pandorum Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Weren't we seeking flashy, content-free teaser trailers for Fame, like, a year ago? Or nine months out at least? That's the sort of marketing generally reserved for event blockbusters, not movies that get dumped into theaters in late September en route to a $10 million opening and -- most likely -- a final gross in the vicinity of $25 -30 million. What happened? Given the bad reviews, perhaps MGM/Sony realized with a few months to go that they didn't have an awards contender or likely crowd favorite on their hands.

On the other hand, I don't know what excuse Disney has for Surrogates, a perfectly serviceable, extremely commercial sci-fi actioner starring Bruce Willis and directed by T3's Jonathan Mostow. Willis actionally doesn't have the greatest track record in opening non-franchise releases, but $15 million for a movie like this is awfully weak; here is an instance where hiding a movie from critics arguably hurt. Overture's Pandorum, also hidden from reviewers, was a less surprising flop, with $4.4 million dollars for the weekend.

Taking top honors for the second weekend in a row was Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs , which held up very well; it probably helped that it was really the only family film in the market for the second weekend in a row. The Informant! which did not make big waves last weekend, also held pretty well; it won't do Ocean's business, but should end up as Soderbergh's highest-grossing non-Ocean's film (the current titleholder is Out of Sight with $37 million).

The full top 10 after the jump.

Really good sci-fi horror flicks don't come along too often. Pandorum may be burdened with the unfair stigma of "not screened in advance for the press" (at least in my area), but it proves to be a superior picture, expertly establishing and maintaining a charged atmosphere of unhinged ferocity.

Director Christian Alvart displays an assured grasp of visual storytelling and provides a solid framework for Ben Foster and Dennis Quaid to let loose with intense, uninhibited performances. Four years ago, Alvart made the powerful Antibodies, a haunting serial killer movie that neatly subverted expectations, and he has delivered another impressive genre-buster. He even made me sit on the edge of my seat a few times, an inclination which I nearly always resist.

Foster and Quaid are apparently the first two members of their mission team to awaken from hyper-sleep on the spaceship Elysium. They're both badly disoriented; hyper-sleep is supposed to induce brief memory loss, but they look like they've journeyed through all nine circles of suffering in Dante's Inferno, which might feel like a picnic in the park compared to their situation.

The ship appears abandoned; no one is present to greet them, the power has been shut down, and they're locked in a chamber with impregnable metal doors. They can barely remember their names, much less their mission or even their own qualifications. Just wait until they find out they're not alone. And whatever is out there is very fast, very ugly, and very hungry.

3D animation was the way to go this weekend, with Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs taking a wide lead over the three other new releases. Tyler Perry's latest flick surrendered the number one spot but still managed to hang on to third place. Here's the top five:

1. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs: $30.3 million
2. The Informant!: $10.4 million
3. Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself: $9.8 million
4. Love Happens: $8 million
5. Jennifer's Body: $6.9 million

Three new releases this week, including a teen dance flick and two -- count 'em, two -- science fiction movies.

Fame
What's It All About: Remake of the 1980 classic about a group of young people attending a high school for the performing arts.
Why It Might Do Well: This will appeal to a younger crowd that has probably never seen the original, so for them at least it won't carry the stigma of a remake.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The Fame TV series got pretty dopey in the later seasons and I might not be the only one who remembers that.
Number of Theaters: 3,000
Prediction: $22 million

Pandorum
What's It All About: Two astronauts awaken from hyper-sleep on a ship in deep space with no memory of who they are or what their mission is.
Why It Might Do Well: Looks like a good rollicking creep-fest set in space.
Why It Might Not Do Well: Might two science fiction movies in one week be pushing it?
Number of Theaters: 2,400
Prediction: $9 million

The Road
This bleak tale of one family trying to survive the apocalypse is based on a Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, author of No Country For Old Men. After some kind of global cataclysm (it's not clear if it's a nuclear war), a man played by Viggo Mortensen must help his son to survive by whatever means necessary. Charlize Theron, Guy Pearce and Robert Duvall also star. This looks darkly fascinating and probably would have gone well with a Cinematical Seven I did not long ago. This one comes out on October 16.

Pandorum
This new trailer reveals quite a bit more than the teaser we saw awhile back. Two men awaken aboard a space craft wondering what's become of the thousands of other crew members. Other people show up as do some scary monster types who may be the mutated crew. Looks like an intersting take on the Alien formula. Watch for this one on September 4.

Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakuel
I didn't see the first film because it looked pretty awful, although the ridiculous amount of money it made showed that not everybody thought so. This teaser, which involves Alvin, Simon and Theodore doing their rendition of the 20th Century Fox Fanfare is pretty cute and the film should presumably please those who enjoyed the original. This one scurries into theaters on Christmas Day.

I know, it's been a while since I've written one of these gore-soaked missives, but the upside to that is ... we have a lot to talk about! And since I wrote this during a lazy Sunday (happy belated holidays, btw) I figure it's time to break out the candy-coated bullet points! Let's start out with a freaky fistful of upcoming DVD releases:

Currently strewn across shelves are Donkey Punch and Vinyan, two festival-heavy horror films that couldn't possibly be more different. One's about venal young jerks, and the other is about heartbroken (but stupid) parents. Really bad things happen to all of them.

This Tuesday we're getting the old-school-style monster movie Splinter, which is really quite good. If you like prickly monsters, that is. On the same day ... whoa. It looks like someone actually bothered to exhume flicks like Repossessed, Slaughter High, and My Best Friend Is a Vampire. That sound you just heard was my Netflix queue getting fatter.

Come the 21st we get J.T. Petty's The Burrowers, which played (and played well) at last year's Fantastic Fest, and Robert Hall's Laid to Rest, which is sort of like a non-snarky slasher throwback with a hint of Phantasm-style weirdness. Couldn't find a stranger double feature than these two, believe me.

And mark your calendars, gore-lovers, for April 28, because that's when Martyrs finally hits R1 DVD. According to the UK poster, Scoot Weinberg says it "makes Saw look like Sesame Street," which is one of the most shameless blurbs I've ever heard. Even if the guy is correct, brilliant, and really handsome. (Trust me, this is one rough horror movie.) Also on this Tuesday we'll get the unofficial Donnie Darko sequel, and a movie starring Amber Benson called One-Eyed Monster. I leave the jokes to you fine folks.

Star Trek
I stopped watching trailers and clips for Watchmen awhile ago because I want to save something for the final release. I'm almost at that same place with JJ Abrams' new Star Trek movie, but this latest Trek trailer throws out some tantalizing bits. Kirk's dad was in Starfleet? He knew Captain Pike? Don't bother with the transporter, I'm already on board for this one, and it hits on May 8.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
If you're a hardcore Harry Potter fan you've probably already finished reading the novels, so this penultimate film in the series will have no real surprises. The question is how well will the film retell Rowling's story, and if this trailer is any indication the answer is "quite well indeed, thank you very much." Hope everyone's gotten their letter from Hogwart's because the Hogwart's Express departs on July 17.

The Limits of Control
This trailer will have you wondering what the heck is going on, but it piqued my curiosity enough to make me want to see the movie. There's this mysterious guy, there's talk of revenge and how useless it is. It's all pretty cryptique. My enthusiasm is tempered by the fact that this is from Jim Jarmusch, director of the disappointing Broken Flowers, but who knows. This one gets a limited release on May 22.

The tricky thing about both trailers and sci-fi flicks is that you might feel that you've already gotten the gist of either in under two minutes. After watching this here teaser for September's Pandorum, I feel torn between a look that reminds me of Event Horizon (could be worse in my book) and a story that is rumored to be more akin to I Am Legend (yeah, now Horizon sounds good, huh?), but we'll know in a couple of months whether or not amnesiac astronauts Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster are in as much danger as this trailer from Film School Rejects suggests.

I didn't see director Christian Alvert's first film, Antibodies, and nearly no one has seen his still-shuffled follow-up, Case 39, though there's no writing credit on that one to haunt him. Hopefully, this thing will be more atmospheric than derivative -- if it's even either; this isn't even two minutes here! -- but again, we'll find out in due time. Pandorum opens on September 4.

When the writers' strike was looming, folks were rushing to get things done. This time around, with SAG, we've got some big-budget films trucking ahead, or scheduling re-shoots, without worry of the actors heading for the picket line. It almost feels like it's just some wild rumor. But it's not, and Variety reports that there is a pretty large "Waiverland" in case things go ahead.

SAG has set up 300 waiver deals with indie producers for post-June 30 production, should the strike go on. Now, Variety also points out that some of the big productions (like Terminator, which seemed surprisingly carefree about the possible strike), have scheduled in a hiatus just in case (hopefully long enough to cover it, should a strike begin), but others are going on the hope that there won't be one, like Angels and Demons and Prince of Persia. Risky business.

So, if you're wondering what some of the films are that got waivers, Variety shared the following: Edge of Darkness, W, My One and Only, Big Eyes, Labor Pains, Pandorum, Bad Lieutenant, Killing Pablo, and Brooklyn's Finest. Plus an earlier waiver list that included The Rebound, Law-Abiding Citizen, and Brothers in Arms.

We're in June now, so we'll know soon enough what will happen. Hopefully this can all be resolved without a big strike, but only time will tell.

There's a really neat-sounding small-scale sci-fi project in development at Overture Films called Pandorum. But for the news that Paul W.S. Anderson is involved, I'd be really excited. Pandorum will be about two spaceship crewmen who wake up on their ship with no idea who they are or what they're supposed to be doing. Soon, they "make a discovery that threatens the survival of mankind."

Anderson didn't write and won't be directing the film -- those tasks both fall to relative unknowns -- but he is reteaming with his Resident Evil cohorts to produce it. He's not exactly on my must list these days, since the Resident Evil franchise has pretty much died under his supervision and AvP isn't exactly a venerable addition to the list of ongoing big-name series. Pandorum's premise sounds cool, but then so did Event Horizon's until you actually learned what was going on. In any case, Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster (in a possible rare non-psychopathic role?) have signed on to star as our heroes, which is good news. I guess the big question is what exactly the two of them "discover" on that spaceship.

Pandorum is supposed to start production in August in Berlin, according to the Variety piece; no word on a release date. Sci-fi fans, make a note of it.