The Weekend Warrior 2/3/17: Rings, The Space Between Us, The Comedian – LRM Online (press release) (blog)

Cast: Matilda Lutz, Alex Roe, Johnny Galecki, Aimee Teegarden, Bonnie Morgan, Vincent D'Onofrio. Director: F. Javier Gutirrez (Before the Fall) Genre: Horror, Thriller Rated PG-13 Plot: Julia (Matilda Lutz) starts worrying about her boyfriend Hoyt (Alex Roe), when he seemingly vanishes after going off to college, and she soon learns he's gotten involved with a science teacher (Johnny Galecki) who is experimenting on his students by making them watch a videotape that kills whomever watches it in seven days. Sound familiar? Thats because THIS IS A SEQUEL. HAVE WE NOT LEARNED ANYTHING YET?!?! Theater Count (est.): 2,800

No, seriously, its clear that studios havent learned a thing from last year, but to be fair to Paramount, this is a property they picked up from DreamWorks years ago, and a movie that was produced almost two years ago with plans to release it sometime in 2016. At one point, it was going to be released close to Halloween, which would have been a perfect way to fill in the niche left open by the end of the Paranormal Activity franchise. But then the movie was moved once again to this weekend.

Normally, a movie being shelved for so long is worrying, although weve seen other horror films do decently on Super Bowl weekend, including the remake When a Stranger Calls ($21.6 million opening), The Woman in Black ($20.9 million) and the horror classic Boogeyman ($19 million). We can go back further and see other movies like Kristen Stewarts pre-Twilight movie The Messengers, Darkness Falls, and the Jessica Alba remake of The Eye, all of which made between $12 and 15 million.

I can tell you right now that almost all of those movies were varying degrees of bad. Many of them werent screened for critics because they were so bad and yet, they still did decently. It makes you wonder WHY?!?!? Its possible that every couple years theres a new batch of stupid teenagers who want to go to a movie and be scared with their friends and Rings looks to fit that bill.

What makes Rings a bit different is that this isnt just another sequel but sort of a reboot of a remake of a Japanese hit, and that original remake, The Ring, was directed by Gore Verbinski, who returns to horror later this month with A Cure for Wellness. Mind you, its been 12 years since the poorly-received sequel The Ring 2 (released by DreamWorks when it was its own company), and its hard to imagine anyone who sat through that dog will ever want to see another Ring movie.

If there is anything weve learned from the past years sequelitis is that you cant expect fans of a movie as old as The Ring to care about a new movie in the franchise. They were probably between 15 and 25 back and then now that theyre 12 years older and probably know better about wasting money on a movie that probably wont be very good or as scary as the original movie. (Paramount are screening the movie for critics but making them hold reviews until after Thursday previews.)

And yet theres still those teenagers who might see this without knowing anything about the original movies or their origins. That is, if they dont just decide to go see Split again, since theres probably a lot more people talking about M. Night Shyamalans movie then seeing Rings. Still, expect it to do somewhere between $10 and 12 million based on those teens wholl go see this out of curiosity alone, just like they went to see The Bye Bye Man a couple weeks back. (Theres a chance that younger women might have to decide between this and The Space Between Us, though this certainly seems like a stronger draw.)

Link:
The Weekend Warrior 2/3/17: Rings, The Space Between Us, The Comedian - LRM Online (press release) (blog)

Reviewed and Recommended by Erik Baquero