Deleted Sex Scene from 'Predators'

Don't you just love it when your favorite movies are released on DVD and include extra scenes?  So do I. Today's deleted scene comes to us courtesy of traileraddict.com via the 'Predators' Blu-ray DVD.

From the title of my post, you're probably assuming the deleted sex scene includes the two main characters pictured above in Adrien Brody and Alice Braga, who form a bond in the movie.  But your assumption would be incorrect.

If you're a perverse idiot like me, you might believe the deleted sex scene is just your average 'Predator' aliens orgy party.  Unfortunately, that isn't in the scene either.

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Box Office - $60 Million for 'Despicable Me'

When you stop to consider that Despicable Me cost les than $70 million to make and it brought back $60 million in its first three days, you really have to applaud Universal for its efforts here. Although the marketing budget had to be pretty stout, anytime you can win a summer weekend with that kind of budget, you're off to a good start.

So the $69 million movie is close to making that money back and even if it spent $100 million on the advertising, it should best that amount within a month, giving Universal a real summer box office player, something the studio hasn't had since Wanted and Mamma Mia! two years ago. The $60 million start, more robust than was anticipated, was easily enough to win the weekend and should set up at least a $150 million run in the US. As we mentioned yesterday, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse didn't tumble as much as was expected. New Moon lost almost 70% in its second weekend last fall, but Eclipse managed to only drop 48%. There are two possible explanations. The first is that this is a better film than New Moon and the second is that, since Eclipse opened on a Wednesday and wasn't as big Friday - Sunday during its opening weekend as it should have been, there was less of an artificial number to live up to.

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Box Office - Big Starts for 'Despicable Me', 'Predators'

Hey look: Universal can put one foot in front of the other! Its animated flick Despicable Me charged out of the gates on Friday and will absolutely crush projections for its debut weekend as well as every other movie in theaters.

The 'toon, more a mild amusement than a must-see like Toy Story 3, opened with a totally unexpected $22 million on Friday, meaning the film could go as high as three times that much. That probably won't be the case, because if it did this well on opening day, it could slough off some Saturday ticket buying, meaning this could be its peak day. Still, with early projections not exceeding $40 million, adding $15 - $20 million to that amount is a big, big win for a studio that hasn't located its ass with both hands in over a year. In fact, the entire weekend looks promising: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse will not lose as much audience in the second weekend as New Moon did, the most positive sign in its 10-day run. Instead of dropping to 40% of last weekend's three-day total, it looks like Eclipse might hold half its audience, and that's a big deal, actually, because it means it's either getting more repeat viewing than the last one or its' actually - gasp - ingratiating itself to new audiences.

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Movie Review - 'Predators'

Predators Starring Adrien Brody, Alice Braga, and Topher Grace Directed by Nimród Antal Rated R

Later this summer, the Sylvester Stallone action flick The Expendables will be released. It features guys whose signature roles involve going through 90 minutes of hell, standing up and looking at the flaming carnage of a city in ruins, and delivering a catchphrase worthy of the finest bumper stickers in the land. Predators is steeped in the tradition of those films, and, in particular, 1987's Predator, a bumper crop for action catchphrases, like Jesse Ventura's "I ain't got time to bleed." This is a pretty worthy rev-up of the 80s and 90s action flick: It doesn't waste time on fancy dialogue, it doesn't have sub-plots, and it doesn't make excuses for being exactly what it is. There's something kind of refreshing about that, but of course, there's also something pretty limiting about it. This is a world where people throw around qualifications like "black ops" and "Special Forces" the way CNN hosts drop their Twitter handles on TV every day, a world where every character represents nothing but the desire to have that kind of character. Why a Yakuza gangster and guerrilla from Sierra Leone? Because. Reality television has now co-opted the set-up of movies like this. Predators is like Survivor with weapons, not that the show is probably too far away from that direction, anyway. But like that show, the "contestants" here are chosen by the filmmakers as much for the conflict they'll create with each other as for their own abilities to win the game. Nobody gets voted off, though. In Predators, they just get gored. Only three of our survivors really merit any kind of consideration. If you've seen movies like this before, it's pretty easy to pick out the earliest departures. They have fewer lines of dialogue and you don't recognize their faces, plus laws of movie economy tell you people have to die. And they do. Swiftly, in fact, though it should be pointed out, not in terribly glorious ways. It's a little more matter-of-fact here, and it works better.

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Fearless Forecast - 'Despicable Me' Drops 'Eclipse'

What will the freefall for Eclipse look like this weekend? We should have a pretty good gauge based on how quickly it cooled off last weekend. What began with a sonic boom of $68.5 million on Wednesday is down to just 15% of that number almost a week later. And the trouble is, Twilight, like Harry Potter, doesn't invite new revellers to the party. It will do better thanks to IMAX ticket sales, but the raw numbers probably won't look too different.

This week, there are two movies pulling very distinct audiences, though not specifically away from Twilight. Despicable Me will overtake Toy Story 3 as the animated movie to watch, but that's OK: Toy Story will become the year's biggest movie by Monday, Tuesday at the absolute latest. And by this time next week, it'll be the biggest Pixar movie ever. Despicable Me won't start out nearly as well, but it could capture some solid second- and third-weekend results, just as How to Train Your Dragon did. Animation, as a rule, has staying power.

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