11: 'The Martian' Stays on Top While 'Pan' and 'The Walk' Bomb

A great hold this week for The Martian, which fell a scant 37 percent to earn another 37 million- its domestic total is already at 108 million, with reaching 200 million a strong and likely possibility. Meanwhile, the 150 million dollar WB movie Pan was a total flop, bringing in just 15 million, below even the soft expectations of 20 million. The movie was also panned by critics (couldn't resist, sorry) , sitting at 23 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, which means this one joins Tomorrowland and Fantastic Four as one of the biggest bombs of the year. Looks like no one is interested in a live action Peter Pan story, no matter what you do with it.

Hotel Transylvania 2 held onto the family crowd with second place and 20 million, while the Robert Zemeckis film The Walk was a total wipeout, making just 3.7 million after its pathetic IMAX start last week. It didn't even make the top five. I guess another topic no one's interested in is a guy walking on a wire (although I do recommend the amazing documentary about the story from 2008, Man on Wire) . The Intern and Sicario rounded out the top five, with The Intern especially holding well to become a kind of sleeper hit, nearly crossing 50 million so far.

Top 5:

The Martian- 37 million
Hotel Transylvania 2- 20.3 million
Pan- 15.5 million
The Intern- 8.7 million
Sicario- 7.4 million

In limited release, the big news was the smashing start of Steve Jobs, which opened on 4 screens to a stunning 590k, a 133k per screen average, easily the best PTA of the year, but also the 15th best of all time- wow. It'll be interesting, as always, to see how it expands (it's set to go wide on the 23rd), but it looks very promising so far for the sure to be heavy Oscar contender. Next week we have the wide release of the new Tom Hanks/Steven Spielberg film Bridge of Spies, along with the Guillermo del Toro ghost story Crimson Peak, and the limited openings of Cate Blanchett's Truth and Brie Larson's potential Oscar player Room. See you all then!

Peter Sarsgaard Redoes the Stanley Milgram Experiment in 'Experimenter' Trailer

I grow more and more amazed every day by the sheer amount of movies that look perfectly interesting and with fairly big name actors that are going straight to video on demand instead of getting a theatrical release. This is what they mean when they say that the adult audience has moved to television- when a movie like this, with Winona Ryder and Peter Sarsgaard about the Stanley Milgram experiments can't even get distribution, hope for film audiences really is dwindling. Look for it October 16th.

Red Band Trailer for John Hillcoat's New Thriller 'Triple 9'

An all star cast gets violent for Australian director John Hillcoat, whose movies The Proposition and Lawless were pretty much known mostly for their violence. But hey, we see Casey Affleck, Woody Harrelson, Kate Winsley, Aaron Paul and Anthony Mackie here, so he assembled himself quite an ensemble. It's coming out in February.

An All Star Cast Spoofs 1950's Hollywood in the Coen Brothers 'Hail, Caesar!'

The humorous Coens are back, which I guess explains why this movie is coming out in February of next year. The Coen Brothers are usually in the Oscar race when they have a film out, but I guess their comedies, as great as they can be, never really make it into consideration. Still, this looks pretty awesome and very Coen, as many of today's stars take on impressions of 50's Hollywood actors in a kind of neo-noir screwball comedy, it looks like. Can't wait.

Lizzie Bennett Takes On the Apocalypse in 'Pride and Prejudice and Zombies'

The aesthetic matches many of the shots, sets and costumes from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice, but a new wrinkle is added when zombies attack the 19th century heroine and her pals. Based on a famed graphic novel and with Cinderella's Lily James as Elizabeth, this one should bring in devoted Austen fans who want to see the iconic story spoofed, although zombies in general just feels SO overdone lately.

Kurt Russell and Patrick Wilson Star in Western 'Bone Tomahawk'

This looks pretty intense. Kurt Russell is grizzled and older, but still cool as ever in the trailer for what looks like a pretty violent western, something they don't make a lot of anymore. Of course, that means it's coming out in a limited release only, so look for this one on October 23rd.

John Williams to Receive the AFI Lifetime Achievement Award

Jaws, ET, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Superman, Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Close Encounters, Harry Potter...it's astonishing the number of iconic music scores John Williams has created, and now he's being honored with the American Film Institute's life achievement award, the first composer ever to receive it. And it makes perfect sense, when you look at all he's done- even Home Alone has an iconic theme, for pete's sake. There's no better composer to receive the first AFI honor than this man.

Here's a sampling of some of William's best work. You probably know them all by heart.

War Breaks Out in Final 'Hunger Games' Trailer

I actually thought that fanvideo looking thing was the final Mockingjay trailer a couple weeks ago, but here's a more official one. I don't know what to say about it, except that thank god it's finally over. Maybe this whole awful genre will subside now with it.

The Dinos Finally Speak in New Trailer for 'The Good Dinosaur'

For anyone who might have been fooled by the teasers for this movie into thinking that it was going to be another WALL-E or something (I wasn't), this is your wake-up call that it's really supposed to be another Ice Age. I personally don't think this looks very good, despite being from Pixar (is anyone else bothered by the bright, neon colored look of these dinosaurs?), but it'll probably be big hit anyway, since it's coming out at Thanksgiving and the family audience is always starved for entertainment.

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Magic Mike XXL" (2015)

I didn't actually get around to doing a full review of the Magic Mike sequel this summer, but you'll be surprised to hear that it's actually a pretty fun time- maybe even a tad better than the first one. It lost none of the semi-serious tone of the original movie, but it did leave behind the pointless love interest and depressing drug subplot, which was a wise move, and simply allowed the movie to give people what they wanted to see in the first place- hot guys stripping for the ladies, and Channing Tatum in several well-choreographed dance sequences, showing once again that he could maybe be this generation's Gene Kelly if he wanted to. Dude's a good dancer. I enjoyed Magic Mike XXL in exactly the way the movie wants you to- and that's a pretty good time for any of us girls.

Trailer:

BOX OFFICE 10/02-10/04: 'The Martian' Blasts Off With $55 Million

Ridley Scott's sci-fi drama The Martian surpassed expectations this weekend to land at 55 million for the three day opening, just falling short of Gravity's October record from two years ago of 55.8 million. It could actually beat the record when official numbers come in tomorrow, but even if it doesn't, the second best opening weekend of October is nothing to sneeze at. The movie landed an "A" Cinemascore as well, so expect it to hold up over the coming weeks, and it's also Matt Damon's personal best headliner opening since 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum. In second place was Hotel Transylvania 2, falling just a tad to earn another 33 million for a new total of 90 million domestic.

Meanwhile, The Walk pretty much bombed in its IMAX only release, bringing in just 1.7 million and 2 million since Wednesday- not a good number as it looks to go wide next weekend. But Sicario did well in its expansion, pulling in 12 million after its successful limited release, also a bit more than expected, and with the best PTA in release- 67k per theater. The Intern held well in its second week also, bringing in another 11 million for a 36 million total, and Maze Runner 2 rounded out the top five.

Top 5:

The Martian- 55 million
Hotel Transylvania 2- 33 million
Sicario- 12.1 million
The Intern- 11.6 million
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials- 7.7 million

In specialty release, the gay rights drama Freeheld opened to 40k on about five screens- not great, while the documentary He Named Me Malala opened to 56k in five theaters nationwide. Next week we have the wide release of The Walk against the opening of the 150 million family film Pan, which is tracking very low at the moment, so The Martian may have the field to itself again. See you then.

REVIEW: "The Martian" (2015) Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain. Dir. Ridley Scott

The Martian is a well told piece of crowdpleasing entertainment that wants you to like it so much that it doesn't bother to put its hero in any real danger, emotional or otherwise. You'd think being trapped on Mars by yourself for a year and a half might not be such an enjoyable experience set to disco montages and wisecracks every five minutes, but such is Matt Damon's plight- not so much a plight but an unwelcome extended vacation.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh. This film is based on the bestselling science fiction novel by Andy Weir, and plays as sort of a cross between Apollo 13 and Cast Away- two movies that had far more emotional impact than this one is able to manage. Damon plays the wisecracking astronaut who's part of a wisecracking crew, on a mission to Mars in the presumably near future, who gets stranded and left behind by his teammates when an unexpected storm hits. As the crew leaves him for dead, he turns out to have been accidentally impaled (not fatally) and wakes up on Mars alone, doomed to live out the remainder of his days in the ship and starve to death, since it will be four years before a rescue crew would be able to reach him.

This is a dangerous and depressing situation, but Damon's innovative Mark Watney rallies to the challenge, deciding to vlog his daily activities (the better to keep us up to speed on his jokes) and in his words "science the shit" out of his situation to extend his survival while attempting to reach NASA. Damon pretty much carries the movie, but half of it is set on Earth with the NASA officials, led by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jeff Daniels, also not shy with the wisecracks, as they lead a crack team to formulate the rescue plan, which eventually involves Watney's crew that left him behind and is now on their way home.

You might be able to tell that the jokey dialogue in this movie bothered me some, and I don't deny that I found it mildly irritating. That combined with the disco soundtrack (all the requisite hits you'd imagine) serves to lower the stakes in this film to the point where you never for one second feel that Watley is in any real danger or that we won't get the inevitable rescue scene followed by the crowds back home on Earth cheering for the American ingenuity of it all. The good part of the film is the hard and very real science pulled directly from the book and included as a kind of geekfest of how Watney's survival and NASA's rescue mission might actually come together if this were really happening- but if it were, I think the emotional involvement might be a little higher. In Cast Away, we were so invested in Tom Hank's plight that we cried when his best friend Wilson the volleyball was taken away by the ocean waves. Here there is no single moment when we are asked to feel anything other than easygoing amusement and superficial satisfaction brought on by a soundtrack which of course includes "I Will Survive." It plays nothing at all like a Ridley Scott movie, usually a master of mood and atmosphere, and you can't help but think he needed a paycheck from the studio for this one. This may be enough to satisfy the masses, but the shallowness of the experience left me wanting more. Much more.

* * 1/2