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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Box Office - 'Inception' Earns $21 Million on Friday

I don't know any more than you do, but I had a hunch that Inception would hit the ground running and put up pretty good numbers this weekend. What are "pretty good" numbers? I thought $75 million seemed about right, though admittedly, it's higher than most projections for the film.

My reasoning going into Thursday's Fearless Forecast was that there's an intangible: Christopher Nolan. Directors, as a general rule, don't move tickets. But a handful can, and Nolan has a built-in audience that will respond where, say, a Joel Schumacher wouldn't have that kind of good fortune. And they turned up on Friday, giving Inception a $21.3 million opening day. That includes the midnight showings - not a full schedule, by the way - which accounted for almost $4 million. So the weekend, I'm saying, will hit into the $60 millions, not as high as I pushed on Thursday but more than the $55 million you'll see across the internet following Friday's results. I expect word-of-mouth and repeat business to be very strong in the next two days, and the $55 million estimate almost certainly hints at a slower Saturday than Friday. I don't see that happening at all.

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Movie Review - 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice'

The Sorcerer's Apprentice Starring Nicolas Cage, Jay Baruchel, and Alfred Molina Directed by Jon Turtletaub Rated PG

If they must be used at all, there should be a time limit on opening narration in films. Isn't that why movies have characters, to tell their own story? The Sorcerer's Apprentice clumsily uses the device to not only tell you the history of Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) and Hovrath (Alfred Molina), but it's the same history those characters also get into as the film goes on. A complete waste of time. That's a microcosm of the film's problems, as it turns out. Sorcerer's Apprentice has great effects, two solid performances by Cage and Molina, and kind of an interesting premise but there are just time killers all over the place. The premier offender is Jay Baruchel, or more specifically, his geeky physics student character, Dave. He is The Chosen One, the greatest mage to never grow out a waist- length beard or don one of those pointy hats with a crescent moon stitched into it. He is the Prime Merlinian, as the audience is told by that ridiculous narration, and as Dave himself is told throughout the events of the film. What's the significance of being the Prime Merlinian? It means that he's essentially the second coming of Merlin. Both Balthazar and Hovrath apprenticed under the great Merlin, as both the characters and that annoying narration state. The reason they've lived 1,000 years is because the Prime Merlinian must be found in order to destroy the evil Morgana, who has been trapped inside a nesting doll since she killed the great sorcerer, and the only one who can rid the world of her once and for all is...Dave. That can not be encouraging to mankind. See, Dave, in classic Disney hero fashion, isn't even much of a physics whiz. He struggles with his project involving Tesla coils - nothing like striking out on your own to tackle 120-year-old technology - so sorcery is a whole other animal. And he's coming upon at it the wrong time: Just when all this saving the world stuff smacks Dave in the face, he's reunited with this childhood crush, the transfixing but almost totally unnecessary Teresa Palmer. A physics nerd, trying to get a handle on wizardry, simply does not need to fall all over himself over a girl.

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Fearless Forecast - 'Inception' is Unleashed

On Wednesday, The Sorcerer's Apprentice started what looks like a pretty grim second stanza for producer Jerry Bruckheimer this summer. Prince of Persia was not a hit in the US, and worldwide, $325 million seems like a lot of money, but it cost at least that much when you add in the distribution and marketing.

Sorcerer started pretty slow: $3.7 million yesterday and that puts the five-day weekend estimate around $30 million, if you're feeling generous. The rule of thumb this summer has been not to feel generous, since only four or five movies have topped their projections for opening weekend and only one - Toy Story 3 - has been a true runaway success. The budget for this one is hinted in the $150 million range, so it won't make money for Bruckheimer, either. But then there's Inception. Our review is coming Friday, of course, but I can tell you that there have probably only been a handful of films in studio history that are this audacious. With a $200 million price tag, no true merchandising angle, a near two-and-a-half hour running time, and a convoluted structure that actually adds more layers of complexity as it goes, Inception is one of the least likely summer blockbusters, well, ever. But the gamble should pay off, though perhaps not as wildly as did Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight.

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Watch Five Minutes of 'The Sorcerer's Apprentice'

One thing a movie should never have to overcome is the perception of its star. There usually is some carryover these days from the public impression a major star leaves on ticket buyers and the ticket buying itself. We saw Tom Cruise's couch-jumping take a toll on his box office, Mel Gibson's seemingly more-evident-than-ever racism keep wallets in pockets, and even Lindsay Lohan, although it may have been too early to evaluate her stock, earned such a bad reputation that it's hard for her to even get hired now.

In that mix is Nicolas Cage, and while his career has been up and down for years, the recent stuff - owing money, having to sell dozens of houses or whatever it was - can't help a guy who has seen a few expensive bombs roll his way and already gave off a pretty weird vibe. There's a new extended clip for The Sorcerer's Apprentice, one that sets the stage for literally the entire movie, as near as I can tell, and it moves very well for this kind of flick. About the only thing that could stop it might be...Nic Cage. Well, OK, Inception, too, but you get the point.

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