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Despite Manohla Dargis’s unadulterated savagery in The New York Times (really…what did you expect?), I’m prepared to make a rather obscene box office prediction. After asking the shoe gods for help in predicting this maddening opening weekend - when it isn’t fanboys lining up as usual, things become difficult to foretell - I’ve decided to up my weekend prediction for Sex and the City. Or maybe just for opening day. I’m now guessing the Fab Four will do $28 million on Friday alone, and then suffer huge drops. Yes, I know that’s only $2 million less than the opening Friday of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The girls can do it. The advance sales are jaw-dropping in the urban markets. Hopefully I’m not eating my words come Saturday! 

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Box office analysts are facing quite a pickle with their projections for the Fab Four’s opening weekend. As every part of the industry is completely dominated by male stars, male interests, and male fanboys, no one knows what to make of these crazy movies that come along once in a while that women are actually interested in. In other words, films that do not devote 30+ minutes to the building of metal suits used for flying around like a jackass saving helpless big-breasted damsels.

Of course I’m talking about Sex and the City: The Movie, which could be the biggest female-skewing blockbuster of all time (unless you count The Sound of Music). Opening day ticket sales on Fandango are absolutely through the roof. Though you can’t count on the New York City media market as an accurate gauge of the country as a whole, it’s still telling that almost every single showing of SATC between 5 pm and midnight on Friday in Manhattan is sold out. That’s nuts. Star Wars doesn’t hit those kind of numbers. My guess, woefully uneducated, is that SATC will do AT LEAST $45 million this weekend, and could do much more.

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Despite being the slowest Memorial Day weekend at the box office in over five years, Steven Spielberg’s new franchise blockbuster cleaned up, grossing a commendable $127 million in four days and $152 million since its Thursday debut. That’s fat cash for the ancient franchise, which had its last installment in 1989 with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. The awkwardly titled Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull flushed the competition, with the weekend’s number two film grossing only $30 million. That film, The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, has disappointed at the ticket booth, proving far less successful than its predecessor. With Speed Racer’s crash and burn two weeks ago, the marketplace doesn’t have the depth it typically does at Memorial Day. Look for that to change on May 30 when Sex and the City hits theatres and Indy scores a respectable drop in his second outing.

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Loose cannon/director Abel Ferrara kisses girlfriend, actress Shanyn Leigh during the Chelsea on the Rocks photocall at the 61st International Cannes Film Festival on May 23, 2008. Ferrara’s new film attempts to capture the rich history and mythology of The Chelsea Hotel, past and present. The quintessential fringe-y New York City filmmaker, there may be no better director to tackle such a project. It was reported recently that Ferrara’s fantastic 1992 film Bad Lieutenant will be remade by Werner Herzog. Harvey Keitel’s role will be played by Nicolas Cage this time around.

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Every once in a while a movie comes along that touches the hearts of millions, uniting the globe in the common cause of American domination of international entertainment conglomerates. One of those films is now upon us - we’re just three days away from the movie event of the decade. To your undoubted surprise, I’m not talking about the Bergmanesque What Happens in Vegas. I’m referring instead to the likely indy sensation (hahaha) Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Psych! Maybe not.

Though her full review won’t be published for another two days, the revered Manohla Dargis of the New York Times had this to say about the film in her weekend Cannes roundup:

“I was bored out of my mind while watching the movie, which makes me think that Steven Spielberg was terribly bored while directing it. But that’s a germ of an idea that I would like to actually contemplate for a few days.”

The film has received a host of mild to ecstatically positive reviews though, including a rave from Roger Ebert. While I’m often a fan of Mr. Ebert, I should remind fair readers that he also wrote this review.

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Gee, I was way off with my box office predictions this time around. Perhaps it’s all the unbridled Indiana Jones anticipation in the air that’s making me crazy, thinking that a PG Tolkien derivative was going to bust out $100 million at the U.S. box office. If you cut that roughly in half, you get the $56.6 million estimated weekend for The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, which most analysts had pegged at around $80 million. The first installment made $65 million. Ouch.

In retrospect this makes sense. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is a much-beloved tale, but the rest of the allegorically rich C.S. Lewis Narnia stories have never been nearly as popular. This entry is supposedly more of a straight-up fantasy adventure, losing much of the Christian overtones of the original (even though the first film toned down the deafening Christian allegory of the source novel). The trailers haven’t been that exciting either - it looks like more of the same, with more handsomely staged battle sequences. Plus, while Hollywood likes to trump box office receipts as evidence of quality, the first film made its cash on name recognition and a paucity of good family fare for the holidays, not necessarily on hot buzz for Lion. It was pretty dumb to open this in the summer.

Iron Man continued its strong performance in second place with an impressive $31.2 million estimate. That puts the metallurgy documentary at an excellent $222 million. It now has an outside chance of breaking $300 million, something no one expected a month ago. Speed Racer continues as one of the biggest mega-budget bombs of all time, falling nearly 60% to roughly $7 million. International receipts have been pathetic as well. At this point, the film might not even break $100 million worldwide. The Wachowskis are going to have difficulty getting their fetishist pet projects (in this case it was CARS CARS CARS) off the ground at Warner, which gave them whatever they wanted for Racer after the phenomenal success of the Matrix films.

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I’m pretty bullish on the box office prospects of Walt Disney and Walden Media’s second installment of their blockbuster Chronicles of Narnia franchise, Prince Caspian. Though it looks just as bland and visually uninspired as the first attempt (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe), critics are weighing in with mostly positive reviews, pointing out in particular the tighter narrative and increased sense of gravitas. I suppose the latter is appropriate for a movie about anthropomorphic rodents and Jesus-Lions. Speaking of Jesus, click here.

The usual suspects are predicting around $80 million for this juggernaut, a solid improvement over the first film’s $65 million opening in December 2005. I’m not 100% confident with my prediction, but I’d peg Prince Caspian more in the $90-100 million range. Iron Man has breathed new life into a dull spring box office, and Speed Racer clearly wasn’t the blockbuster Hollywood was hoping for. Families are ready for some lightly drawn Christian allegory - bring on that doe-eyed Prince!

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Actress Gillian Anderson attends the AKVINTA GQ Party for the How to Lose Friends & Alienate People premiere during the 61st Cannes International Film Festival on May 15, 2008 in Cannes, France. How to Lose Friends & Alienate People is directed by Robert B. Weide who also steered Curb Your Enthusiasm. Anderson co-stars with Kirsten Dunst, Megan Fox, Jeff Bridges and Simon Pegg in the comedy which is based on a bestselling memoir by Toby Young.

Anderson’s magnetic presence at Cannes reminds me that Scully and Mulder return to the big screen in The X-Files movie: I Want to Believe. Though I didn’t memorize Dana Scully’s monologues and never had Gillian Anderson desktop wallpaper, I was a fan of her work on The X-Files and expected to see more of her in the forthcoming years. Though she did a fair amount of acting on the other side of the pond, she kept a relatively low profile, raising a family and weaving in and out of relationships. I Want To Believe, skirts the established alien story arc of the television series in favor of a focus on terrestrial matters. Will virgins to The X-Files be interested in this film? I am not sure. Will this film usher a greater Anderson presence? I want to believe so (sorry!).

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Follow this link to the Indiana Jones official site to check out the newest full-length trailer. I’m still holding out on this being totally awesome, but doesn’t it kind of look like Harrison Ford is phoning it in? Maybe they should have pissed off the fans and re-cast the role with Brad Pitt, freeing Ford up for more age-appropriate projects like Space Cowboys 2: The Age-Defying Wormhole.

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Hollywood’s quest for the continued infantilization of the American male (see a great New York Times piece on the subject here) has been bolstered by the weekend’s boffo opening for that movie about a rich playboy with a weaponry fetish. Seeking to respond in kind, Marvel Studios is feeling pretty damn confident with their first self-financed production hitting $100 million in three days. So without furthur ado, here is Marvel’s just-announced upcoming slate:

The Incredible Hulk - June 13th, 2008
Iron Man 2 - April 30th, 2010
Thor - June 4th, 2010
The First Avenger: Captain America - May 6, 2011
The Avengers - July 2011
Ant-Man - (writer/director engaged)

I’m sorry, does that say a Thor movie is in the works? Yes. Yes it does. The global warming apocalypse is sounding really good right now. 

By the way, that’s Buzz Aldrin in the picture. Behind him, apparently, is Marvel’s retard Frankenstein.