's deal with Inception. Most movies only hold 65% of their opening weekend audience if there's excellent word of mouth, and that was always going to be the case here. Expect a touch more business on Saturday and a little less than Friday when Sunday rolls around, and Inception should see another $40 million weekend. So it'll earn back the production budget by next weekend, and shouldn't have much trouble actually turning a profit overall, but it won't ever be a movie that makes $750 million around the world, I don't think. Incidentally, there's a good chance it wins next weekend, too, so file that away. As for Salt, Jolie is one of the very few women who can fill seats. That's all on the audience, by the way; they just don't buy Charlize Theron in quantities as large as Angelina or Julia Roberts or Sandra Bullock. And when it comes to action films, Jolie has almost no competition from her gender. She's had ten years of action movies like Tomb Raider, Wanted, and Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and just those three movies give her the edge over every other actress trying to make it in the genre.

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Box Office - 'Inception' Dreams Up $60 Million

Depending on which estimate you read, Inception made anywhere from $60 - $63 million this weekend, but since it's an estimate and very few Sunday tickets have been sold, I'm going to point it north. Because of its international cast and director Christopher Nolan's worldwide reputation, it should gobble up plenty of coin overseas, too, but it doesn't look like it's going to be one of the summer's top three films.

To do that, Inception would need to essentially quintuple its opening weekend numbers. Avatar did that, The Hangover did it, but it's not common to see a blockbuster make five times what it draws in the first weekend, and in fact, on the average, the first three days account for about 30% of a movie's total domestic gross. So, give this one the low-$200s if you want, but it would really need a big August to do much more than that. However, Warner Bros. would be absolutely thrilled with that kind of performance. A $160 million movie with a half-dozen important characters and four simultaneous, interlocking levels of action is not something you see...well, ever, so the studio knew going in this wouldn't do Dark Knight money, but it should still be profitable, although we won't know for sure until we see some of the foreign revenue. It could have a big hold next weekend, though, depending on peoples' interest in Salt, so it could conceivably lose 35% of this weekend's numbers and that might help push it a little further into the $200 millions.

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