filmlover

This is definitely not quite on the same level as the first movie (one of my favorites of the last few years, animated or otherwise), but that was always an especially tall order. This is an exciting and at times moving continuation that expands on its predecessor, and the animation is once again jaw-droppingly gorgeous. A-

Every bit as clever and hilarious as its predecessor. Lord and Miller (can these two do no wrong?) have a lot of fun with the inevitable tropes that come with sequels, while Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum continue to make surprisingly excellent team. B+

A The LEGO Movie A- Chef How to Train Your Dragon 2 X-Men: Days of Future Past B+ 22 Jump Street Captain America: The Winter Soldier Edge of Tomorrow The Fault In Our Stars The Grand Budapest Hotel Neighbors B Godzilla Maleficent Million Dollar Arm Muppets Most Wanted Noah Non-Stop B- The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Divergent Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit Rio 2 C+ 300: Rise of an Empire The Monuments Men C A Million Ways to Die in the West Ride Along

Also, LOL @ whoever it was at Deadline who wrote that article asking if Jonah Hill's insult to the paparazzi would impact the movie's box office. So much for that.

But does anyone know how well Alone Yet Not Alone did?! The Academy needs to pay for robbing us all of a truly uplifting Joni Eareckson Tada performance. Anyway, I'm heading out the door shortly for a Jump Street/Dragon double feature. So excited.

It was lame and got what it deserved.

"Oh my God. You want to talk about mothers? You wanna talk about mothers! It's mother time, okay!" #WhiteChicksForever

Pretty phenominal opening day for 22 Jump Street, really. If it makes over $200M, that would make Chris Miller and Phil Lord the first filmmakers to have two $200M+ grossers in one year, right?

Also, I'm really impressed by how well Maleficent is holding despite Dragon 2 arriving. Should comfortably pass $200M at this point.

$18.5M is higher than what the early numbers had it at last night, so that's pretty good for Dragon in my books

A lot has changed in the last 8 years.

34. 1. Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit 2. Ride Along 3-4. The Monuments Men/The LEGO Movie (double feature) 5. Non-Stop 6. 300: Rise of an Empire 7. Muppets Most Wanted 8. The Grand Budapest Hotel 9. Noah 10. Divergent 11. Captain America: The Winter Soldier 12. Rio 2 13. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 14. Neighbors 15. Million Dollar Arm (sneak preview) 16. Godzilla 17. X-Men: Days of Future Past 18. Maleficent 19-20. Chef/A Million Ways to Die in the West 21. Edge of Tomorrow 22. The Fault In Our Stars 23-24. 22 Jump Street/How to Train Your Dragon 2 (double feature) 25. Tammy 26. Jersey Boys 27. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes 28. Begin Again 29. Lucy 30. Boyhood 31-32. Guardians of the Galaxy/Get on Up (double feature) 33. Magic in the Moonlight 34. A Most Wanted Man

To be fair, I think the main problem with Dragon 2 (and by extension, Kung Fu Panda 2) isn't so much the competition they faced but the fact that the marketing (especially the ads) didn't make either movie stand out as a major event. They just got lazy and assumed that audiences would turn out based on goodwill alone. Which is kind of a difficult thing to prove but eh. I will not consider a $50M opening a disaster though. That's still an increase from the first movie. And I mentioned this before, but I really think it's going to benefit from being released in a hilariously barren summer in terms of kids fare, so I'd wait and see before writing it off completely.

So the lesson here is: DreamWorks Animation should never release a sequel to a well-regarded movie against an R-rated comedy sequel that also had a very well-regarded predecessor?

Late night sell-outs for Jump Street are really starting to blow up around my neck of the woods. Expecting it to end up on the higher end of the early estimates at this point.

Next weekend is the first weekend this summer without intense competition (Think Like a Man Too will obviously appeal only to a limited audience, and it's hard to imagine Jersey Boys being even close to a huge blockbuster event), so I would expect the holdovers to finally catch a break for once.

That was expected though. If any movie this summer was going to be crazy crazy frontloaded, it was definitely going to be the adaptation of a very popular YA book in which the opening weekend audience was 80% female and 80% under 25.

$18-21M is slightly lower than I expected for Dragon but I'm definitely not losing hope about it lasting in the long run. The higher end of that $22-26M number for Jump Street would be rather amazing for it though. A testament to how well-received the first was.

Is this going to be the least attended summer...ever (or at least as far back as available box office records show)? I have to say I'm not really surprised that it's turned out to be as soft as it has but...

Eh, a $55-60M opening for Dragon is perfectly fine in my book. It never felt like a Shrek 2-increase in opening was in the cards, at least IMO. And with glowing reviews and there being absolutely no competition the rest of the summer besides Planes 2 (lol), I'll be shocked if it has bad legs.

There was a father with an 9-10 year old when I saw Bruno on opening weekend five years ago. I don't know how they survived the ride home.

But wouldn't 22 actually help Dragon in that case? I imagine most teenagers under 17 are paying for the latter just so they could try to sneak into the former.

Forget How to Train Your Dragon 2 and 22 Jump Street. What we really should be interested in is seeing how much Alone Yet Not Alone is cleaning up at the box office. http://youtu.be/BWVyVMbSzM4 Never 4get. (still don't know how to get videos to show up here)