We All Knew It was Coming, But...

...The Dark Knight is now the second highest grossing movie of all time. However, it was dethroned from the #1 spot this week by Tropic Thunder, as predicted. I say it makes $500 to 510 million total. Titanic is safe.

Shrek the Third: Will the Reviews Hurt its Success?

With a 44% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 57/100 on MetaCritic, will the reviews hurt Shrek the Third? Well, this is probably the least anticipated of all the three-quels coming out this year. While kids will undoubtedly be seeing this, people age 12 and up may be a little hesitant about making an event to see the film. We'll see soon enough...

Summer Box Office: Shrek the Third

I have yet to meet a person who doesn't like the Shrek franchise. The first is the 30th highest grossing film of all time. The second is the 3rd highest grossing film of all time. So the third should do extremely well, right? Although I would usually put an anti-climatic comment here, it will. Sure to be the family movie of the year.

My Excitement Factor: 8/10
U.S. Box Office Prediction: $200-300 Million

Summer Box Office: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

This is probably the most underrated of all the Harry Potter books. This is, in my opinion, the most crucial volume thus far in terms of advancing the story forward (I won't say why in case you're one of the two people who hasn't read it). Also, Gary Oldman and Ralph Fiennes have given fantastic performances in the previous Harry Potter films and Imelda Staunton fits her part like a glove. And Emma Watson and Rupert Grint are always great. This will have no problem doing well at the box office, but because this is one of the biggest summer movie seasons in a long time, it will have trouble standing out.

My Excitement Factor: 7/10
U.S. Box Office Prediction: $100-200 Million

Summer Box Office: Pirates of the Caribbean 3

After a very fun original and rather dull sequel, the surprise hit/cult film is releasing its (hopefully) final installment this summer. As overrated as I think the saga is, it has excellent marketing. It is what Spider-Man should have done. It releases its sequel a few years after the original, then releases the third installment just before the cult dies down. This is sure to be the box-office hit of 2007, unless there is some rare phenomenon and The Simpsons Movie, Spider-Man 3, Shrek 3 or Harry Potter 5 beats it.

My Excitement Factor: 4.5/10
U.S. Box Office Prediction: $350-450 Million

Summer Box Office: Spider-Man 3

Ah, the curse of a late three-quel. Had Spider-Man 3 been released in 2005, when Spider-Man 2 was still on everyone's minds, it would have broken every box office record in the book. Instead, it came out 3 years after (wait...WHOA! Spider-Man 2 came out three years ago????). Surely this will do well at the box office, but probably not extremely well. The film looks like it'll be the weakest of the three, but it has gotten phenomenal reviews. What does everyone think? Will this be a mega-blockbuster or a forgotten sequel?

My Excitement Factor: 7.5/10
U.S. Box Office Prediction: $100-125 Million

The First Simpsons Movie Review...

My least favorite movie site, movies.com, has proven to be useful in providing this early look at "The Simpsons Movie", which, in case you haven't read any of my posts, is my most anticipated movie ever. Yes, I really am that geeky.

"So, is the The Simpsons Movie just another TV episode that goes on for too long? An early Ain't It Cool News reviewer, Biker-Boy, reports that, in its current state, it runs a very short 75 minutes, with the first half being "hysterical genius." His rave continues: "It's classic. It's old school. It's violent. It's slapstick. It's clever. It's everything you could ever want it to be … I haven't laughed so hard in ages." The second half hour? Not so much. It just drags on, Biker Boy reports — though, he adds, "It definitely ends well … It all wraps up pretty neatly, and the animation here is superb, mixing high quality 2-D and 3-D to outstanding effect." He also praises an "inspired" Bart Simpson sequence in the otherwise slow middle half hour. Final verdict? It has, he says, "the potential to become 'an all-time classic … which, sadly, the version I saw falls ever so slightly short of.'"

Well, there's still time to fix most of that. And that's positive, right? Right. Very reasurring.