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As we’ve moved into the first weekend of June, I’m going to look back at what May has brought and how well my predictions have held up.

Iron Man

Prediction: $80m open, $220m final

Actual: $98m open, $288m current, ~$310m final

My opening guess wasn’t too far out of line. What’s big is the legs that Iron Man has had, turning in better than average (and expected) drops each weekend. Currently, it looks like it might grab the top movie of the summer (and possibly the year.) I mostly understimated how strong the initial advertising campaign is and how strongly the critical and audience reception would be. A fantastic job from Paramount and Marvel Studios.

Made of Honor

Prediction: $15m open, $50m final

Actual: $14.7m open, $44.6m current, ~$47m final

Almost spot on, here. It’s dropping too fast to actually hit the $50m mark.

What Happens in Vegas

Prediction: $12m open, $40m final

Actual: $20m open, $72m current, ~$80m final

Ultimately, it does answer the question. Ashton Kutcher does indeed have a fanbase, and this film performed almost exactly in line with his previous work.

Speed Racer

Prediction: $50m open, $140m final

Actual: $18.5m open, $42m current, ~$43m final

Ultimately, the weirdness and lack of retro-nostalgia can be chalked up as the reason this didn’t succeed. It’s a shame, because it’s not that bad of a movie, but I suppose the film is a bit too surreal and unworldy for mass audiences to grasp ahold of it. Perhaps it’ll find life on video and in several years will be a cult hit.

Prince Caspian

Prediction: $100m open, $310m final

Actual: $55m open, $125m current, ~$140m final

After the first film, this was regarded as a successor to Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings, but with this film it’s clear that won’t be the case. Right now, I wonder if the plug has been pulled on Voyage of the Dawn Treader.

The reasons for the failure can probably be identified in three ways. First, the recognition isn’t anywhere near as high as it was for The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Second, Disney moved it from the prime family season of Christmas to the more traditional action-blockbuster ground of May. Third, attempts to spice up the action may have aliented the core Christian audience. The first and third probably weren’t huge issues. Had it been the same film but released in December, it would have seen a decline from LWW, but not at this level. Dropping half the business is astonishing.

I was far too bullish on it trending like a traditional sequel to a popular film.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Prediction: $90m open ($150m 5-day), $280m final

Actual: $100m open ($152m 5-day), $253m current, ~$300m final

It’s almost in line with my prediction. I nailed the 5-day, but I was assuming it would behave more traditionally for a well-anticipated film, with a larger percentage of the business coming on the opening Thursday (I expected $40m, it earned $25m.) The final is a bit up in the air, because the legs are unsure. It could remain fairly strong in the next few weekends, in which case it might challenge Iron Man for the summer crown, or it could fade quicker and finish with $290m or so. Regardless, it’s doing stunning business (and Paramount has to be happy with the business of the pair.)

Postal

I’m only mentioning it because I made a prediction with the expectation that it would get a release. As it stands, it showed up in four theaters and is going to be the lowest grossing Uwe Boll film by far. Oddly, it’s also his best reviewed film by a considerable margin.

Sex and the City

Prediction: $20m open, $70m final

Actual: $57m open, $99m current, ~$130m final

While my initial prediction was probably a bit too low at the time, the expectation for big business didn’t really kick in until the week or so previous to the release. Even so, the size of the opening was hugely unexpected. I doubt anyone figured that this film would get a larger opening day than Indiana Jones nor a bigger opening weekend than Prince Caspian but both turned out to be the case. The legs are going to be poor, because it suffers from the fan factor, but that’s not really an issue. This is going to be one of the biggest surprises of the summer.

The Strangers

Prediction: $8m open, $20m final

Actual: $21m open, $37m current, ~$60m final

On any other weekend, this would have been marked as the huge surprise and big news. However, it got completely overshadowed by Sex and the City, so the stellar performance here is probably going to be forgotten. In my personal defense, everyone probably missed this estimate. However, I can’t really excuse myself, because I just read a quick summary of the film and made a guess that it was torture porn. It’s not, apparently, instead going the route of being a psychological horror with slasher elements. What I should have done was watch the trailer, which is brilliant and creepy and actually makes the whole thing look pretty good.

Overall

While I expect May to have three stellar weekends, it’s not these three weekends. The first weekend and Memorial Day went down as predicted, but it’s the underperformance of Prince Caspian that shakes everything up.

The post-Memorial Day session can open big (Finding Nemo did that in 2003), but it’s usually reserved as a breathing weekend after the holiday. The fact that two films outpaced expectations this year might mean that it’ll be targetted for more counter-programming options in the future.

June’s already off to a rocking start, with openings from Kung Fu Panda and Zohan that beat my predictions. While the summer is still behind last year, it might be able to catch up. We’ll have to wait and see.

As a box office month, there are two distinct parts of August. The first half can often be a continuation of a strong July, with a number of well-performing and high profile films. These won’t usually be on par with the releases in the first half of the season, but on occasion there will be some particular standouts. The Rush Hour series, Talledega Nights, The Bourne Ultimatum, Signs, and The Sixth Sense are all films that have done exemplary business after an early August start.

The latter half of the month is very much a summer dumping ground. Films that the studios feel don’t have enough presence or power to hang it in the rest of the season will get shuffled off to the final couple of weeks. (Films that aren’t deemed good enough for the final weeks of summer will get moved to early September, which is traditionally even worse.)

This feast or famine dichotomy is only broken in a few cases. Only five of the top thirty largest opening weekends in August have come after the second weekend. One of those came from last year’s Halloween, over the Labor Day weekend. Two others were late summer surprises from Judd Apatow - Superbad and The 40 Year Old Virgin.

So with the stage set, we look forward to 2008. Will it follow the pattern?

Weekend of August 1

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

In the 19 years since the last time Indiana Jones took to fighting his way through the nooks and crannies of human history, there have been a few attempts to capitalize upon the archeological adventure genre. Perhaps the earliest came in 1994 with Stargate, which started off Roland Emmerich’s directing career and also spun off a popular TV series. However, in that case the archeological elements played second fiddle to the sci-fi elements. More recently there have been the National Treasure films. Despite the implausibility of the plots and very America-centric themes, they’ve managed to capture the fun adventure of the Indy films.

In between the two were The Mummy films, which were very much in the theme of Indiana Jones, both with the time period and sometimes bumbling heroics. However, after the second film in 2001, attempts to get a stumbled time and again. 2002 saw a spin-off Scorpion King movie, which started The Rock’s film career.

Now, after seven years, we get the third film in the series. On one hand, it looks like a fun film, with Brendan Fraser filling his old shoes at least as well as before, Jet Li providing the titular Dragon Emperor, and Maria Bello taking over for Rachel Weisz. It’s well situated to be a big late summer movie, as it comes two weeks after The Dark Knight and doesn’t see another action/adventure contender for another two weeks. And Stephen Sommers (unseen behind the camera since Van Helsing) has passed on the director’s chair in favor of Rob Cohen (unseen since Stealth)–oh, wait, was I looking for positives?

Well, for all his faults, Cohen does a good action sequence, at least. Hopefully he won’t lose on the humor of the series.

The downside, though? It’s been seven years! And while they sold well, The Mummy films aren’t something that stands as a high point in cinematic history. It’s similar in tone, but it isn’t Indiana Jones, and I’m not sure if anyone was clamoring for another film (well, besides Brendan Fraser). Witness how well Rush Hour 3 did last year, and that was after a six year gap.

As a possible offset against that, they’re not billing it as a specific sequel. It’s got The Mummy name, but I wonder if they could just have gone with The Dragon Emperor instead.

Opening: $40m, Final: $130m

The Rocker

One of the strongest staples of the comedy genre is the man who refuses to grow up. A number of comedy giants such as Steve Martin or John Belushi can trace their movie roots to this. These characters will fall into a few somewhat distinct characters, whether it’s the perennial frat-boy (think Vince Vaughn), the Peter Pan (Robin Williams), or the idiot man-child . The last has been quite popular of late, with Will Ferrell, Steve Carell, and at least one character in any given Judd Apatow movie try to fill the shoes vacated by Jim Carrey and to a lesser Adam Sandler, who’s been drifting away from this role for the past few years.

The Rocker doesn’t start any of these people, but at first glance it seems like it could be an Apatow production. It’s got the mixture of slightly heartwarming family touches along with observing the humor of maturing and growing up. And it’s got one of Steve Carell’s co-stars from The Office in Rainn Wilson, who had a brilliant cameo spot in last year’s Juno. Wilson portrays a drummer who was ousted from a band in the 80s just before they hit it big. When he’s invited to perform with his nephew’s band at a Prom, he’s given a second chance at stardom. Hilarity ensues.

The film is directed by Peter Cattaneo, who managed to combine heartwarming with risque in The Full Monty. It doesn’t really have any standout names otherwise, so the success is largely going to come on the basis of the advertising. The initial trailer looks funny, but doesn’t quite have the Must See aspect that propelled last year’s Superbad to great heights. It’s also sandwiched between two much comedies.

Opening: $15, Final: $55m

Swing Vote

For all the flack he gets, Kevin Costner has put together a rather respectable career. Certainly, when compared to his big three movies from the early 90s (Dances with Wolves, Robin Hood, and The Bodyguard) it’s looked rather lackluster, but he’s managed to carve a niche out for himself as a mid-tier lead who can do just about anything. He’s managed to do action, romance, westerns, and thrillers with fairly equal success. Certainly he’s not breaking the bank, but you can probably pen him into opening a film to $10 million with a final total around $30 million. The occasional breakout could push him north of $50m.

And he’s cheap, so you can probably figure that any film he’s in won’t cost much more than $20m to make. But he’s often criticized and his films regarded as failures. Such is the legacy of Waterworld.

Swing Vote is a dramedy where through a bit of plot goldbergisms, Costner is an everman who ends up having the vote who will determine the next US President. Both candidates (Republican incumbent Kelsey Grammar and Democratic nominee Denis Hopper) descend to try and influence this improbably important single vote directly.

The release of the film is fairly topical, as most political movies (and especially any campaign-centered film) usually are. Most films of this sort tend to be a bit mercenary. Witness Robin Williams’ Man of the Year from 2006, for instance. Even when well done, political films tend to be a bit offputting. We go to films for escapism, and reminding us of reality doesn’t tend to sell. 1997’s Wag the Dog was a bit of spot-on commentary, but a bit too close to reality. The numerous failed Middle East war films of the past couple of years can also be attributed to this.

In its favor, Swing Vote doesn’t seem to be bending down that path. The focus is instead upon the everyman Costner. On one hand, we’ve got the focus on the hometown americans. On the other, there’s the fantasy of “What if a normal person could make some changes”.

Because of this, I don’t think it’s going to get quite the cold reception that most political films do. Few even get to the $40 million mark. The only in the past decade that’s even got that far was the remake of The Manchurian Candidate. Instead, I think it’s going to play a bit like 1993’s Dave.

Open: $10m, Final: $45m

Weekend of August 8

The Pineapple Express

The Apatow train keeps chugging along. after getting started with Anchorman in 2004, Apatow and crew hit it big in 2005 with The 40-Year old Virgin. A year later they knocked one out of the park with Talledega Nights. And then last year Apatow had the huge comedy tandem of Knocked Up and Superbad. This spring, he was also behind the modest hit Forgetting Sarah Marshall.

The Pineapple Express sees Knocked Up star Seth Rogen taking the lead along with Spiderman’s James Franco. Rogen plays a stoner process server and Franco is his friendless dealer. When Rogen witnesses a murder by a crooked cop and a drug lord, the pair end up embroiled into the age-old comedy routine of buddies-on-the-run.

So we’ve got part stoner comedy, and part action-buddy comedy. In a sense, I think this is going to play a bit like an American version of an Edgar Wright film. The buddy element is a bit odd here because the vast majority of such films have the leads playing police officers or similar. Because of this, the film feels somewhat fresh, despite some standard conventions.

Both Apatow and Rogen are likely to hit more than they’ll miss. While they’ve had Walk Hard and Drillbit Taylor, respectively, the number of successes in their career lends a lot of strong support. Additionally, Rogen has gone from unknown to box-office boosting lead in the course of one summer.

Open: $30m, Final: $110m

The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants 2

In truth, there’s one reason this film should stand out as notable. Last October, after Warner Bros. saw the absolute failure of The Invasion and the disappointing performance of The Brave One, production president Jeff Robinov declared that WB wouldn’t be making movies starring women any more.

He quickly backtracked on the statement (saying it wasn’t true, or he’d been misheard, or the context was misunderstood), but as expected there was a large furor over it. I sat down and scoured the schedule. Over the course of the next year, three films could be said to star women from the WB library (so through September 08.) The first two were P.S. I Love You and Fool’s Gold, blatantly labeled as romance films. The third is this one, a junior chick-lit adaptation with some romance elements but (as with its predecessor) a bit more focused on friendship and growing up.

The first film was a modest success three years ago, opening to just under $10m and finishing up with $39m. This is perfectly respectable for the teen girl market, but isn’t a breakout (witness The Princess Diaries). This summer sees a bit of a dearth of such films, however, which could help propel this one to somewhat larger heights.

Open: $10m, Final: $45m

Weekend of August 15

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

The Star Wars series stands as the epitomy of box office success, with the six films all registering among the biggest in their given years and bringing combined billions in revenue. Previous to the release of The Phantom Menace in 1999, fans were anticipating and awaiting two trilogies: the first the prequels that we did get and the latter to cover events that happened after Return of the Jedi. The somewhat let-down of the three recent films has dampened that enthusiasm somewhat, but the name and universe still has a lot of public appeal.

With the unknown final trilogy likely in permanent limbo, Lucasfilm has instead looked towards other endeavors, fleshing out the nooks and crannies of the universe in various ways. For the most part, video games, comics, and novels have been the typical venues for this expansion, but in 2003 a series of cartoon shorts began to fill in the storyline between Episodes II and III. Entitled “Clone Wars”, this series was created by Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack) and generated some rather strong acclaim, something that can’t really be said of Lucas’ own endeavors.

Fast forward to the present. Those TV shorts have become the basis of a new film that’s going to flesh out the storyline even more and then spin-off into a new TV series this fall. This time, it’s going to be done in some slick CG animation.

In a lot of ways, this could be very good. Lucas himself isn’t directly involved, so the people at work can probably keep things fresh and interesting. The visual style is a nice change of pace and could help keep the idea of Star Wars interesting. No mean feat when you consider the series is over thirty years old, now. The TV series itself seems to have a good premise with some episodes focused on smaller side characters and some that don’t feature much beyond the titular clones.

Of course, this is about the movie, and it feels a bit more stale. We’ve got an adventure quest featuring the typical Jedi heroes (including Anakin, as this comes before his Vader turn in Episode III). I can’t help but feel that the one thing Lucas really missed in the new trilogy that continues here is that the fun of Star Wars is in the scrappy rebels taking on improbable odds and succeeding, not in the hokey mysticism of the Jedi. Han Solo was an identifiable, flawed and enticing figure in a way that none of the newer characters have tried to match.

Plus, the first trailer for the film is extremely bland, perhaps one of the worst I’ve ever seen. It runs long, gives away much of the story, and has some groaningly awful taglines: “SEE STAR WARS LIKE YOU’VE NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE”. It might have worked 20 years ago, but not any more.These things need to be snappy, grab the audience attention and leave them salivating for more. That’s what gets them into the theaters.

Opening: $45m, Final: $140m

Tropic Thunder

Except for The Clone Wars, the end of August seems to be the typical film dumping ground. So why is this possibly priming itself to being one of the most anticipated films of the summer?

Three words: Robert Downey, Jr.

Iron Man transformed Downey from a well regarded actor who’s the butt of many jokes for his off-screen foibles. It’s a career-changing role somewhat akin to Johnny Depp’s in Pirates of the Caribbean. And Paramount cannily attached a trailer of Tropic Thunder to Iron Man, starting off what I expect is a summer-long campaign to whet audience’s appetites.

The concept: an film director, irate with the egos of his actors ruining his Vietnam War epic sends them off for some training in the jungle where they end up embroiled in a real conflict. At just that it could probably be a passable but ultimately forgettable film.

However, Downey’s performance drives the concept over the top. He’s a well-regarded Australian actor who undertakes a surgery so he can play a black sergeant in the film. So driven is he to immerse himself in the role that he refuses to break character. Of course since he has no idea how to be black, he’s left with quoting lines from sitcoms.

The trailer is absolutely hilarious. Downey’s joined by Ben Stiller (as the action hero), and Jack Black (as the prop-joke comic actor), each filling their actor role to a T. And even if Stiller sometimes tickles the annoyance meter, he’s also behind the camera this time, and his last film from that end was the brilliant Zoolander. I expect Tropic Thunder to deliver accordingly.

The downside is that it plays at the end of summer. There’s a long road between now and then and while the first trailer is brilliant, they run the risk of over-exposing it. Also, the actors playing actors in a movie schtick could be a bit too meta and may turn audiences off.

But they should be fine if they keep selling Downey.

Open: $35m, Final: $110m

The International

Clive Owen as an interpol agent investigating corruption in global banking with Naomi Watts as his DA assistant. It’s directed by Tom Tykwar whos’ most known for Run Lola Run. None of the principles are box office draws, and given the release date, I don’t think that there’s any huge expectations for it.

Open: $10m, Final: $35m

Mirrors

A remake of a Korean horror film. While Asian horror remakes were a popular genre a few years ago, it’s become quite tired, and by now it’s very ho-hum. The Eye and Shutter, both earlier this year, failed to draw much. I don’t think Mirrors will do any better. Star Keifer Sutherland is big on TV, not in movies.

Open: $5m, Final: $15m

Weekend of August 22

The House Bunny

I swear someone wrote this script with Reese Witherspoon in mind: an Playboy Bunny is kicked out of the Mansion for being too old at 27. Directionless, she ends up a sorority house mother for a bunch of geeky girls and shows them how to be beautiful. Presumably there will be lessons learned about being true to oneself or somesuch.

Witherspoon has mostly moved on from these sorts of films thanks to her Oscar from Walk the Line. Instead we get Anna Faris, who’s talented but mostly known for the Scary Movie series.

This is unlikely to break out. The trailer has some fairly typical laughs as Faris plays a bubblehead who’s only got a few very specific skills. It’s also somewhat offensive; women don’t need to go the route of Playboy to be beautiful. Plus it’s got the typical Hollywood ugly going on: hot girls with their hair up and glasses, just a layer of rouge away from the red carpet.

Opening: $10m, Final: $30m

The Accidental Husband

A romantic comedy from fledgling distributor Yari Film Group (biggest film to date: The Illusionist). We’ve got Uma Thurman as a radio talk-show host who dispenses romance advice. Due to some internet shenanigans, she ends up married to a fireman (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) while she’s planning her own wedding to Colin Firth.

RomComs can sell very well, but they are somewhat subject to name recognition issues. For this film, there really aren’t any. Thurman is known, but her biggest films are all directed by Quentin Tarantino. With this she could be attempting to remake herself as a romantic lead, but it’s an iffy shot, especially coming from Yari.

Opening: $5m, Final: $20m

Death Race

Another year, another late summer Jason Statham film primed for the Labor Day weekend. He’s had a number of these over the past several years, somewhat setting himself up as the go-to action guy for what is typically the weakest holiday weekend of the year. Hey, if it works.

The biggest film he’s headlined was The Transporter 2 in 2005. Two years ago he had Crank, which proved to be an enjoyable action-fest and finished up with $27m. Last year’s WAR had him face off against Jet Li and saw $22m in business.

This time around he’s starring in a remake of Death Race 2000. It’s being directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, last seen behind the camera with Alian Vs. Predator. Like Statham, he’s carved out a lower-profile niche for himself.

Nothing great should be expected here, but it does have Statham behind the wheel of a car, which is a good sign (he also sat behind the wheel in The Italian Job, his biggest film).

Opening: $10m, Final: $25m

Crossing Over

This could be a powerful drama about immigrants attempting to achieve legal status in Los Angeles. It’s got some pedigree with Harrison Ford and Sean Penn, but I wonder about the quality if it’s got such a shitty release date.

Open: $5m, Final: $15m, but it could end up like Crash

Fly Me to the Moon

A Belgian CG animated film that’s apparently the first such feature entirely done in 3D. The only other notable thing about it is that Buzz Aldrin apparently provides a voice. Visually it looks fine, if a bit too strongly reminiscent of Pixar, but story-wise it looks entirely pedestrian and forgettable.

Open: $5m, Final: $10m

Weekend of August 29

Babylon A.D.

In 2000, Pitch Black set up Vin Diesel for a breakout. He successfully capitalized on it with 2001’s The Fast and the Furious and then followed it up with XXX in 2002. He seemed like he was primed to be the next big action star. However, A Man Apart failed to succeeded and The Chronicles of Riddick disappointed.

The Pacifier in 2005 seemed to indicate he might have a new career direction: family oriented action comedy. But since then he hasn’t appeared in anything. He was slated to star in Hitman, but opted instead to go for Babylon A.D., which seems like it could be a less cerebral Children of Men.

This isn’t likely to be a career revitalization. The film was hit by numerous production delays, went over-budget, and has seen its release bumped from February to late August, which isn’t a good sign. At best it may turn out to be a middling hit for Diesel, but is certainly a step down from his career heights.

Open: $20m, Final: $45m

College

On the cusp of going back to school, a low-brow comedy about a group of high schoolers who take a weekend trip to see what college is like. While it’d probably like to be another Road Trip, it doesn’t even have the name recognition of Tom Green to drive it. Perhaps Accepted would be a better target, but it doesn’t have a cute concept or a good trailer. So it’s left with Eurotrip. Not really great company.

Open: $8m, Final: $15m

Traitor

Don Cheadle is awesome. Guy Pearce is pretty cool. This film may be critically good, but it’s not going to go anywhere.  It may not even get a wide release.

Open: $2m, Final: $5m

Disaster Movie

This is another effort by the same guys who brought us Date Movie, Epic Movie, and Meet the Spartans. Spoof films have been experiencing diminishing returns of late, as audiences come to realize that they’re not very funny or good. Given that the budget for any of these seems to be about $20-$30m, we’re probably not long from the tipping point where it’s no longer viable to make them.

Open: $5m, Final: $10m

Overall

We’re probably not going to see much that breaks the typical August pattern. The early films will be fairly big, while the late ones are the dregs that get shoved off to the side. If anything breaks out and surprises, it’s likely to be Tropic Thunder.

After each month, I’ll look into writing up a recap of how things did in comparison to my predictions.

Weekend of July 4

Hancock
On a personal note, this has been my most anticipated film of the summer for some time. It represents something I rather like: an attempt to establish a superhero outside of a comics continuity and consciousness. For other examples, see The Incredibles and the TV series Heroes.

What’s important with these is that they tap into the core strength of the superhero genre without relying on the extensive, and often muddy and conflicting, backstory. The success of these tends to support the fact that well-done superhero stories don’t need either the public consciousness nor the print media to succeed. While the former is helpful (invariably, the more well-known the hero is the better the movie is going to perform, regardless of quality), the latter might actually be a detriment. Arguably the success of Spider-Man, X-Men, and Iron Man is due to the filmmakers stripping out as much of the excess and detritus to have the films focus on the core aspects of the characters.

The Incredibles showcased how well this works. We don’t need to know the full history of the supers. It’s hinted at and shown, but a lexicon isn’t necessary. Thus, the story can instead focus on the plot and character development rather than the minutia.

Hancock is another such attempt, so I’m excited. Plus, it stars Will Smith, who’s just about the most consistent actor working today. He’s had an interesting movie career which can be broken into a few different sections, but in almost all of them, he’s been a rousing success. What’s really interesting is that Hancock seems to be a meshing of the formula of his early success (big budget July 4th event films) with his recent success (intelligent films with broad appeal). While he might not ever get back to the heights that Independence Day reached in 1996, he is coming off the second biggest unadjusted film of his career in I Am Legend. Considering that the film was basically him and nothing else, that’s quite an achievement.

Hancock’s got a neat premise, cushy release date, and the biggest star in Hollywood.

Opening: $70m, Final: $230m

Weekend of July 11

Hellboy II: The Golden Army
Another interesting superhero film. The first Hellboy is one of the top film adaptations of a comic book. Guillermo del Toro is an excellent director who manages to get across the core strengths of the characters as well as an ability to deliver strong spectacle on a budget. Blade II is easily the best film of that trilogy, and there’s a reason he’s been tapped to do the Hobbit films.

Of course, while Hellboy is excellent, it’s not a big film. Made for $66m, it didn’t even gross $100m worldwide, which would normally forego any chances of a sequel. But it’s probably apparent that it’s lack of success wasn’t due to quality but rather that nobody fucking knows who Hellboy is. I’ve been reading comics for over 20 years, and I didn’t actually read a Hellboy book until late last year. Public consciousness drives some of the success for these figures, and there isn’t any here.

Of course, the quality of the first film, along with a fairly effective (if a bit pedestrian) trailer should help Hellboy II do better. I don’t think we’re in for a spectacular ride, but it should be yet another solid outing from del Toro.

Opening: $30m, Final: $75m

Meet Dave
Eddie Murphy’s career has been a roller coaster. In the 80s, he had a series of successful films that put him among the most successful actors of the decade. The early 90s saw him made a number of poor choices and it seemed like his career was all but over.

Then came The Nutty Professor in 1996 and for a couple years he was hot like the 80s, although his target audience had dropped a good decade or two in age.

He followed that up with a cold spell for two years, and then a small but huge resurgence in 2000 and 2001, centered on the release of Shrek. Not content to rest on his successful laurels, he had three outright bombs in 2002.

For any other actor, three sustained poor periods would probably be a deathknell, but in 2003, Murphy started another strong period with Daddy Day Care, which hasn’t really ended.

The quality of most of his films isn’t there, with offerings like Daddy Day Care and Norbit being derided by almost everyone. Even the Shrek sequels have been denigrated. But Murphy’s shown that he’s a consistent draw, if a bit juvenile, and he did manage to squeeze in a critically acclaimed performance in Dreamgirls.

So where does this leave Meet Dave. From the trailer, it looks like the typical fare that Murphy’s delivered over the past five years. Pedestrian, juvenile, and funny in a lowest-common-denominator way. Whether or not it succeeds will probably depend on whether it’s forgettably funny or offensive to the viewer.

I’m inclined to think that he might be headed for another career downturn, but he’s got plenty of staying power and could be back in short order.

Opening: $25m, Final: $70m

Journey to the Center of the Earth
Walden Media is a troublesome company. While there’s the obvious high point (The Chronicles of Narnia), and a string of other moderately successful book adaptations (Because of Winn-Dixie, The Waterhorse, Nim’s Island), most of the company’s output has been in the range of disappointing (Charlotte’s Web) or an absolute bomb (Hoot, How to Eat Fried Worms, The Seeker, Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium).

In fact, besides Narnia, there’s really only two standout successes: Holes in 2003, and Bridge to Terabithia in 2007. Were it not for CS Lewis, I’d honestly be surprised if we’d even see anything from the company right now.

This time around, I think we’re looking at another bomb. See, Journey to the Center of the Earth bears a lot of similarity to the worst mark on Walden’s record: Around the World in 80 Days. Like that it’s an effects driven film based on a Jules Verne novel that is squarely focused on the family-friendly bracket.

It also doesn’t look very good. This can probably look at slightly better business than Around the World, but certainly nothing to be proud of.

Opening, $15m, Final: $40m

Weekend of July 18

The Dark Knight
Like Hellboy, this is the sequel to a well-done comic book film, helmed by a director noted for the quality of his craft and ability to evoke depth in the characters and keeping the narrative gripping. Unlike Hellboy, this has name recognition to spur it to greater heights.

Batman Begins was a phenomenal film. Lifting the Batman franchise back to new heights, it also established itself as a new bar to measure the introductory film for a superhero. However, it was somewhat crippled by the WB marketing engine, lack of recognizable enemies, and the fact that the sour taste of Joel Schumacher hadn’t quite left the public consciousness.

Three years later, Batman’s probably going to stand on his own. Plus, he’s got his most recognizable villain in the Joker to face off against, looking especially psychotic and absolutely gripping as portrayed by the late Heath Ledger. Gone is the 60s-esque tomfoolery of Jack Nicholson, this is a Joker that rides on fear, not laughs.

Early concerns about the script have been washed away by the advertising, which is uncharacteristically strong for a WB film. The first trailer made it look like an enticing continuation of the previous, but the new one in front of Iron Man catapults it beyond. Like Spiderman and the X-men, it seems as if the second Batman film is going to be in a league of its own, quality-wise.

Opening: $85m, Final: $270m

Mamma Mia!
Thanks largely to the modest success of Moulin Rouge! in 2001, musicals have had a bit of a comeback this decade. Chicago in 2002 can be pointed as the ideal goal: excellent business and critical acclaim.

Of course, the success hasn’t always been coming. The Phantom of the Opera, Rent, and The Producers were, like Chicago, adaptations of Broadway musicals with similarly high aspirations. However, they didn’t garner either the box office success of the movie predecessors or their own live performance counterparts.

Even Dreamgirls (an original production, but the clearest spiritual successor to Chicago) failed to live up to hype and expectations. It seemed like the genre was taking its steps towards obscurity again.

Then Hairspray hit. Possibly the biggest surprise success of last summer, it managed to ride that often-ignored demographic-the teenage girl-to astounding success. Even the frankly weird and a bit offputting John Travolta in drag couldn’t hamper it.

Mamma Mia! seems like it’s well situated to take up the baton and run with it. It’s got a bunch of catchy tunes (from ABBA, possibly the greatest producers of pop of all time), easy to grasp and upbeat plot, and practically the same release date. If nothing else, it’s a brilliantly placed bit of counter-programming against Batman.

But wait. It lacks one thing that Hairspray had: teenagers. The plot centers around a wedding and a bride-to-be with three possible fathers, which skews a bit older than Hairspray’s crowd. Even so, I think it’ll see a fair bit of success, even if not quite at those heights.

Opening: $25m, Final: $80m

Space Chimps
In the realm of computer animated films, there are two groups: the high budget, high performance options from Dreamworks, Pixar, and Blue Sky Studios and just about everything else.

Space Chimps falls into the second group. It might be good, or at least enjoyable, but it’s not going to be big. Patrick Warburton likely has yet another fun role to add to his resume, but it’s not a breakout.

Opening: $10m, Final: $35m

Weekend of July 25

Step Brothers
Since 2003, Will Ferrell has been struggling under the auspice of being the next huge comedy star as the true successor of Jim Carrey. In that year, he stole the show in Old School and then followed it up with the monster hit Elf, both of which established him as a go-to guy to play idiot man-children.

Since then he’s mostly failed to capitalize. Anchorman in 2004 was well received, but Steve Carell upstaged him in a big way. 2005 brought Kicking and Screaming and Bewitched, neither of which satisfied or delivered. In 2006, he provided his voice to the underperforming Curious George, but also headlined Talledega Nights, which finally made it seem like he was delivering on his potential. He seemed like he was on a roll with Blades of Glory last March, but just this year he crashed hard with Semi-Pro.

And now we’re at Step Brothers. The initial signs seem good for the film. It bears some similarity to Talledega Nights. Like that film, Ferrell co-wrote the script with director Adam McKay. Also, he has costar John C. Reilly and a similar release date.

The initial trailer showcases Ferrell’s strength, with both him and Reilly playing immature middle-aged men. And despite both of them skeweing heavily idiotic (they both live with their parents, who get married, hence the step brother scenario), the roles don’t feel annoying and excessive, which may have been the damning point for Semi Pro.

Opening: $35, Final: $115.

The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Ten years after the first theatrical film, and six years since the end of the TV series, Agents Mulder and Scully return for another adventure. Unlike the previous movie, this one stands alone from the mythos of the series, instead following the monster-of-the-week formula used in some episodes. In effect, it’s an extra long episode, six years after the fact.

The first film did quite well, opening to $30m and finishing with $84m. It did even better overseas, earning $105m. And this isn’t an attempt to just cash in on the name. Stars Duchovny and Anderson are back, as is series creator Chris Carter, this time in the director’s chair. If nothing else, it should be a faithful extension of the original series, likely to please the fans and with potential to drag in some new ones.

However, I wonder about the timing. Fans of the series certainly still exist, but in the intervening time, they’ve likely moved onto other things. Lost, for example. And it hasn’t been so long that nostalgia for the series has set in.

On the other hand, it could be well primed to take that genre fansbase and expand it. I doubt anyone involved expects huge things, but if the film has quality and manages to deliver some positive response, it could re-establish the series for the big screen.

Or it could be another Serenity.

Opening: $25m, Final: $65m.

American Teen
So, take your prototypical high school movie, focusing on senior year. Showcase a slice from all the cliques as these students struggle with the end of their school lives and look forward to moving on and up in the world.

Fairly typical fare, right?

Except this time it’s a Sundance Award winning documentary.

I really have no idea what to expect from this film, but it’s getting a wide release, which is usually reserved for Michael Moore… and penguins.

Opening: $3m, Final: $10m, but it could take off, too.

Overall
While the two huge films should dominate over the month, it’s there’s a number of potentially solid releases. Certainly unlike May, studios are more willing to cram films into the theaters, even against hefty competition like Batman.

August predictions will likely have to wait another month or so. It’s getting to be difficult to find any trailers. I predict The Mummy 3 will have its first in front of Indiana Jones.

My expectations for Speed Racer were understandably low. This was, after all, a directorial effort by the Wachowski brothers, who’d managed one of the bigger surprise blockbusters in 1999 with The Matrix, but managed to spin that into one of the most soul-deadening sequels of all time in 2003. (Actually, two soul-deadening sequels, but the second was so bad I still haven’t seen the third all the way through.)

However, I had to acknowledge that they do have a certain visual flair. And while not strictly behind the camera, they’d helped put together the enjoyable V for Vendetta adaptation.

The visual flair was readily apparent from the trailers. They had amped up the visuals to a stunning degree with colors just popping out all over the place in the more-than-real sense of high dynamic range photography. On multiple occasions after the first trailer came out, I had a friend describe it as watching a live-action Mario Kart race.

In this sense, the film delivers. The visuals are spot-on throughout. However, I’d have to disagree with my friends. This isn’t Mario Kart, but instead another Nintendo franchise: F-Zero. The cars are not little buggies with weapons, but overpowered machines on gravity-defying tracks where only the slightest loss of control spells the (near) doom of the driver.

That sense barely restrained power is pushed further because these are not just straight muscle races. The cars collide, drift, and skid around the tracks in the sense of a stunt-induced stock car race, but also twist and jump thanks to otherworldly add-ons. Physics, indeed reality itself, is put on hold in an almost loving attachment for the ridiculousness of the original anime.

This is perhaps the greatest strength of the film. The Wachowskis seemed to realize that what they were trying to portray would only be ruined if they attempted to make it realistic. Instead, this might be one of the purest attempts to create a presentational world, that bears little connection to our own, in live-action film. In a sense, it’s like they tapped into the psyches of Spike Jonze and Michael Gondry although without stating that what is happening is all in someone’s mind.

To achieve this, they’ve made this new reality futuristic, certainly, but tied strictly to the style and sense of the 50s and 60s era that begat the original. Hence the bright vibrant colors, of course, but a number of smaller details stand out. The characters themselves all look like they’ve been plucked from a bygone era, perhaps typified most by Susan Sarandon’s flip haircut. The Racer household even more emphasizes this nostalgia, with the wallpaper, furnishings, and even the basic layout looking like it belongs in late 1950s suburbia.

The musical score by Michael Giacchino is an interesting and positive addition to support the overall tone. It samples heavily from the classic anime soundtrack, but rather than taking the sound and modernizing it, the sound is rather made to create that 60s-era sensibility. Giacchino jumped back several decades, spurning techno or rock updates and even choosing to skip on the John Williams-esque orchestrations from the 70s. The score sounds like it might have come from the mind of Hugo Montenegro, and it works perfectly.

The result is a film that, short of 3-D, might be the most likely to jump out at the screen. The races are enjoyable and exciting and linked by slower scenes that at their core show appreciation and nostalgia for the mid-century American family unit.

It’s not perfect, however. At times the race action gets too active and confusing, much the way last year’s Transformers did. At times it would have been beneficial for the Wachowskis to slow things down a bit so we can get drawn into the action more. Rather than sitting on the sidelines with the family, we’d prefer to be behind the wheel with Speed. While we are the movies audience, it doesn’t make sense to also make us spectators to the races themselves.

And despite the excitement in the video game sense, there is a bit of predisposition to the races. We’re never really left with the sense that Speed or Racer X are in any real danger. The one time Speed does lose is first foreshadowed (or predicted), but the action event itself happens off-screen. This makes it more difficult to connect and again creates the sense that we’re not being invited to fully enjoy the world that’s been created.

The film has other problems. The writing is uneven and overly long, which probably makes the entire picture about 15-20 minutes too long. This is really a shame, because the first race sequence manages to fairly successfully blend a somewhat involved and complex backstory into the present action, a rather nifty cinematic trick. After that, the plot proceeds in a fairly pedestrian manner. I can’t help but think how much better it would have worked if they had tried to increase the information density along with the visual density.

Also, the acting is rather bad. Emile Hirsch is a passable Speed, but in truth it probably could have been any young actor behind the wheel. Christina Ricci is an enjoyable Trixie, showing sass and independence, and looks wonderfully alluring, but this isn’t stretching her acting chops any. Roger Allam is an enjoyable bad guy, but he’s also overacting enough to evoke Alan Rickman from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. I believel Allam would have eaten all the scenery, if it actually existed. And then there’s Matthew Fox as Racer X, who looks and sounds completely wooden throughout. Apparently Keanu Reeves turned down the part; The Wachowskis must have told Fox to just be like Keanu.

Still, I’m left somewhat surprised that the good outweighs the bad for the film. It’s not great by any stretch, and I’m not sure if I’d ever want or need to see it again, but it’s an enjoyable two hours, and given the visual feast, I can’t say that the time or money spent on the IMAX experience was wasted.

It’s a shame, really, that in the weeks leading into the release, the reception started to tank. The blame can probably be laid at the hands of WB’s ever-vigilent marketing department. Few companies are so good at turning potentially strong products into mediocre-at-best performers. Because of that, we’ll probably not see another attempt like this for quite some time. And while the Wachowskis may not have fully succeeded in making a good film, they did succeed in doing something quite different and doing it well. If this had been successful, perhaps we’d be in for a real treat: a fully presentational film that’s visually stunning and good cinema.

The course of the summer movie season tends to follow a fairly standard pattern. Or at least, that’s what the movie studios attempt to do. May is the place to showcase a few huge films, possibly with a smaller number of counter-programming options. After Memorial Day, things will tend to lighten up, so that early June is relatively light. Over the subsequent weeks, the films will build, culminating around early July. A few weeks later, things will begin to tail off again until you get to late August, when it’s hardly the same season.

The May films followed the typical pattern. There’s a couple huge sequels, another couple large budget endeavors (that hopefully spawn sequels) and a few counter-programming options.

June (and the last weekend in may) starts of comparatively light, but the end of the month could go toe-to-toe with any of the big May films.

Weekend of June 6

Kung Fu Panda
Dreamworks has built itself to be the solid animation alternative. Sure, none of their films compare to Pixar’s in quality, but they do make money, especially Shrek. But it’s not all the green ogre, as Madegascar, Shark Tale, and Over the Hedge all cruised past $150m.

Kung Fu Panda could get into that range. Jack Black’s not exactly a huge draw, but despite Dreamworks’ efforts, the actors behind the roles really do not matter. The advertising is fairly cute, even if the use of “Kung Fu Fighting” is extremely tired.

We’re not seeing much of the plot, but given DW’s track record, it’s probably enjoyable, but not spectacular, opting instead for a number of pop-cultural references and sight gags rather than a developing plot and humor from the character development.

We’re probably not going to see stellar numbers, but it should do well enough.

Opening: $40m, Final: $135m

You Don’t Mess with the Zohan
Adam Sandler’s become one of the most consistent stars in Hollywood. Over the past ten years, he’s seen eight films cross the century mark, and this one should make it nine.

Whether or not the films are good doesn’t really matter. He provides a consistent product that the audiences enjoy, his characters are a bit bumbling, a bit loony, and possibly just shy of psychotic, while still being somewhat relatable.

This time around, he’s teamed up with Judd Apatow (who’s also got a bit of a golden touch for comedy of late) to deliver the tale of a Mossad agent who’s tired of allt he counter-terrorism and moves to New York to be a hairdresser. Hilarity ensues.

It’s really a bit of a toss-up between this film and Panda for which will be bigger, I’m inclined to think that this will actually be better, but the kids will drive the other a bit further.

Opening: $35, Final: $125

Weekend of June 13

The Incredible Hulk
The first Hulk film delivered the biggest (at the time) June opening in history. Unfortunately, it delivered little else, leaving critics and audiences alike somewhat bewildered and detached. As such, it fell spectacularly and barely earned again what it had in those first three days.

Even so, it didn’t lose money, and Universal decided to give it another go. Rather than a sequel, they’re trying to jump-start a series again. We’ll find out if you do get a second chance for first impressions. The film sports an all new cast, an all new director, and an all new approach to portraying the big green.

The most recent trailer, which aired in front of Iron Man, looks spectacular. It’s miles ahead of the earlier trailer, which made the oft-repeated mistake of showing us the entire film. This new one is an improvement, but it’s fighting a lot of negative baggage. If the film is going to over come that, it’ll have to be good. Perhaps not Iron Man good, but certainly at least as accessible as the first X-Men film.

Opening: $40, Final: $115

The Happening
Speaking of damaged goods, we’ve also got the latest offering from M. Night Shyamalan. Like his previous films, we’re probably in for a fair amount of creepy atmosphere and a twist ending that’s likely to be divisive.

The real question here is whether M. Night can bounce back from Lady in the Water and The Village. The quality of his direction isn’t in doubt. But his writing has become a big question mark. If The Happening can recover his bleeding fanbase, it speaks well for his career. If not, well, he may not have many chances.

In The Happening’s favor, it’s cheap (just $57m to make), and it looks pretty good. On the downside, the title is really, really dumb.

Opening: $25, Final: $70

Weekend of June 20

Get Smart
The reason why Hollywood keeps remaking old TV shows as movies is obvious. Nostalgia is a powerful market force. Anyone who’s grown up with a show is likely to wish for one more adventure. Obviously, over time it becomes impossible to recapture the sense of the original show exactly, so there is a greater or lesser degree of revision involved.

The downside is that most of these adaptations suck. A few (Mission Impossible, The Fugitive, Maverick) stand out as enjoyable and well-made on their own. The majority are terrible and audiences quite justifiably stay away.

In its favor, Steve Carell is the perfect casting choice. He’s not a huge draw, but has soem quiet consistency. The 40 Year Old Virgin did considerably better than expectation and he stood out among the whole cast in Anchorman. He’s provided his voice to two animated features (Horton Hears a Who! and Over the Hedge). And he’s shown some indie dramady cred with Little Miss Sunshine and Dan in Real Life.

The downside? Evan Almighty was one of the bigger disappointments last sumer, and it hit on the same weekend. Sure, it barely crossed $100m, but it’s not likely to be a resume highlight for Carell or anyone involved.

Where Get Smart ends up will likely depend on its quality. I’d like to say that the cast (besides Carell there’s the talented Anne Hathaway and the always enjoyable Rock) would help it, but I’m hesitant to call anyone here a huge draw.

Opening: $30, Final: $80 (with the opportunity to be surprised if it breaks out)

The Love Guru
In 1999, there was an alleged bet between Adam Sandler and Mike Myers over whose film would be bigger. Sandler had just seen his breakout year in 1998, with The Wedding Singer doing surprisingly strong business in the early months and The Waterboy cleaning up in the holidays. Myers hadn’t had a big hit since Wayne’s World in 1992, but Austin Powers did better than expected in 1997.

So the question was would Big Daddy (opening June 25) be bigger than Austin Powers 2 (opening June 11). At the time, Sandler probaby figured he had a good chance of winning and he would go to see the biggest film of his career. But thanks largely to a brilliant trailer before The Phantom Menace, Austin Powers 2 won by an easy $40 million.

I wonder if they’d make the same bet again this year. While arguably Myers has been the bigger star since then, he’s only been in six films. Three of them are the Shrek films, huge and ’starring’ him, but not really sold by him. One was the third Austin Powers film, even bigger than the second but also six years old. One was the low-performing ensemble comedy View from the Top. An the final was the atrocious Cat in the Hat film, back in 2003.

Myers hasn’t starred in a live action film in over 4 years. I’m not sure he’s much of a draw at all. From the trailer, it looks like entirely typical Myers fare: he’s got an odd accent and plays a smarmy idiot.

Plus, it’s opening against another comedy, which has actors people still recognize, looks better, and actually has trailers that people can see.

If Sandler is looking to bet again, Myers would be wise to stay clear.

Opening: $30m, Final: $70m

Weekend of June 27

Wall-E
Is Pixar losing its touch?

Now, it’s seen six straight films gross over $200m. But since it’s high point of Finding Nemo in 2003, it’s seen steadily dropping grosses. Two years ago, Cars didn’t get the typically ecstatic critical response (settling for merely very good as opposed to outstanding) and felt like the weakest link in the studio’s oeuvre. Last year’s Ratatoille barely crossed the $200m threshold despite arguably being the company’s best film

So what about Wall-E. Will it continue the company’s rather steller direction? Will it see a further drop-off from Ratatoille? Or will it be a return to form?

I’m inclined to be bullish on Wall-E. While Ratatoille was spectacular, it suffered from a few problems: First, it’s about rats, not really a strong audience draw. Second, it was set in France, which tends to be denigrated by Americans at the best of times, and has been somewhat despised over the past several years. Third, the scope of the story was quite a bit smaller than previous Pixar films; there wasn’t nearly as much wow factor for it.

Wall-E managed to step around all three of those quite nicely. It’s about a robot who doesn’t have any nationality and he goes on an adventure in space. Plus, it looks brilliantly funny. Director Andrew Stanton delivered a home-run with Finding Nemo, so Wall-E is in good hands.

Opening: $75m, Final: $290m

Wanted
Truth be told, I wasn’t looking forward to this film until about a month ago. I’d tried to read Mark Millar’s series, but it was very typically Millar: full of unlikable protagonists with fascist ideologies. In The Authority it was interesting, in The Ultimates it was funny. Now it’s just a massive amount of treading over the same territory.

But then I found out about a name that means a lot more to me than Millar’s: Timur Bekmambetov. The director delivered one of the most enjoyable action films I’ve seen this decade in Night Watch.

And then I saw the trailer, which makes Wanted look like a slick and fun, if shallow, ride. Bekmambetov’s flair for action is playing well, and it should be quite a ride even if it’s ridiculous.

For the cast, the only real draw is Angelina Jolie, who’s had an uneven career. While she’s had some shining action films like Lara Croft: Tomb Raider and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, she’s also done poorly with Sky Captain and Beowulf. More often than not, she’s not so much the draw herself as along for the ride.

Regardless, the expectations for the film should be fairly modest. It’s a comic book property, but it’s definitely lower tier than anything from Marvel or DC. It’s closer to V for Vendetta, Sin City, or Constantine than Batman or the X-Men. Of course, it does have a fairly comfortable summer slot, while those previous films were more likely to show up in the winter months.

Opening: $35, Final: $90

Overall
Last June was a bit of an odd month, with the expected strong performers (Ratatoille, Evan Almighty) not quite hitting par and some under the radar films (Knocked Up, 1408) doing quite well for themselves. Even the films that hit it about right (Ocean’s Thirteen, FF: Silver Surfer), did well in their openings, but lost ground rapidly.

I think this year is an overall stronger crop. There’s top tier films look a little stronger than last years, so the bulk of the lifting isn’t going to fall to the lower-tier products.

It’s summer, so yet again, I dust off my predictor hat and make a guess for what the big films are going to do, business-wise. Last year, I made a long list of bold predictions here. Some of them are fairly close to reality (Knocked Up’s opening, for instance), some are laughably off course (Transformers, anyone?) I didn’t make such a post in 2006, but I did predict that Hulk never would have a sequel here, which I suppose is both true and false at the same time. This year, I’m hoping I’ll guess a bit better, but I don’t hold out hope.

Regardless, for your enjoyment and mine, my movie previews. I’m going to break it up into months. It’s a bit much to try and write the whole summer in one go.

Weekend of May 2

Iron Man
I’m conflicted about Marvel’s latest cinematic foray. Sure, it looks good. Robert Downey Jr. seems to have Tony Stark down perfectly. The visuals look awesome. And they seem like they’ve got the story down.

But, really, can the actual film be better than this trailer? Just look at it, you’ve got the story, the humor, the character… And then at the end, the pitch-perfect use of Black Sabbath. It’s just five chords, but it totally sells the film, and encapsulates a little 2 minute masterpiece of advertising.

That basically sells the film, though. It’s also got one of the prime weekends of the year and the still strong Marvel branding.

Still, I’ve got some reservations. The follow-up ads haven’t been nearly as strong. And Iron Man isn’t nearly the top-tier character that Spider-Man and the X-Men are. Hell, he’s not even as recognizable as the Hulk. Plus, while the trailers look good, it makes the film look really dense, like they’re trying to cram too much story into it. We don’t want another Spider-Man 3, after all.

Plus, the Iron Man in the film is all but a different entity than the Iron Man in the comics, where Tony Stark has become a neo-conservative fascist overlord. And in a non-ironic way: he’s being pitched as the top tier hero in Marvel’s line-up.

Granted, that will really only be a problem if someone wants to read the books after the film. For the opening, at least, it doesn’t make a difference.

Opening: $80m. Final: $220m.

Made of Honor
A fairly good looking romantic comedy that’s being served up as counter-programming for anyone seeking a little less testosterone. It looks funny, but isn’t likely to make any headlines.

Opening: $15m. Final: $50m.

Weekend of May 9

Speed Racer
This might be the most visually astonishing film of the summer. It’s like a high dynamic range photograph come to life in full Vegas splendor. And then there’s the action. A number of my friends mentioned how Mario Kart-like it was from the time they saw the first trailer.

If nothing else, the Wachowski Brothers are know for their spectacle. Despite the wooden delivery of Keanu Reeves, The Matrix was a breakout blockbuster, and still the biggest film ever that opened in April (aka, Hollywood’s litter box). And even if the sequels disappointed from just about every other standpoint, they mostly looked really good.

Speed Racer looks even better. It’s also got a bit of retro-nostalgia, although that might be about 5-10 years too late. Even so, it’s a recognized brand, possibly with in even greater public knowledge than Iron Man.

On the downside, it’s a bit weird, when you think about it. The cartoon is 40 years old. It’s also the first time an anime has been chosen for the big screen treatment in the US (despite fits and starts on a number of other projects over the past 15-20 years). There are a lot of questions as to whether there’s any crossover appeal in store.

Plus, while it looks visually spectacular, some of the lines uttered in the trailer make Keanu look like Alec Baldwin. Racer X looks especially bad, so we might be in store for another effects driven action-fest with laughably bad acting.

Even so, while it’s not as high profile as the other May releases, it should do fairly well.

Opening: $50m, Final: $140m.

What Happens in Vegas
The big question here is… does Ashton Kutcher have a fanbase? Since he’s taken the turn away from being a TV doofus to focus on movies, he’s done fairly well for himself. The Butterfly Effect, Guess Who, Open Season, and The Guardian all opened between $15m and $25m and had final tallies between $50m and $90m. Of course, he hasn’t headlined a film since the last two were released in September of ‘06, over 18 months ago.

Cameron Diaz has had a fairly successful movie career, but that’s less due to her pull and more that she’s been involved in some fairly high-profile releases.

On the whole it doesn’t look bad, but it doesn’t look great, either. Plus, two rom-coms in successive weeks as counterprogramming seems a bit excessive.

Opening: $12, Final: $45.

Weekend of May 16

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian
2005 was a weird year at the box office. It made news in mid-summer when someone noted how long it had been down compared to 2004. Even with the stellar performance of Revenge of the Sith, it wasn’t until the release of Fantastic Four that there was a year to year increase on the weekend for the summer.

While overall the year was a downer, there were some bright spots: Mr. & Mrs. Smith, Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and Wedding Crashers all provided some bright lift in June and July.

During the Holidays, while King Kong floundered a bit, especially to expectations, there were two huge films: Harry Potter 4 was the biggest since the Sorcerers Stone, and Narnia broke out in a huge way in December.

Despite some very uneven special effects, it managed to force its nearly to the $300m mark by remaining mostly fun and enjoyable throughout. It was certainly more entertaining than reading the book.

Prince Caspian looks like they’ve dispensed with the problems and amped up the action to really make it feel like a fantasy epic on par with Lord of the Rings. It should bring in the people just wanting a huge experience with ease. And it’s got the other big factor in its favor: Christianity.

As Passion of the Christ showed, the Christian market can be huge. If given the right incentive, it will mobilize to drive a film to astonishing heights. The Narnia films have that in spades. Combining that with the enjoyable experience of the first probably means it’s going to be even bigger.

Opening: $100, Final: $310.

Weekend of May 23

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
While I expect Narnia to be the biggest film of the summer, this is by far the most anticipated. The first three Indy films stand as one of the great adventure trilogies and, at least in quality, stand up very well to the original Star Wars films.

While the road it’s taken getting to the screen, 19 years since The Last Crusade, has been long and fitful, it almost seems as if George Lucas’ extremely picky nature regarding the film has paid off. The trailer looks great, combining the self-depricating heroism with the pulp adventure perfectly.

And, really, who the hell can resist that musical theme?

The downside is the weekend. While it’s always huge, Memorial Day still strikes me as a poor weekend to release a film given the extreme drop that any film, regardless of quality, experiences afterwards.

However, expect it to open huge.

Opening: $90m (three day, $150m five day), Final: $280m.

Postal
Uwe Boll has made a career of constructing adaptations of video games that are terrible. He’s well denigrated by movie aficionados and gamers alike. It’d be sad, except I’m pretty sure he’s just doing it as a tax break for German companies. I honestly doubt any of his films have lost any money.

He’s taking a bit of a turn here. Instead of the typical so-bad-it’s-no-longer-even-funny fare he’s churned out, he seems to have gone with hey-let’s-make-it-bad-and-funny.

I have to acknowledge that it does look bad. But it also looks funny. It could be worth a watch once it’s been sitting on the DVD shelves for a few months and you can find it for a couple bucks.

Not that it matters. Boll’s name alone ruins the box office potential. The fact it’s going up against Indy is suicide.

Opening: $2m, Final $5m.

Weekend of May 30

Sex and the City
It’s taking the spot of last year’s phenomenal performer Knocked Up, and it’s got a strong brand, but I don’t predict a rosy future for Sarah Jessica Parker and friends. For one, there’s no Judd Apatow behind the scenes, which would help the crossover appeal for a rom-com tremendously.

The TV series is really successful, but that’s never meant a big response in the theaters. Still, there’s two blank weekends for this market beforehand, and it’s possible that neither Made of Honor nor What Happens in Vegas will really drag in the audiences. Between that and possible event overload, crowds may really want to go for something different after Memorial Day.

Opening: $20m, Final: $70m.

The Strangers
Bleh. Torture Porn. Liv Tyler and Scott Speedman are not draws, either.

Opening: $8m, Final: $20m.

Overall
It’s going to be a disappointing May. Not really, but last year was so huge that even with all the threequels not performing up to hype or expectation, it drove the box office to spectacular heights. The films this May are strong, but none are on the level with last year, business-wise.

As the Secret Invasion has begun and we sit on the cusp of the Final Crisis, I’m going to take a step back and look rather hard at the state of (superhero) comics right now. I can’t help but think that the Big Two have really rather missed the whole point. It’s possible that we’re beyond some critical point and the future of comics is well and truly screwed.

I’d like to think differently, but the state of affairs in the two companies is so antithetical to actually being, um, successful.

Secret Invasion is the fourth of Marvel’s annual tie-in event miniseries (after House of M, Civil War, and World War Hulk), and the current culmination of story threads that Brian Michael Bendis has been laying out since Avengers Disassembled. That’s a storyline that’s been going back four years actively, and likely has threads going back even further (depending on what Bendis may have done before he started writing Daredevil and what he wants to mine from Marvel’s past.)

The initial response to the first issue has been fairly positive, indicating that Bendis has delivered the goods and presented what should be an enjoyable story. I expect that, much like the earlier miniseries, a good chunk of the story, and likely a few of the issues in the run, will be given over entirely to super-powered individuals beating the crap out of each other.

The series is going to sell very well. It’s got all the hallmarks of one of the most popular writers in comics (Bendis), a popular artist (Lionel Yu), a strong lead-up advertising campaign, and it’s got all the heavy-hitters from the Marvel U taking part. Fans are (and will) be eating it up.

Final Crisis hasn’t started yet, but it’s the culmination of a storyline that also ostensibly began in 2004 with Identity Crisis and Countdown to Infinite Crisis. While DC hasn’t quite done the annual event series like Marvel has, the leadup to Final Crisis is long. Infinite Crisis in 2005 led directly to the weekly series 52 which led directly to the weekly Countdown (to Final Crisis). There have literally been two years worth of weekly books from the end of the last huge event series to this one.

Expectations are high, but perhaps somewhat mitigated because Countdown has been rather lackluster. However, Final Crisis also has the popular writer (Grant Morrison), popular artist (J.G. Jones), and all the heavy-hitters doing lots of hitting each-other. The advertising campaign has been unsteady (the early ad “Who Lives, Who Dies, What Changes?” was particularly laughable), but ultimately it does seem to have similar promise to Secret Invasion.

Likewise, it’s going to sell well. As a story, it’s likely in good hands. Morrison is possibly the best writer working in the comics medium (at least as far as understanding how it works and how to get the best effect from it), plus he’s got an incredible love for superhero history. His bibliography is littered with stories he’s done that reference small forgotten tidbits from the past. I’d not be at all surprised if he somehow manages to tie in a number of such into the story here.

So we’ve got two high profile series, with high profile creators, doing big things with the big characters in big ways. Sales are guaranteed. The biggest question is which of the two is going to be bigger. (Marvel tends to be a big stronger in monthly sales, and Bendis is a bit more popular, currently, than Morrison, so I’d bank on Secret Invasion.) So what’s the problem?

The problem is who’s reading these things. Or rather, who isn’t.

Among the comic crowd, these are the sort of books that “everyone” will be picking up. Fans (or fanboys, really) who have been keyed into the Big Two for years and are keeping apace with all the nuances and hints dropped.

In short, these are books that are going to be lapped up by the current readership.

For everyone else, though, they’re a bit opaque.

And that’s a problem. These are the two highest profile series of the year. And they’re not being written at all for the potential fan. Even worse, said fan is likely to be completely confused if dropped into these.

The friendly staffer at my chosen comic shop has pointed out that Marvel has constructed Secret Invasion such that you don’t need to read any tie-in books to get the story (which was also the case for the three previous annual events). This may very well be true, but there’s still a fair bit of knowledge to even get the story.

Note this post by a comic newbie. While she finally, reading through it, gets’ the core CONCEPT of Secret Invasion (it’s a big series to get everyone together), she’s still rather lost on the whole: “As an outsider reading this, I felt just like that: an outsider.”

Marvel’s biggest book of the year, and it’s alienating to new readers. I really hope I’m not the only person who sees a problem with this. Hell, it’s practically designed to be offputting to the casual reader.

While I’m overall more optimistic about Final Crisis, largely because Morrison is a significantly better writer than Bendis, I’m only feeling good as the experienced comic fan. Were I a newcomer, I’d probably feel as lost and confused as the lady who wrote the aforementioned post. It’s a superhero prom, and there’s a whole year or two of schoolwork that needs to be done before you can go.

This isn’t new. Ever since the rise of the event miniseries (and crossover stories) in the mid-to-late 80s, and the coinciding rise of the direct market, the comic industry has been moving along a path that’s more insular and self-referential. There have been positive blips here and there, but by and large the big two have continued to cater increasingly towards the extant fans rather than actively encourage new fans.

The companies might disagree with this, citing the lines such as Marvel Adventures, Ultimate Marvel, and Johnny DC, but the fact is that the bulk of their advertising and energy is dedicated to the core lines.

(Marvel may Ultimate Line might be an exception, but after eight years, it’s carrying a fair amount of baggage of its own. While it may only have a few ongoing books, it is at the point where knowledge of the history is fairly critical to understanding the actions in a given book. Additionally, while Ultimate Spider-Man may still be appealing and aimed at a newcomer market, the other Ultimate books are very uneven in tone comparatively. If I were introducing someone to Ultimate Spider-Man, I’d be a bit concerned if that person later picked up the Ultimates and found a horny Hulk wanting to eat Freddie Prinze Jr. It just doesn’t mesh.)

That’s really a shame, because the two junior lines are chock full of some fantastic comic material. DC’s recent Tiny Titans is wonderful, a book of sheer joy that I’ve not experienced outside of Azuma’s Yotsuba&. And anything Jeff Parker writes for Marvel Adventures distills superheroic action down to its core principles without requiring a huge backstory. In DC’s case, these junior books are largely tie ins to the phenomenally successful (and usually very well written) animated series, but

Of course, once you venture into the main universes, there’s a slippery slope between the good and the tied in. Any book that demonstrates an ability to sell due to strong internal quality will invariably be given a crossover with another book to try and get some readers to try both. Conversely, any book that has strong internal quality but isn’t selling will get a crossover with another, more popular book to try and boost its sales.

Historically, neither case is likely to make the book better, or even keep it at the current level. The recent crossover between Checkmate and Outsiders showcases this extremely well. The quality for the storyline was well below the previous Checkmate stories. (Admittedly, it was a step up from previous Outsiders stories.)

Arguably, the crossovers aren’t likely to boost flagging sales in either direction. Indeed, it can backfire and cause a loss of fans. Many years ago, I was an avid Birds of Prey reader, but over one six month period I was greeted by four different crossover issues in two different Batman storylines. I had little interest in reading any other books in the line except Catwoman, and decided that BoP wasn’t worth it. (It took Gail Simone to get me back, and even that wasn’t immediate.)

This isn’t to say that all crossovers are bad. Sometimes a story can be constructed to gain the benefits of multiple books. But the reality is that most of these are marketing gimmicks. Designed to get the existing fans to buy as many different titles as possible, in hopes that they will keep buying said titles.

The miniseries event works much the same way. Many books in the company’s line will be tied into it in some fashion. Marvel did this brilliantly, from a marketing standpoint, with Civil War: well emblazoned logo across all titles showing that each book took part in this mega-event.

However, where does this leave the casual fan? What is one to do if there’s only one or two titles, out of the entire line, that appeal at all? The event has large ramifications that aren’t readily apparent. Sure, there’s the chance the reader could buy into the whole shebang and crossover to being a big fan, but that’s not likely.

If a newcomer starts in on comics, without familiarity, how do you introduce them? What books do you showcase?

More than likely, you might be showing them something from Marvel Adventures. Good books, sure, but they may get the distinct sense that they’re not catered to. And the industry isn’t constructed to get them to transition to the main lines. Some books are for kids and casual readers, the rest are for the fans who’ve been here for 20 years (and are shrinking as a group.)

Welcome to the recipe for disaster.

For long term growth (or at least sustainability), it would be more beneficial if books were allowed to live on their own terms, without the event tie-ins and crossovers. If the standalone fun of the Marvel Adventures were allowed to exist in the main universes.

It’s not likely. There’s a cycle of incestuous support to the industry. Fans buy into the big events, which boost sales numbers at the expense of smaller books, so the companies produce more of such work, which appeals to the fans, but not anyone else. And any smaller books are likely to be folded as the sales droop, which loses more fans.

I’m not saying that ALL events are bad. Marvel’s Annihilation was a brilliant story. But it succeeded largely because it was entirely self-contained. The mini-series involved only related to each-other. Likewise, Seven Soldiers of Victory was incredibly enjoyable. Both of these stories managed to provide the epic wonders that all events promise, without intruding on other books in the line, even though the effects of the stories could be felt elsewhere.

While such things could happen more, I’m not optimistic. I fully expect that next year we’ll be talking about the next big Marvel Event. Trinity will be coming to a close and DC will be pumping the next weekly series which will lead into another big event series. It’s a shame, because in that time, a number of highly enjoyable books with marginal numbers will be canceled.

After a while, these stop being epics. They just become epic failures.

By and large, awards ceremonies, and the awards given, are crap. Rare are the times when a ‘Best’ anything is truly the best in the given timeframe. Just look at the Oscars, which have been haphazardly picking films and actors clearly not the best in the previous year. The voting systems will invariably choose what is popular (and somewhat good) rather than what could objectively considered the best.

The video game industry is no stranger to this, and when I was able to view the Game Developer’s Choice Awards in 2007, I witnessed first hand the failure of the voters, when they chose Gears of War as the Game of the Year. Not that Gears of War was a bad game, but it’s frightfully derivative in most cases, adding only a few new elements (and pretty scenery) to a very well-established genre.

Compare that to Wii Sports, which was incredibly innovative and well designed all around, plus the ushering title to all the grand promise that the Wii brings. (I admit a bit of the shine has come off the Wii in the past year, but it’s still full of exciting potential.)

In the year since those awards, I lost any hope that a truly good game would hit the spot. In that time, I’ve heard BioShock and Call of Duty IV, very well constructed games, considered frontrunners for the top prize. Rather than spend another disheartening evening watching the awards, I chose to do other things. Sure, there was a possibility that Rock Band would win something, because it is sheer awesome, but even I’d hesitate to say it’s worthy of the title ‘Best Game of the Year’. The equipment problems, lack of a few ideal gameplay elements, and some song choices leave it just short.

Imagine my surprise when I found out what had actually won the next day. Such was my disregard, that I’d not even taken the time to look at the nominees, so I was surprised that Portal even had a nomination, much less managed to take home the prize.

Granted, in my opinion, it’s not really a close contest. Portal is, to be blunt, one of the best games every designed. The other titles were the two aforementioned refined FPS games (BioShock and Call of Duty IV, neither of which really deserved to be there. BioShock was little more than System Shock II with an Art Deco look and some critique of Objectivism thrown in for flavor. And in very few cases would I grant a game with a roman numeral in the title enough creativity and innovation to deserve such a spot.

Rock Band is a spectacularly fun experience, but it’s not perfect. And Super Mario Galaxy is a very polished platformer that shows how they can be built for the Wii, but it’s not the best work of Miyamoto’s.

The surprise missing titles, for me, were Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed.

Portal still is a bit of a surprise. I’d have expected the entire Orange Box to get such a nomination, rather than the component parts, if only because it’s often pitched as this One With Everything product, of which Portal is just the extra fun element thrown in for good measure.

Regardless, it’s a wonderful choice. True, the format isn’t original, since the greated FPS ever devised (Goldeneye) was released over a decade ago, and since then it’s mostly been tweak and refinement to appeal to a narrower and narrower crowd of fans. But since there’s no shooting, few direct enemies, and a completely different style of play, I’m inclined to accept that the FPS elements are just the medium, not the message. Valve’s a company that only does FPS’s anyway, and they can be credited for doing some very interesting things with Team Fortress 2 to get rid of a lot of the excess of the genre besides.

So, innovative gameplay, easy accessibility, some excellent framing and design (the warning signs alone are worth the price of admission), the best song to ever come out of the video game industry (coming soon to a Rock Band game near you), and the best writing I’ve ever witnessed.

Yes, the best writing. And here’s the rant part of this rant.

You see, while Portal was considered the Best Game and the Most Innovative Game, it apparently wasn’t considered the Best Written game.  For some reason, that award went to BioShock.

I’m sorry, what? BioShock? Sure, it had some excellent dialogue, a few neat character arcs, and some clever commentary on 50s culture, but the ending was absolute shit. Plus, the one big choice the player has in the game is so clearly black and white that it’s amazing Peter Molyneux isn’t on the design team.

Portal, in comparison, is an exemplary piece of writing. The character arc of GLaDOS is spectacular, the dialogue is perfect, and the small elements they throw in (”The Cake is a Lie”) are awesome.

Seriously, I’d had part of the game spoiled completely for me before I played, and the first time I saw one of the secret rooms, chills went down my back. I spent a good part of the game alternating between hysterical laughter and a desperate desire not to crap my pants.

THAT, my friends is emotional reaction. And BioShock doesn’t have any of that. Hell, they had to use mood music to tell the player when things are supposed to be creepy.

A friend of mine brought up a point about this. He allowed that Portal is well written, but it’s only about two hours long (or 18 minutes on a speed run). BioShock is many hours long and it’s chock full of great character dialogue, so that has to count for something.

I’m sorry, but it doesn’t. Portal is a short story, true, and BioShock is a novel, but it’s still a novel with a crap ending. Portal is a story stripped down to just the necessary elements to get the point across. BioShock is an excess of cleverness to the point of bloat.

To paraphrase a number of writing teachers, it’s easy to write long, it’s hard to write well.  Portal isn’t long, but I’d argue that it’s harder to write a story that short that has all of that greatness into it. Any longer, and it’s likely that the story (and the game) would suffer because of it.

I can only assume that the votes for Portal got split with Half Life 2 Episode 2, leaving BioShock the undeserving winner.

Even so, the Game of the Year award is much deserved, and brings a bit of legitimacy back to awards ceremonies.

In the wake of the ongoing travesties of that are happening on both sides of the superhero aisle (OMD’s destruction of anything resembling a comprehensible sequence of events at Marvel and the Eternal Crisis at DC), I’ve been giving a fair bit of thought to continuity and writers.

Continuity is a tricky thing. For a good 40 years or so, it didn’t matter a whole lot. Arguably, the entire period between the end of WWII and the start of the silver age, it didn’t matter at all. Even after that into the early 80s, it remained a rather mutable concept. Sure, there was cause and effect, but the concept of continuity that spanned the entire line of books didn’t quite grab hold.

Starting in the 80s, though, a number of things happened. The X-Men began to sell like gangbusters, which prompted a number of related books. With Crisis on Infinite Earths and Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars, the concept of the universe-spanning mini-series was discovered and with it the tie-in. Soon after, the crossover was established.

The crossover and the mini-series established the key ingredients that thrust our lovable comics into the 90s and continue, more or less, to be the key for any large sales to this day. Certainly nearly every major storyline of the past fifteen years has been one or the other, if not both. For some characters with multiple tiles, crossovers are often more the rule rather than the exception (I’m looking firmly at you, Spidey and Bats.)

The natural upshot is that the books need to have some related consistency. If Latte Lady breaks a nail in The Nifty Nailbiters, then by golly that better remain true in The Stupendous Seat-edgers. If Awesome Man dies in his own title, his best friend the Dimly Lit Intimidator may need to know about it in his own.

This rising integration in continuity has a lot of benefits. From a storytelling perspective, there’s a whole lot of options that open up when a writer can start taking part in a bigger sandbox. Stories that would be too big for a single title can now be told. If the Nailbiters and Awesome Man team up but need to split up to do separate objectives, then those can be handled in their own series, at the same time. This ability to tell multiple story strands at the same time, leading towards some ultimate conclusion allows superhero stories to massively increase in depth.

More than that, the crossover, especially, is a boon to business. If you’ve got a strong character who sells well every month, you can always have her show up in a few other books now and then, but have her title cross over with those books, and you could get the readers of each to try the other and possibly stick around.

Amazing stuff, these crossovers. Personally, some of my fondest memories of comics are when I read Uncanny X-Men in the late 80s and I really got into the mutant books with Inferno. It wasn’t enough to just read X-Men. I also had to read X-Factor to understand what was going on. And to find out what happened to Colossus, I needed to read New Mutants. As it happens, I stayed with all three books for a good long time. Inferno was clearly successful, enough that the mutant books especially began to feature them every year or two for the next decade or so.

Plus, there’s a decided advantage to telling a story that is too big for one creator. You can have multiple viewpoints, multiple people working together to create something that could be greater than the sum of its parts.

But there’s a number of downsides. While it’s great that a story could have multiple layers and interweaving plot points, all too often it comes out to be a bit messy, with contradicting elements, missed characterization, and things that just don’t make sense. In the mini-series, it’ll often come about that there are so many characters showing up that few, if any, of them get enough space to really shine and act as they should.

Plus, the bigger the story, the more far-reaching the effects, and thus the greater need for editorial oversight, which leads to more controlled and constrained writers. In essence, the scope of these projects tends to stifle creativity, even if the event itself turns out to be pretty good.

On the business-side, there’s the converse of the event getting readers to try another title. What if, instead of the crossover getting readers to hop on board both books, they instead decide that neither title is worth the effort and jump ship entirely. I read Birds of Prey rather faithfully from the beginning, but the number of crossovers that happened with other Batman titles essentially gave me a choice. I didn’t have the money or desire to follow every Bat-title, so I could either continue with it and be thoroughly confused as to what happened between issues, or I could stop entirely.

I’m not really inclined to write off the big event entirely, but there needs to be a degree of moderation. DC’s 3+ year continuity project has made me leery of trying out new titles, and I’ve tended to try and follow ones that are reasonably likely to remain unaffected and alone. On the Marvel side, I’ve found that Civil War has killed just about any interest I ever had in following The Avengers and any character related to them.

However, the smaller-scale events have worked out fine. Annihilation was just about the most enjoyable story I’ve read in years, and I’m waiting to see what the Sinestro Corps storyline is like once it hits the trades. It’s possible to do an event, but there just needs to be some consideration against doing too much.

And, as One More Day has shown, editorial mandate isn’t good for anything. The writers generally need to have some freedom to explore and get creative with the characters. Dictating that the writers must do x and y and keep in tap with all the other titles running leads to problems, because, by and large, most comic writers cannot or will not be able to handle that sort of overhead on their books. There are some, but they’re few and far between.

I could probably trust Grant Morrison to handle just about any continuity issues. Kurt Busiek, too. If only because of his comments regarding One More Day, JMS seems like he’d be up to the task. And possibly Mark Waid. However, we’re talking about four men out of tens of professional comic writers who are adept enough to write a story that fits into continuity while also changing it. This is an extremely limited skill that very few possess.

Geoff Johns and Keith Giffen might be able to, but they also seem to shine best when they’re given a section of a universe to play with. Preferably a cosmic one or (in Giffen’s case) a comedic one.

I’m not going to criticize writers who don’t do this. While I’d trust Morrison to handle such a task (and Final Crisis likely will be), some of my other favorite comic writers probably couldn’t. I don’t think Brian Vaughan could (he’s a bit gun-shy when handling characters he doesn’t create.) Nor Brian Wood. Warren Ellis probably could, but his disdain for the conventions of the superhero genre makes me question whether it’d work. Gail Simone, The Best Writer in Superhero Books, might not be up to it, but I’m curious to see how she’d fare if given the chance.

The problem is that despite the obvious way that Big Continuity causes problems for the individual writers, it’s become this massive driving force from both within (editorial) and without (the fans.) On the inside, it’s this stifling way of sucking the fun and creativity out of any story, even if it’s something that should be as fun as superheros kicking the shit out of each other (see exhibit 1: Civil War). On the outside, it’s the promise that if anything doesn’t quite work, the fan community is going to jump all over it.

I’ve found myself questioning my resolve and desire to keep up on things. Conceptually, the Big Event is awesome. In theory, it should be great. But in theory, communism works. In practice, there’s those few events that actually work (Annihilation), more that are just kinda meh (Infinite Crisis), and still more that just kinda numb my whole brain when I start to think about them (Civil War, Countdown, One More Day).

What I’ve been left with is a desire to just find those select few things that are actually good. I’ll follow specific writers around, check out those titles which are remaining consistently strong, and just keep abreast as I can.

It’s a shame, because I’ve had my time as a continuity nut, digging how all those threads relate and create a stronger story. But the DC fan in me has spent the past three years hearing that if I just keep going a bit longer, everything will fit together and make sense. Sure, it’s possible Grant Morrison will actually do that in Final Crisis, but what if it’s just a precursor. After the next couple of weekly series, what if there actually IS an Eternal Crisis? And in 2012, will I be eagerly anticipating Gail Simone’s Crisis Forever?

Over at Marvel, I’m left wondering what’s good. Civil War is a black stain, from which there’s very little to redeem. One More Day has just told me that anything I could have cared about can be whisked away. And I really can’t get up the interest in Secret Invasion. Bendis isn’t a writer I have a lot of faith in to handle multiple heroes. A small number, with deeply personal stories, possibly a lot of crime, sure. Teams? His track record is lacking. Disassembled was almost as bad as Civil War, and House of M was unfortunately little more than a compelling Elseworlds idea.

On the other hand, I suppose I can thank Joe Quesada for teaching me to stop caring. At the House of Ideas, it’s clear that few, if any, ideas are going to do much more than cause a temporary hiccup to the status quo.

Because of that, I’m going to take a new view on continuity. I call it the Current Writer theory. Basically, continuity on a title or character only matters inasmuch as it matters to the current writer. If they want to delve deep into the backstory and pick out little elements here and there to build up the richness, so much the better. If they just want to tell stories in the here and now, fine.

What would be grand, though, is if everything was free reign. If a writer could come in, figure out how to make all the pieces fit, or at least some of them, and just tell that story, then move onto the next.

What if… what if EVERYTHING was true?

Oh, yeah. DC tried that. About ten years ago.

This post is about Rock Band, which has eaten up a not inconsequential portion of my free time of late.  Despite the title of the post, I have few complaints about the game. It is not quite the best game ever made, but there is such a depth of play there and the promise of continuing DLC means it should remain as such for quite some time.

Review in brief: Bravo Harmonix!  There are few missteps here.

This post is also about comic books. And with that there are probably a few who will understand where I am going with this.

As  I said above, there are few missteps. Before I had the chance to play Rock Band, due to being geographically away from my venue of choice from its release until after the new year, I made do with Guitar Hero III, the slightly off-kilter third sibling of Rock Band’s predecessor franchise. While there are many problems with GHIII, there are two things it does very well. Those two things, I must say, find Rock Band lacking.

The first is the peripheral construction. While I have few things bad to say about the previous controllers, the GHIII Les Pauls are a thing of beauty. The action is smooth, the weight is good, and they are all around comfortable to play.  In comparison the Fender Stratocasters that come with RB are, to be polite, very cheap feeling. Beyond the well documented breakdowns and other troubles, the guitars do not have that sense of strength, beginning with the action on the frets and being most noticeable with the weak strum bar.

The second is the way hammer ons and pull offs were changed in GHIII. In the first Guitar Hero, I found them impossible. In the second, they were troublesome, but on occasion would work as expected. Neversoft decided to make them even more forgiving such that it feels rather fun to get them rather than a difficult gamey element. It is perhaps one area where choosing to go for a less realistic method of doing the music turned out for the better.

However, both these are beside the real point. In spite of these problems, Rock Band shines, even when it causes me problems. I tend to play bass, and while I’ve been playing above my head on some songs at Expert level, jamming with my friends is fun for a long time.

The song selection is very good. I could probably play Learn to Fly and Here it Goes Again many, many times without getting tired of them. I may slowly be growing to dislike Sabotage because of the difficulty and repetitiveness of the bassline, but it’s still a fun song to listen to. Run to the Hills and Green Grass on High Tides may both give me problems for a while, but it’s a nice challenge to try and beat them.

As with the Guitar Hero games, it’s nice to get the combination of songs I know and like to go with some I didn’t expect but find I also like.

But nothing’s perfect. Guitar Hero II brought me Psychobilly Freakout, which isn’t enjoyable to listen to and even less fun to play. Guitar Hero gave me No One Knows, which almost soured me on Queens of the Stone Age for life. In III I found Raining Blood, which combined all the worst elements of a repetitive punk song with the off-kilter timing of Institutionalized.

In each, I am brought to wonder why the designers felt the need to include this song in the game. With QotSA, I can at least say the song sounds nice (and in their favor, other songs are more enjoyable), and probably could feel the desire to keep chugging at it just because of that. What’s really bad is when there is a song that is no fun to play because I don’t want to listen to it.

While I was unable to play Rock Band due to my geographic non-proximity, my roommates did give me a bit of a running tally on how things went. The only mentioned one blight, one song that they would not, could not, play. A song so bad and annoying they’d skip it no matter what.

Curious, I checked the song out on Youtube. For the first thirty seconds, it doesn’t seem that bad. Some fairly neat instrumental introductions, hitting a nice hard rock groove. I could start to get along with that.

And then the vocals start. I swear I had to shut the window within seconds they were so bad. I honestly wondered what sort of people could choose to subject themselves to this regularly. It wasn’t just a weak singer, it was honestly a bad voice to use as a vocalist.

I wondered if it was just me (and my roommates) but after a bit of checking around with others, no, the song really is that bad and I wasn’t able to find anyone in my circle of friends who could stand to listen to the whole thing. I shrugged, chalked it up to a misstep in song choice, and forgot about it until I got home.

While playing through Rock Band, though, I began to get curious. It was certainly possible that we’d get the song on random, and it’d help  to have at least passing familiarity with it. So I started to look into this blighted song again.

I’m speaking about Coheed and Cambria’s Welcome Home. And in the interest of fairness, I will list its strengths. As a progressive/hard rock band, C&C has talent. They play well, have some good riffs and rhythms, and could probably be an enjoyable band.

On the other hand, the vocals are atrocious. Singer Cladio Sanchez has a high pitched voice, which isn’t a problem alone, but he’s also got a thin and weedy timbre. There’s very little depth. To make matters worse, his vocal range (judging from Welcome Home at least) is very narrow. So there’s a high-pitched screeching that extends through most of the song.

It kills just about any interest I have in listening.

Of course, the problems don’t end there. Welcome Home is from the album Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness. And no matter how many times I look at that, it does not make sense. The words look like English, but there is no meaning.

Apparently, this isn’t abnormal for C&C. Their subsequent album is called Good Apollo, I’m Burning Star IV Volume Two: No World For Tomorrow. I’m really not sure what the title is supposed to imply, except to give off some vague sci-fi reference. This used to be common in music. David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars for instance. However there’s a big difference. The title of Bowie’s album makes sense. It is a cohesive title that doesn’t have a random string of works and numerals together.

In my searching, though, it seems that C&C is not inspired by sci-fi. Their albums are apparently directly tied into an ongoing science fiction epic being written by the aforementioned vocalist, Claudio Sanchez. I admit I haven’t read, nor do I have any desire to read, the works he’s put out, but I’ve tried to piece together the series.

Coheed and Cambria’s music ties into a series of comic books called The Amory Wars. The name of the band is taken from two characters in this series Coheed Kilgannon and Cambria Kilgannon. They have a son who seems to be a sort of messianic character who must accept his mantle and face off against the Big Bad to avenge Coheed and Cambria’s murders.

All right. That’s fairly uninspired for sci-fi, but given that C&C are (presumably) musicians first, it’s probably not too big of an issue. I could even ignore the original title for The Amory Wars: The Bag.On.Line Adventures. Please notice all the periods in place of spaces. I suppose it might be a reference to the same in a hypertext link, but really it just looks dumb. Even so, the title was changed to something a bit more run of the mill but that also makes considerable more sense.

So, we’ve got this hero character, Claudio Kilgannon,  who…

Wait, what? That name seems really familiar. Hero named Claudio written by singer/writer named… Claudio?

And here’s where the wheels start to come off. As best I can tell, The Amory Wars is a massive self-insert story. If it isn’t, I’d have assumed that Mr. Sanchez could have come up with a different name. Or, hell, just coming up with a different name would perhaps mask the fact that it’s a self-insert story.

There are two major problems with self-inserts. The first is one of balance. As anyone who’s read fanfiction for any length of time knows, by and large, self-insert characters are favored by the writer to such a degree that any other characters (usually those belonging in the original universe) tend to be overshadowed. Lots of power, luck, skill, charisma, what have you. These characters will display any number of these traits in such a degree that it stretches credibility.

The classic self-insert is the Mary Sue, which comes from Star Trek. It got the name because the editors of the novels could almost always disregard 90% of the manuscripts they received because they would invariably have a new, female character who graduated at or near the top of her class in Starfleet Academy, proved to be a popular addition to the Enterprise crew, would have a romantic liaison with the favored male character of the author’s choice, and would prove to be critical in solving the climax of the story.  These novels were almost always submitted by women. And while they may not have been atrociously bad, the fact that they resembled each-other to such a degree is staggering and leads one to disregard them as a whole. Thus, the Mary Sue character: the self-insert.

In and of themselves, self-inserts are power fantasies and not problematic. However, they are almost invariably stories written for the author, not for the audience. I’ve heard that in BDSM culture, there’s a saying of Your Kink is not My Kink. Here it’s that Your Power Fantasy is not My Power Fantasy.

By and large, I am not going to be interested in a story about some messianic character based on you. There are a few people in the world about whom I would find such a story interesting, and many of my friends are not those people. The further you get away from me, and the more it becomes a “You had to be there” situation. Do I understand this power fantasy? No, I don’t get why you should be cast as a world savior.

And thus, The Amory Wars have already lost me. They may be a fine piece of juvenile science fiction that Claudio Sanchez has written for himself. His friends may dig that he’s such a creative machine, but I don’t get why his stories are in my video games, ruining my ears.

It seems that the only published parts of the story are a bit of chapters two and four (of five). The music may add a bit more completeness, but on the whole it seems that there’s just a bunch of inspiration around a plot that isn’t quite enough to carry the story from Sanchez’ mind to the theoretical public. Telling a story out of chronology should be a technique to use, not come about by happenstance.

Not that that would be entirely bad, I’m none too sure that his grasp of language is any better than his grasp of storytelling technique. Just the title of the album is enough to cause concern. I’m not really sure if it’ll ever be completed, but given that Sanchez has had to self-publish so far, I doubt it’s going to set the world on fire if it ever does.

Now, I did say this was about Rock Band, so I’ll turn to the specific song that’s caused me no end of pain.

Welcome Home is one of the first few tracks off the album where, if I’m  reading this correctly, the story takes a step outside of the strict narrative and is instead narrated by The Writer in the first person. Since Sanchez is the writer, I can only assume he’s talking about himself, in some fashion.

So now we’ve got him singing, and writing, about himself as the writer of a story which is about a messianic version of himself.

Whoa, meta. This could almost be good.

Let’s see what the writer, I mean The Writer has to say:

You could have been all I wanted
But you weren’t honest
Now get in the ground
You choked off the short list of favors
But if you really loved me
You would have endured my will

Wow. That seems kinda dark and bleak.  Continuing on:

Well if you’re just as I presumed
A whore in sheep’s clothing
Fucking up all I do
And if it’s here we stop
Then never again
Will you see this in your life?

So, there’s some anger here. It seems he’s gotten burned romantically and is holding a bit of a grudge. I can understand being a bit bummed from a letdown, but let’s look at the language here.

There’s a lot of dominance and command in the voice. Talk of enduring his will, ordering to get into the ground. He’s also placing the unnamed woman as the downside of the virgin/whore dichotomy. She wasn’t honest, therefore she must be a whore! She’s fucking up everything for him.

It’s all her fault!

This really bugs me. Ignoring how confused I am how this fits into the whole sci-fi story above, this is hugely misogynistic. It doesn’t get any better as the song continues, with more threats of violence and painting the still unnamed female as a traitor to him.

I’ll grant that there may be some separation between Sanchez, The Writer, and Claudio Kilgannon, but the first person narrative here and general negativity towards women just sicken me. Even if his voice wasn’t so bad, the message is so squicky that I really don’t want to know more.

What’s funny is that this song alone answers the question about whether C&C are a prog metal band or an emo band. The sexism, lamenting about romance, and general whinyness plant it firmly in the camp of Emo. It’s not good emo, either.

And that’s really a shame, because, as I noted above, C&C do seem to have some musical talent. I think that, in a different setting, with a different front-man, the people involved could be rather enjoyable. They could go and pull an Audioslave. That’s what made RATM palatable to me.

Rock Band will survive. I think I’ll play the song the bare minimum and hope it doesn’t inflict itself upon me while I’m playing.

Shame, though. It’s a strike against Harmonix. Upon reflection, it bugs me a lot more than the shoddy guitar quality.