Black Sheep @ The Box Office

Happy Halloween! I hope you go out there today and scare the crap out of people safely. I also hope you've Halloween'd it up all weekend really because this is the last time you will ever get the chance to. With the final chapter of the SAW series bowing in theatres this weekend, this must also be the last Halloween. It just won't be Halloween next year without SAW, after all.

At least SAW 3D gets to end the series on a reasonably successful note. Last year, SAW's consistently successful streak came to an end when PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, whose second installment suffered a much more regular second week horror decline this year, obliterated it on Halloween weekend. At $24 million, it has nearly matched the entire domestic run of the last film, which finished its pathetic showing with $27 million. The opening itself is about $10 million more as well but the majority of SAW 3D's screens are 3D screens and we all know how much more expensive those can be. SAW II remains the most successful of the franchise with a total domestic gross of $87 million. And SAW III holds the bragging rights to the biggest SAW opening weekend with $33.6 million. Still, SAW 3D boasts the third lowest opening weekend after SAW VI and the first SAW, obviously an untested product at the time. So, SAW 3D saves a little face but not too much. Considering the amount of faces that are mutilated in the film, that's fairly fitting. (For reviews of the latest SAW, click anywhere you see the title.)

Another franchise that continues to underwhelm is the Steig Larsson "girl" series, if you will. Final chapter, THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST, opened to $915K, the highest debut for the series in North America but it did so with the lowest per screen average amongst the three (approximately $6K compared to over $8.3K for THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE and nearly $10K for THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO). People apparently care to read books but not movies. I'm glad to see we have segmented our activities so strictly. (For reviews of all three films, click the film appropriate title.)

There isn't much other Top 10 news this weekend. Hilary Swank drama, CONVICTION whimpered its way in with a lackluster wide showing. And JACKASS 3D kicked it past the $100 million mark. I'm very proud.

NEXT WEEK: Things get a little busier again. The horror flicks will suffer huge declines to make way for DUE DATE, starring Robert Downey Jr. and Zach Galifianakis and directed by Todd Phillips, the dude who did THE HANGOVER, on 3200 screens. Even bigger still is the Will Ferrell/Brad Pitt-voiced animated film, MEGAMIND, on 3500 screens. Tyler Perry's first R-rated venture, FOR COLORED GIRLS, opens modestly on 2000 screens. And there are a couple of high profile platform releases as well. The Sean Penn/Naomi Watts thriller, FAIR GAME, debuts on 35 screens. While Danny Boyle's follow-up to the Oscar winning, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, 127 HOURS, starring Oscar-buzzed James Franco, opens on 4 screens.

Reviews are available for 127 HOURS, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE and THE HANGOVER by clicking the titles. Reviews for DUE DATE and FOR COLORED GIRLS are coming to Black Sheep next weekend.

Source: Box Office Mojo

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST

Written by Jonas Frykberg

Directed by Daniel Alfredson

Starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist

If there is one girl out there who just keeps getting herself into more and more trouble, it is Lisbeth Salander. First she goes and gets a great big dragon tattoo on her back and then, despite many lessons to the contrary, she goes and plays with some fire. Now, I know Lisbeth didn’t have the best of upbringings – her father did try to bury her alive in the last installment after all – but she’s really gone and done it this time around. In the final chapter of the Swedish film interpretations of Steig Larsson’s international publishing phenomenon, this time Lisbeth is THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST.

While dragon tattoos and playing with fire are certainly intriguing notions, kicking a hornet’s nest is really just asking for it. That said, considering the severity of what the title implies, the close to this trilogy is certainly the tamest of the three films. The series started out as a theatrical release but transitioned to television with the second film and has been getting less biting as it has progressed, if you can consider people being lit on fire less biting, that is. The premise of the conclusion finds Lisbeth (played one last time by the fantastic Noomi Rapace) in a hospital to start, a jail to follow and a courtroom after that. Meanwhile, her guardian angel, Mikael Blomkvyst (Michael Nyqvist), is doing his darndest to prove Lisbeth’s innocence but, like the second film, their storylines rarely overlap. With Lisbeth subdued and Blomkvyst elsewhere, the action is left in the hands of a bunch of retired spies and politicians. It would appear as though Lisbeth picked a geriatric hornet’s nest to kick.

The conspiracy that Lisbeth threatens to undo is reasonably convoluted and as it was only introduced in the second film, there is a lot of ground to make up for here. Some of the build required to piece everything together often feels forced, awkward and at times, even unbelievable. THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST plays out like it’s rushing through everything to get to the end. As a result, a series that started out with an intense ferocity exits in a fairly conventional fashion. The trouble is the focus on the hornet’s nest when the only thing we ever really cared about was the girl herself.