Monstrous Opening For Aliens In 3-D

I had a lecture at my University the other day with a guest speaker (Matt Smith) from Lionsgate UK (Saw franchise, My Bloody Valentine and many others). He predicted that Monsters vs Aliens would go straight to number 1 with a very large opening. I had my doubts about this but when I looked at Bolt and My Bloody Valentine's success I reserved my cynicism and waited for the figures. And look at how wrong I was! $59.3m is not half bad is it?! Looks like a decent movie in my opinion with a cast including Witherspoon, Rogen, Laurie, Rudd and my personal favourite Stephen Colbert. The 3-D revolution seems to be starting. I've actually only seen Journey To The Centre Of The Earth in 3-D and I found it terrific fun but that film struggled. However the mammoth success of Bolt and now MvsA display a new market for cinema to attract more cinemagoers. BTW I thought Bolt looked horrific and am not really the biggest fan of 3-D but lets see. For me Up is the movie I'm looking forward to in the animation stakes as well as Toy Story 3.

Horror is a bulletproof genre as The Haunting In Connecticut's first weekend of $23m shows. A badly reviewed and average looking film that has been done before a million times again performs extremely well. Recently the only horror that impressed me was Funny Games and The Strangers, at least they knew how to create that uneasy tension and in the case of Haneke's remake of his Austrian film, it is bloody cold as an iceberg. Trying to find humanity in Funny Games is like looking for a flaw in Megan Fox...impossible.

Knowing drops to 3 with not too calamitous $46.2m ($14.7m). I saw this last Thursday and loved it. Completely took me by surprise, was expecting a dumb Nicolas Cage actioner. What I got was a apocalyptic disaster movie with two fantastic action sequences and a unique and refreshing take on the future with an excellent biblical theme running throughout. Cage is decent as are the other members of the cast but this film is Alex Proyas's (I, Robot) baby. It is intelligent and very un-Hollywood that pleased me greatly. Highly recommended.

I Love You, Man comfortably wraps up 4th spot with $12.7m ($37.1m). That means Paul Rudd has two movies in the top 10 and once again proves his status as one of the big comedy men right now in Hollywood.

Duplicity is a strange film. It is by Tony Gilroy (writer of the Bourne trilogy and the director of Michael Clayton) and has Julia Roberts and Clive Owen but I'm still a little underwhelmed. My brother assures me it is a good film even if little actually happens, a lot is left unresolved and it is very complex. It is DVD for me I'm afraid as Gilroy's next effort State of Play should really impress, and that will be a definite at the cinema for me. Oh yeah Duplicity made $7.67m ($25.8m).

Race Tow Witch Mountain moves past the $50m mrk on $53.5m ($5.8m). Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson is joined by another wrestler this week in the ating stakes but more about that later. This film shows he is a box office draw and has a future in the family movie for sure with the success of The Game Plan and now this. I personally was impressed by his performance in the criminally underrated Southland Tales. Yes that film was deeply flawed and weird but go in without cynicism and just enjoy the stunning beauty and Lynch-esque weirdness of Richard Kelly's direction. I cannot wait for The Box which will be out in the winter of this year. Cameron Diaz, James Marsden and Frank Langella star.

And now onto the other WWF, WF, W - I don't know what they call it anymore - star in this weeks chart. John Cena. 12 Rounds that actually doesn't sound that bad. $5.33m is a decent amount for a guy who has only really done straight to DVD actioners like The Marine. Oh sorry, I've just checked the budget and it is $22m...well it's going to have perform really well on DVD. But worldwide sales should do the trick...possibly. $22m for a John Cena flick? Has the world gone mad?!

And onto better news...Watchmen finally passes $100m. It sure took long enough! $2.73m ($103m) is not exactly inspiring though and it looks unlikely that this great picture will stay much longer. It'll be interesting to see what the worldwide box office is for this movie. Then we can really get an idea of how it has done. Although the US total isn't bad it doesn't even touch 300's $210m gross does it?!

In complete contrast Taken has achieved mammoth success having Taken (yes it is its last week in the chart so the joke remains) $137m ($2.7m). When you think that this is just a little less than the big budget, mass promoted and hyped Watchmen has made and which has been out for a month less, it is even more incredible.

Last House House On The Left is now Last Place On The Chart with $28.5m ($2.64m). On Imdb this has a rating of 7.0. Is it any good. Would be fascinated to hear. I'm gonna check it out when it comes over the pond so we'll see if it does a Hills Have Eyes improvement or a Friday The 13th shitfest. Wow it feels good to write that word! Oh just to add Wes Craven obviously realised that he can't do tense thrillers after the horrendously bad Red Eye so he has chosen to make Scream 4. Just what the world needed...

Here in the UK Knowing tops the chart with nearly £2.5m. Decent opening. Watchmen managed to reach £8.3m.

And on the British side of things The Damned United reached number 5 with about £620,000. It chronicles the legendary Brian Clough and his ill-judged decision to manage Leeds United. It will mean nothing to people outside the UK probably but it still is a fascinating story. Michael Sheen stars as well as Jim Broadbent and Timothy Spall. For any fans of Soccer or if you're just looking for a good story then check it out.