The Weekend Warrior: Dracula Untold, Alexander's Bad Day, The Judge, Addicted

After three weeks of movies openings over $30 million, this is the weekend where it can go terribly, horribly wrong at least for a guy named Alexander, but also for some of the other wide releases, a mixed bag of family films, adult dramas, action movies and something called Addicted. Any of these new movies could break out and open big, but with so much stronger fare in theaters, business will probably be spread out with none of the new movies really doing very huge business. (Oh and before I forget, this week's column also marks the 13th Anniversary of the Weekend Warrior if you include the few years I wrote it under a different name at another site.)

For better or worse, the weekend's best bet is the reinvention of a classic monster movie with Dracula Untold (Universal), starring Luke Evans (The Hobbit, Fast and Furious 6) as Bram Stoker's pioneer of the vampire mythos, a prequel that shows exactly how Dracula became a vampire and got his powers hundreds of years before being visited by Jonathan Harker.

Luke Evans has certainly been making a name for himself in recent years, appearing in two of last year's biggest blockbusters, Fast & Furious 6 ($788 million worldwide) and Peter Jackson's The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug ($958 million worldwide). That's after appearing in movies like Immortals, The Raven and No One Lives - the latter two being darker gothic thrillers more in the vein of his new role as Dracula. One expects that appearing in "The Hobbit" has helped Evans establish a solid female fanbase and since women do enjoy vampires and Dracula, he could end up being a bigger draw for 20 to 30-something women than may normally come out to see an action movie like this, especially if he appears in the movie shirtless. (Spoiler: he does.)

Although vampires have been overused in movies over the past few years thanks to the success of "The Twilight Saga," it's been a while since we've seen an actual "Dracula" movie. I lie. Last year, master Italian horror-meister Dario Argento gave us a 3D take on Dracula that was barely seen in its New York and L.A.-only release. In 1992, Bram Stoker's Dracula starring Gary Oldman, Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Anthony Hopkins and directed by Francis Ford Coppola was an enormous hit with a $30.5 million opening weekend on its way to $215.9 million worldwide. Since then, there have been lesser hits like Dracula 2000, starring a young Gerard Butler, which grossed just $33 million total. Different spins on the character like in Hugh Jackman's Van Helsing may have opened big but were critically thrashed and didn't have much in terms of legs.

This version co-stars Canadian beauty Sarah Gadon, the erstwhile Dominic Cooper and Charles Dance and Art Parkinson from HBO's hit "Game of Thrones," which may have been a big influence on first-time director Gary Shore when making this movie, even having the show's composer Ramin Djawadi do the music. Furthermore, this is rumored to be the first part in Universal Pictures' plans to reintroduce all their classic "monsters" in hopes of bringing them together Avengers-style in one big movie, although the end scene they've added to facilitate this doesn't seem like one that will excite moviegoers.

While the title may not be great and the movie may look too much like the awful I, Frankenstein starring Aaron Eckhart, which bombed earlier in the year, the Dracula name is certainly worth something, especially in October when horror is king. The PG-13 rating will also help the movie with a teen audience that sometimes has to sit out the amount of R-rated fare in theaters. That and the namebrand value should help bring in moviegoers, maybe not a lot but enough for it to win the weekend with somewhere in the mid-$20 million range. We'll see if it gets any sort of post-opening bump with Halloween coming up, but it probably will top off around $75 million or so.

Video Interviews with Evans, Gadon and Director Gary Shore

The strongest competition for Dracula will come in the form of the movie based on the '70s children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Disney), starring Jennifer Garner and Steve Carell. Originally published in 1972, Judith Viorst's book was popular for its time but it's also a book that's been kept around for many years until it finally was optioned to make it into a movie, this one directed by Miguel Arteta, the indie filmmaker of films like Jennifer Aniston's The Good Girl who went on to direct many popular TV shows in recent years.

The focus on the film's physical comedy will be what gets kids excited and it feels like a true family film since parents that remember the original children's book may be interested in seeing it with their kids, especially with the generally likeable Carell and Garner in the cast, even if neither of them have shown themselves to be big box office draws in recent years. Back in the late summer of 2012, Garner appeared in Disney's The Odd Life of Timothy Green, which grossed $51.8 million, but Carell is a much bigger family draw mainly from the voicework he's done in many animated blockbusters, most notably Despicable Me and its sequel, the latter which grossed nearly a billion worldwide just last year.

Carell's last live-action comedy for families was Universal's 2007 release Evan Almighty, the sequel to the much-more-successful Jim Carrey comedy which still grossed $100 million. He's had a number of hits since then including Get Smart ($130.3 million gross), Date Night with Tina Fey ($98.7 million), Crazy, Stupid, Love ($84.3 million) and Hope Springs, not to mention Anchorman 2, although his reteaming with Jim Carrey for 2012's The Incredible Burt Wonderstone was a significant bomb.

The rest is here:

The Weekend Warrior: Dracula Untold, Alexander's Bad Day, The Judge, Addicted

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero