Box Office: 'Gone Girl' and 'Annabelle' Open Big; 'Left Behind' gets Left Behind

1. Gone Girl- $38M
I began the week expecting that the horror Annabelle would beat out David Fincher's mature-themed thriller, Gone Girl, simply because genre movies have such immediate appeal. Plus, adults tend to wait a bit longer to check out big movies. But I was wrong and it's Gone Girl that eeks out #1 with $38M, but to be honest both movies did great. Gone Girl benefits from having Ben Affleck in one of his biggest roles to date that doesn't involve a Bat-suit, and obviously Gillian Flynn's buzzy novel. This is a total water cooler movie that casual moviegoers will be talking about for awhile (that twist!!!!), and to that end it should hang around near the top for a few weeks at least. It's also the biggest debut for Fincher but not really surprising as the film is easily his most commercial.
2. Annabelle- $37.2M
Spinoffs of established films tend to be a gamble, but Annabelle, a prequel to last year's small-budget hit The Conjuring, did nearly as well. Its $37M debut is just a shade under The Conjuring's $41M. It will probably take a tumble next week like most horrors do but this is obviously a win for Warner Bros. and don't be surprised if the demonic doll returns in some fashion, possibly in next year's The Conjuring sequel.
3. The Equalizer- $19M/$64.5M
Denzel Washington continues to equalize the box office with an additional $19M for The Equalizer, which has now surpassed $100M worldwide.
4. The Boxtrolls- $12.4M/$32.5M
Laika's stop-motion animated film The Boxtrolls added another $12M, slipping only 28% in week two. Overall the $60M film has gained $50M, good enough to earn the studio another three-picture deal with Focus Features.
5. The Maze Runner- $12M/$73.9M
6. Left Behind- $6.8M
In a year that has seen faith-based movies really tear it up at the box office, Left Behind is still off to a pretty terrible start. The film is basically a reworking of the atrocious Kirk Cameron-led version of the Rapture-loving movie from years ago, only this one stars Nicolas Cage and Jordin Sparks, two actually movie stars. And it's probably due to them and the typical prodding from right-leaning websites that it was able to score $6.8M, which is still one of the lowest debuts in Cage's career. Full disclosure, the studio behind this one knows me and wouldn't let us put up a review, knowing that it would get bashed. They were probably right because it looks awful.
7. This is Where I Leave You- $4M/ $29M
8. Dolphin Tale 2- $3.5M/$37.9M
9. Guardians of the Galaxy- $3M/$323.3M
10. No Good Deed- $2.5M/$50.1M

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Box Office: 'The Equalizer' Equalizes the Competition for #1

1. The Equalizer- $35M
Old reliable. That's what they should call Denzel Washington, especially when it comes to action movies like The Equalizer. This one is based on the 1980s TV series, and reunites Denzel with his Training Day director, Antoine Fuqua, and it got off to a strong start with $35M. It's the third biggest opening of his career, and let's be honest that people like him better in tough guy-mode than they do in a film like Flight, although that one did pretty well, too. With Sony Pictures having already moved forward on a sequel, Denzel is guaranteed to come back for what would be the first follow-up of his storied career which is pretty amazing to consider.
2. The Maze Runner- $17.5M/$58M
Sliding a respectable 46% in its second week is The Maze Runner, and it looks like the next big YA franchise to sit alongside The Hunger Games and Divergent. At a cost of only $32M this one is playing huge for 20th Century Fox, which is why they've already lined up sequel The Scorch Trials for next year.
3. The Boxtrolls- $17.25M
Critics have always been big fans of Portland-based animation studio Laika, lavishing their prior films Coraline and ParaNorman with high praise. Matching box office has failed to follow, but with The Boxtrolls' $17.25M debut they've earned their biggest opening weekend yet. While a bit weirder than their other projects, the humor is clearly targeted at kids and geared to appeal to wider audiences, and it seems to have paid off. Internationally, The Boxtrolls got off to a solid start with an additional $11M.
4. This is Where I Leave You- $7M/$22.5M
5. Dolphin Tale 2- $4.8M/$33.6M
6. No Good Deed- $4.6M/$46.6M
7. A Walk Among the Tombstones- $4.2M/$20.8M
8. Guardians of the Galaxy- $3.7M/$319.1M
Unbelievably, the strongest hold of the week goes to Guardians of the Galaxy, which slipped only 22% and added another $3.7M. It's now surpassed the $318M domestic haul of Marvel's Iron Man, and the $644M worldwide total for Thor: The Dark World.
9. Let's Be Cops- $1.9M/$79.6M
10. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles- $1.4M/$187.1M

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Review: Laika's 'The Boxtrolls' featuring Ben Kingsley, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, and Elle Fanning

Everybody loves and respects the stop-motion animated films by Laika, the talented Portland, OR animators behind Coraline and ParaNorman. Those two films achieved great critical acclaim; widely praised for both their beauty and darker, supernatural themes. Neither was a huge box office hit, though, which must be frustrating given the thousands of man hours the studio puts in and never let us forget. Their latest film The Boxtrolls is perhaps their first stab at doing something that will achieve wider acceptance, but those who appreciated their more mature work may find it lacking.

The Boxtrolls is, like everything Laika does, exceptionally gorgeous and detailed. The amount they are able to put in to every scene is mind-blowing when one considers the time it takes to move each figure a single frame. And this world is the weirdest they've conjured up yet. The fictional sorta-Victorian town of Cheesebridge is a peculiar place where cheese in all its many forms is revered, especially by those of higher social standing, who all wear white hats as indicators of their stature. Underneath the city live the Boxtrolls, a family of ogre-ish creatures who emerge in the night looking for tossed aside trinkets and knick-knacks. They've been portrayed as monsters that kidnap children and eat them, a story concocted after a young boy's disappearance. He's actually quite alive, named Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) and living with the boxtrolls who raised him. Eggs has no idea that he's actually human, which galls Winnie (Elle Fanning), the daughter of Lord Portley-Rind (Jared Harris). Threatened by the Boxtrolls' existence, Portley-Rind has hires devious exterminator Archibald Snatcher (Ben Kingsley) to finish them off. Snatcher's all too happy to do it in exchange for receiving a white hat so he can eat cheese with the upper crust of society, this despite a chronic (and utterly disgusting) inability to tolerate the stuff. When Snatcher proves too good at his job, capturing nearly all of the Boxtrolls, it's up to Eggs to brave the city and find them.

Laika has never shied away from tackling complex subjects, and The Boxtrolls is their most overt social commentary yet, which is a very good thing. While it's toned down for younger audiences, the film celebrates family diversity in the familial bond between Eggs and the boxtrolls who care for him most, Shoe and Fish. The closeness between them is never in question, and those paying attention will note that both of Eggs' boxtroll "parents" are males. It's one of those small details that kids will grow into and appreciate. Laika has always been one to embrace its "outsider" status in Hollywood and their films have often embraced a certain counter-culture spirit. The Boxtrolls is no different in its celebration of diversity and skewering of hierarchal societies. These qualities are enjoyable but muddled by an overstuffed screenplay that tacks on one conflict after another. There's Eggs' reluctance to leave his boxtroll upbringing and embrace his human side; Snatcher's scheming to climb the social ladder; Winny's desire to gain her daddy's favor; and the emergence of a daffy inventor (Simon Pegg) with very close ties to Eggs. It's simply too much going on, and yet there are still too many times when the film drags to a screeching halt, and that may have something to do with it not being all that funny. This may be a matter of personal taste but the Python-esque, dry British wit isn't everyone's slice of cheddar. Throw in giant mechanical robots, gross-out gags, oversized wheels of cheese, Snatcher as a drag queen, and the humor is too childish and busy to come together as satisfying as it should.

Nothing can take away from how beautiful the world co-directors Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi have helped create. It truly looks like no other Laika film which is really saying something. Combining steampunk with the offbeat style of Tim Burton, it’s an imaginative visual stunner that you will never get tired of looking at. What Laika is able to accomplish on a technical level is to be admired as much as their social concerns, but The Boxtrollsjust doesn't resonate in quite the way we're used to from them.

 Rating: 2.5 out of 5

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Two Beautiful Trailers for Laika's 'The Boxtrolls'

By my count we've seen four trailers for the gorgeous, stop motion-animated The Boxtrolls, and now we have two more. Either the geniuses at Laika, who have already given us two champion animated films in Coraline and ParaNorman, are extremely proud of their latest work or they're concerned it will fly under the radar. Either way, the latest footage is typically beautiful and magical while maintaining the studio's fondness for the creepy. Set in the fictional Victorian town of Cheesebridge, the story centers on an orphan boy named Eggs (Isaac Hempstead-Wright) who is raised by underground trash-stealing trolls. Ben Kingsley voices the exterminator hired to exterminate the trolls once and for all, while Elle Fanning, Toni Collette, Simon Pegg, Jared Harris, Nick Frost, and Tracy Morgan do some voicing of their own.

The Boxtrolls is set to finally open September 26th.


The Boxtrolls International Trailer by CGMeetup

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Laika Unveils Another Trailer for 'The Boxtrolls'

It's obvious the stop-motion geniuses at Laika are excited about The Boxtrolls, because we've been seeing trailers for it since a year ago. And yet with months until the animated adventure finally opens, they've treated us to one more that delves into the fictional Victorian town of Cheesebridge.

Featuring the voices of Simon Pegg, Tracy Morgan, Ben Kingsley, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Toni Collette, and more, this adaptation of Alan Snow's Here be Monsters centers on a young orphan raised by cheese-stealing, trash-collecting trolls underground. Laika already gave us the brilliant animated films ParaNorman and Coraline, and it looks like they may have another classic on their hands.

The Boxtrolls opens September 26th.

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New Trailer for 'The Boxtrolls' from the Makers of 'Coraline' and 'ParaNorman'

The amount of work that goes into stop-motion animation requires an extremely long lead time, which may explain why we've been seeing footage from Laika's The Boxtrolls since last summer. The film doesn't come out for months, but now another trailer has been released for what looks like another magical entry from the folks behind Coraline and ParaNorman.

Featuring the voices of Elle Fanning, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Ben Kingsley, Tracy Morgan, and Richard Ayoade, the Victorian-era story follows Eggs, an orphan in the town of Cheesebridge who was raised by trolls beneath the streets. Kingsley voices Archibald Snatcher, an exterminator hired to wipe out the Boxtrolls, who are believed to be stealing the city's children. This trailer also includes an original song by Cee-Lo Green.

With no animated projects from Pixar this year, perhaps there's room for Laika to finally get the attention they deserve? Co-directed by Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi, The Boxtrolls opens September 26th.

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LAIKA Unveils New Trailer for 'The Boxtrolls'

With great movies like Coraline and ParaNorman under their belt, the brilliant animators at LAIKA could rightly be considered the best in the field of stop-motion animation. The problem is that, despite the years of painstaking work it takes to make a single stop-motion film, they are too often ignored at the box office and when awards start getting handed out. Hopefully that will change when LAIKA's latest film, The Boxtrolls, hits theaters next fall.

The latest trailer really wants you to understand just how much time and effort went into every exacting detail. Based on Alan Snow's celebrated novel Here Be Monsters, The Boxtrolls is set in the charming town of Cheesebridge, where kids are told stories of cheese-stealing trolls living beneath the streets. It turns out they are real and not at all fearsome, raising an orphaned boy named Eggs as one of their own.

Featuring the voices of Ben Kingsley, Isaac Hempstead-Wright, Elle Fanning, Jared Harris, Toni Collette, Nick Frost, Richard Ayoade, Tracy Morgan and Simon Pegg, The Boxtrolls comes above ground on September 26th 2014.

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New Trailer for 'The Boxtrolls' From the Studio Behind 'ParaNorman' and 'Coraline'

It's a small group of animators who are willing to dedicate themselves to the grueling process of stop-motion animation, and a few years ago it was the team at Laika who proved to be among their adaptation of Coraline. They followed it up with a fresh spin on horror with ParaNorman, and even though Laika may not have gotten the reaction to it they were hoping for, they're coming back again with another visionary animated tale in The Boxtrolls.

The first teaser has been released for The Boxtrolls, an adaptation of Alan Snow's illustrated novel Here Be Monsters! The Victorian-era story centers on an orphan named Eggs who was raised in an underground city by trash and cheese-collecting creatures known as Boxtrolls. Ben Kingsley leads a top notch voice cast which includes Isaac Hempstead-Wright (Game of Thrones), Simon Pegg, Elle Fanning, Toni Collette, Jared Harris, Nick Frost, Tracy Morgan, and Richard Ayoade. 

Like Laika's previous films, there's a darkness that creeps in to the light-hearted story as an exterminator seeks to wipe the Boxtrolls out of existence. It's not clear by this footage just how faithful Laika intends to be, but judging by their track record we can assume it'll be pretty close.

The Boxtrolls opens on September 26th 2014.

THE BOXTROLLS - Teaser Trailer by dmagianet

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