Last weekend, the newest films counted on big stars like Tom Cruise and Adam Sandler, but this weekend, it’s more about sci-fi, special effects and fantasy as two established franchises try to dominate the holiday weekend box office.
First, there’s Eclipse, also known as part 3 of the Twilight saga, and while you might not be a Twilight fan, there are some really interesting things about this movie. For starters, Cinephiles might notice that this 3rd Twilight movie has a different director than each of the first two. Also, New Moon, the last film in this series, did nearly 300 million dollars at the U.S. box office which makes it one of the biggest films of all time. In fact it sits at #35 on the all-time box office list, and the movie it edged out for that ranking is, ironically, The Sixth Sense from director M. Night Shyamalan who also delivers a new film this weekend against Eclipse.
Night’s new movie is called The Last Airbender and it’s based on the very successful Nickelodeon animated series called Avatar: The Last Airbender…. I guess they felt it was a good idea to drop the Avatar part of that name. In Hollywood, execs will be watching this film for two reasons… (1) To see if this franchise works well on the big screen and (2) to see if M. Night Shyamalan still has it. It’s been 8 years since night has had really huge film …that was when his film called Signs made over $200 million. If this one bombs, it could be bad news for him.
Either way, if you’re into sci-fi and fantasy, this is a good weekend for you at your local Cineplex.
I’m Stephanie Simmons from ReelzChannel where movie fans can watch TV about movies on DirecTV channel 238, Dish network 299 and cable systems nationwide. We’re online too at ReelzChannel.com.