The shock success of “The Devil Inside,” a “found footage” thriller which hauled in nearly $34 million over the weekend, should finally pave the way for the most cost-effective film genre possible. The only question remaining is, why did it take so long to happen?

The first found footage blockbuster came with 1999’s “The Blair Witch Project.” Since then, modest hits like “Cloverfield,” “The Last Exorcism” and “Quarantine” showed the genre could be both profitable and appealing.

“The Devil Inside’s” success – does anyone care that both critics and audiences found it distasteful? – means we’ll be finding plenty more footage in 2012 and beyond.

This year already offers several found footage movies, including “Chronicle,” about a group of super-powered twenty-somethings and “Project x,” the tale of a wild teen party gone awry. “Devil” director William Brent Bell will be back in the genre thanks to his next assignment, a found footage thriller called “The Vatican.”

Yes, last year’s “Apollo 18″ proved a dud, but the story of a doomed space mission still grossed $17 million on a $5 million budget.  If that’s the worst case scenario movie studios have little to fear.

It’s easy to pin the rise of these micro-features on the death of the modern movie star. But the sad truth is these films are ridiculously cheap to make and demand unknowns in the leading roles for faux authenticity’s sake. They would come of age with or without the decline of bankable celebrities.

The clumsy aesthetics associated with these films clearly are of little concern to movie audiences. In our YouTube age, audiences are more than comfortable watching shaky camera work and amateur camera angles. That’s the reality of our modern lives. It’s also why reality television went mainstream so quickly.

Film studio executives are looking at the box office returns for “Devil” and asking themselves, “why pony up for Jennifer Aniston’s salary when we can shoot a bunch of unknowns for the rent on Aniston’s trailer?”

—–

Yeah, it kind of did that, I suppose.  Except I was too busy wondering why the central premise somehow had to be that American military personnel are sadistic, bloodthirsty, cold-blooded murderers.  Then I remembered that this is Hollywood.

Now, to talk about Super 8, I will have to reveal what some might call “spoilers.”  Except, they aren’t really “spoilers” because to be that the plot points I reveal would have to be unexpected and surprising.  Sadly, Super 8 adopts the same tiresome clichés that have been wrecking Hollywood films for the last 40 years.  The only surprise was the total lack of any surprise.

What do we have? Crazy, evil military officer as the baddie?  Check!  Kid with daddy issues?  Check!  Climax where the hero rescues the girl from monster’s lair?  Check!  Monster that is the real victim even though he’s freaking killing US military people and eating civilians left and right?  Check?

Let me throw something out there.  The premise here is the space monster crash lands on Earth, then the Air Force gets him and won’t let him leave, and the monster gets mad, then escapes, and it’s all the fault of the mean colonel who was keeping him that the monster is devouring people.  Maybe I’m biased after two deployments, but a character kills an American soldier onscreen and my sympathy meter drops into the red – Avatar, I am looking at you too.  Maybe the cinematic deaths of some American military folk might be no biggie in Tinseltown, but some of us take it personally.  Perhaps I’ll drop J.J. Abrams a line and invite him to the next memorial I have to attend.

Am I overreacting?  Maybe.  I can see the misdirection of the counterargument – “Crazy Conservative Says ‘Super 8’ Promotes Killing Soldiers!”  What you won’t see is a good explanation of why our own troops almost always end up as the bad guys.  Perhaps the Hollywoodoids don’t see anything wrong with making US military people the villain so often.  After all, most of them have nothing but contempt for soldiers despite their poses to the contrary, and US military people won’t send a suicide bomber into your Beverly Hills offices – unlike certain real villains who liberals won’t dare name.

Hollywood can make the movies it wants – the First Amendment is one of the things I made a miniscule contribution to protecting.  But I can refuse to waste my money on a movie that depicts American servicemembers as psychos who literally murder American citizens in cold blood.  And so can you.

Look at the far superior Close Encounters.  The American military is an obstacle to the hero, not a malignant enemy.  There, the military (and other agencies) are trying to make contact with the aliens; the military is benignly keeping folks away from Devil’s Tower.  But in Super 8, they murder them – and that’s not an off-hand, one-time event but a key plot point.  The American military have somehow become Hollywood’s go-to bad guys (though there are welcome exceptions like Battle: Los Angeles and even Speilberg’s own Saving Private Ryan), but we don’t have to sit back in our seats like zombies and take it.

Disgusting slander of our folks in uniform aside, Super 8 has some other significant problems.  First, it’s slow.  Way too slow.  There’s a lot of talking and most of it is about feelings.  I don’t go to summer movies to be babbled at about people’s ungovernable emotions.  I go to escape people babbling at me about their stupid feelings.

Second, the movie makes no sense.  Zero.  Things happen not because they would happen but because they have to happen to facilitate the plot.  Here’s an example:  A key point is the heroine’s father missed a shift at work at the steel mill, which the hero’s mother took and where she was killed in an accident.  The heroine’s father comes to the wake and the hero’s father – a deputy – arrests him.  Huh?  Punch him maybe, but arrest him?  Well, it makes a good visual I guess, but it makes no sense.  The rest of the movie is similar – totally bizarre things just kind of occur and everyone just nods and moves on.  “All the dogs have left town, stuff’s exploding and a bunch of people are missing – yep, sounds like a good time to share our feelings!”

And the alien has all these powers – he scares all the dogs out of town, makes lights go on and off, and can dig enormous caverns without generating any huge piles of dirt.  I’m guessing he can also probably make the Earth cool, the oceans recede and keep unemployment under 8% by spending a trillion bucks.  Regardless, none of these magical abilities make sense.  Oh, he is the size of a Mac truck but he’s harder to spot than “Where’s Waldo” when he cruises around town – no one ever sees him as he steals entire auto engines, microwave ovens and whole junkyards.  I like how the hero constantly hears it loudly banging around town, the noise echoing across the burg, but no one else seems to notice.  And then, for some reason, the city water tower turns into a space ship.  Whatever.  I should have pounded a couple of my usual pre-movie Dos Equis – it may have made more sense.

Oh, and the alien eats the regular, hard-working citizens of Lillian, Ohio, which no one seems to think is a big problem.  See, the alien says he was oppressed, so whatever he does is excusable.  In this way, Super 8 is the ultimate liberal morality tale.  The alien says he was oppressed, the message goes, so you decent folk can just pick up the tab.  How dare you object to being used as cattle – didn’t you hear?  The alien said he was oppressed.  Shut up and take whatever happens to you.  Substitute getting munched by a space spider with being forced to pay ever higher taxes to support subsidies to the Democrats’ favored deadbeat constituencies and Super 8 becomes – quite unwittingly – a Tea Party manifesto.  To liberals, the devastation inflicted on normal people for the benefit of their chosen special interests is just well-deserved collateral damage.

Let me sound off on one other thing – I’m throwing my beer at the screen if I see one more scene where a character sneaks into the villian’s lair to rescue his girlfriend and, instead of getting the hell out, they stand there and hug and start babbling about  – yeah, you guessed it – their damn feelings.  Maybe your emotional breaktrhough can wait until you’re away from the intergalactic tarantula.  Oh, and the intergalactic tarantula looks kind of doofy; we could be reaching the limits of what CGI can do.  It also looks way too much like the Cloverfield creature, though, considering it is J.J. Abrams, that may not be unintentional.

All I wanted was to recapture some of the magic of those exciting, technically breathtaking movies I grew up with.  It sure looked like them – the cinematography was right out of the Spielbergian playbook.  The plucky youngsters were engaging too, though none are memorable except for Elle Fanning as the teen heroine.  She’s going to be a HUGE star, mark my words.

In the end, I could have gotten past the flaws and enjoyed Super 8 except for the relentless trashing of the men and women who, frankly, made it possible with their blood and sacrifice.  After 40 years of this nonsense, I’m bored and I’m disgusted with it.  I still haven’t seen Avatar because of how it slimes my fellow vets, and had we known what Super 8 would do (which the trailer carefully obscures) the Hot Wife and I wouldn’t have dropped $38.50 on it. 

You can make all the military-trashing films you want to, Hollywood – you’re welcome for the freedom to do so, by the way – but in the future you can count me and my money out.  And I bet I’m not the only one.

No blood.  No monsters.  Just our own imagination tweaked by the single cam format, a sub-genre leveraged years later by Quarantine, Cloverfield, and Paranormal Activity.

Those films wouldn‘t exist unless Blair Witch proved the format could draw audiences in.

Made on the uber-cheap by a pair of unknown filmmakers, Blair Witch was nothing less than a sensation when it hit theaters 11 years ago. It was the ultimate word of mouth hit without recognizable stars, just a savvy Internet campaign that hinted that what you were about to see actually happened. Everything coalesced into a bracingly original experience, something impossible to recapture today.

That makes the just-released Blu-ray release a chance to appreciate a groundbreaking film, but not a moment to jump out of our seats all over again. The scares simply aren’t the same as they once were. That leaves a curious film, one that still commands our attention but cannot help but disappoint when compared to timeless shockers like The Omen and The Exorcist.

What emerges is a precursor to our reality television age, when everyone is armed with a video camera and few thoughts remain private.

The story remains a model of simplicity. Three young filmmakers head into the woods of rural Maryland to explore the myth of the Blair Witch. Locals say the creature has haunted the area for decades, a hairy half-man, half-beast who slaughters children and adults alike.

The filmmakers quickly get lost despite the map wrangling of their unofficial leader, Heather (Heather Donahue). They’re forced to camp out several nights straight, and each time they go to bed they hear odd noises and wake to find their camp site changed in small but peculiar ways.

Is someone pulling a prank on them, or is the Blair Witch prepping for the kill?

Much of the film’s dialogue feels unforced and raw, which helps the illusion that these three no-name actors might really be the real deal – filmmakers who died pursuing their art. That’s hooey, of course, but it was part of what made the film special during its theatrical run.

The script doesn’t give us much insight into the characters, a flaw that grew worse over time. They bicker about directions and how Heather refuses to put her camera down, but the arguments rarely reflect on the characters. It pushes the story forward, but when their lives are imperiled, it doesn’t make it easier to root for a possible rescue.

Only Mike (Michael C. Williams) is given a semblance of a character arc, growing from a passive soul to someone who takes measures to keep the trio sane.

The cam format allows for some confessional moments, and it’s hard not to think about those reality show rants when Heather turns the camera on herself to apologize for getting her friends in such a mess.

The extras include four alternate endings, each offering little in the way of new shocks, plus the antiquated short about the “true story“ behind the “Witch.” What’s missing is an extensive “making of” feature, or even one showing the film’s legacy from the perspective of film historians.

The Blair Witch Project can’t scare us silly any longer, but the film still matters to horror fans all the same.

Considering the extent to which fear controls decision-making in Hollywood, it isn’t much of a stretch to assume it also controls how content, particularly film, is marketed. Television isn’t the issue here, quite as much as feature films. If there is any doubt that marketing capital is being flushed down the toilet by the major studios, one need only look in the entertainment section of any major newspaper. Gigantic ads for movies still fill most of the pages. Hollywood doesn’t seem to notice that newspapers are dying a quick death, that their primary demographic doesn’t read newspapers, and that anyone who wants to know the location and time of a movie has a portable communication device with them at all times.

Meanwhile, the percentage of total media spending that the studios allocate to the Internet will be about 7.7% this year.  This is all they allocate — while the Internet has essentially consumed eyeballs across the entire globe.

Even worse, the dollars they do spend online are utilized in the most unimaginative ways possible. There’s certainly no denying that money spent on trailers is extremely well-spent. Latest research shows trailers are the third or fourth most viewed items online. Beyond that, however, advertising is generally limited to straight-ahead websites for the movie in question. As one web designer who handles most of studio websites told me, “The marketing people keep giving me the same stuff to do, over and over, because they are too afraid for their jobs to work out of the box.”

It’s astonishing, given the studio’s advertising budgets and that technology allows them to do just about anything, that fear is allowed to trump the most valuable of capital – selling the product.  Even more amazing, the Internet’s lack of creative boundaries could permit studios to engage in the most radical, experimental, and daring advertising campaigns ever seen. And yet, they won’t – even though there have already been paradigms in place for a decade. The Blair Witch Project presented the most rudimentary form of imaginative marketing that unquestionably helped propel the film’s success. Cloverfield did a nice job of it, and The Dark Knight, with its guerrilla-style, immersive, real-world approach all had an impact.

In other words, it’s all about trans-media, folks. And you better click on that link in the last sentence. And by trans-media, I don’t mean some lame-ass MySpace page. Even better, trans-media relies on creative ingenuity — true out-of-the-box thinking – as much on storytellers as it does marketing folks. That means bringing the creative elements of a film into the process – creating a partnership rather than an antagonistic relationship. It means doing it early. It means paying them a little extra, but they’ll gladly do the work because their interests are aligned with those of the studio.

Further, the method of incorporating all levels of media – including cellphones, text messaging, you name it – has the same goal as traditional advertising: get the viewer to buy (or see) the product. The difference is that its requirement for immersion requires the viewer to invest time. The more time they invest, the more connected to the product they become, the more likely they are to become ambassadors for that product, and the more likely they are to see the darn movie.

Trans-media also has a good pedigree in television. The Lost Experience, produced by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, was a terrific immersive experience that was done on a limited budget. Yet anecdotal evidence suggests that the network felt the campaign had no merit because it didn’t generate revenue. What they failed to realize was the intangible benefits yielded by the campaign, namely, keeping the show in viewer’s minds during summer hiatus. In today’s market, that is absolutely essential. Viewers have far too many media choices to chose from, and they have lives to lead, as well. A six-week hiatus of Heroes during the spring of 2007 cost NBC almost 20% of its audience – which never returned – and that show was the one hit of that season! With the degree of audience fragmentation, and the infinite choices that now exist, the studios need to redeploy marketing capital into constant, trans-media-related campaigns, to keep audiences aware of their product all the time, every day.

Tomorrow morning I’ll discuss how Hollywood should alter its method of manufacturing, and how it should specifically redeploy its capital.

Creepy, right? I have not seen Haunting and will probably wait for DVD or pay cable, but that is a weird, startling, attention-grabbing image. As a movie junkie, I love good movie art. The best movie posters are evocative. They capture what a movie is all about without giving away the mystery. There are certain movie posters that instantly put me back in that theatre experiencing the film for the very first time. The best movie posters are not just promotional tools. They stand as a work of art on their own. These are my favorites, buit it is by no means a definitive list. Feel free to add your favorites (and subtract any of mine).

#1 – JAWS
I saw this all-time classic as a 9-year-old on opening day, and saw it a second time at the Saturday matinee. To this day, I am afraid to swim in the ocean. That shark is always there in my imagination. The poster is literal, but haunting.

#2 – CHINATOWN
This is truly a work of art. The smoke shrouding the ultimate mystery of Evelyn Mulwray, and the stylized version of Jake Gittes (played by Jack Nicholson), the hard-boiled detective who unravels it all.

#3 – THE DARK KNIGHT
Impossible to separate Heath Ledger’s death from his remarkable interpretation of The Joker. This is an amazing image. In 30 years, I will look at this poster and immediately feel the impact of Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece.

#4 – BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S
You can almost hear Audrey Hepburn warbling “Moon River” at the sight of this iconic poster. Every woman wanted to be her and every man wanted to be with her.

#5 – SECRETARY
The 2002 cult classic about a sadomasochistic relationship between a demanding lawyer (James Spader) and a submissive secretary (Maggie Gyllenhaal). The movie is an under-appreciated gem. The poster may be even better.

#6 – UNFORGIVEN
This is my favorite poster made for Clint Eastwood’s masterful revisionist Western. Simple. Classic. Tells you everything you need to know about Clint’s Bill Munny character.

#7 – AMERICAN BEAUTY
A beautiful image that suggests the perversity that lies just beneath the surface of the suburban neighborhood created by screenwriter Alan Ball and director Sam Mendes.

#8 – SILENCE OF THE LAMBS
“You will let me know when those lambs stop screaming, won’t you?” You can almost hear Dr. Hannibal Lecter say it. The Death’s-head moth “lodged” in Clarice Starling’s throat. Brilliant image.

#9 – VERTIGO
An ode to acrophobia as Detective Scottie Ferguson (as played by Jimmy Stewart) battles his fear of heights while becoming obsessed with Madeleine Elster (the stunning Kim Novak). This kaleidoscopic design immediately brings the strains of Bernard Hermann’s amazing score into my head.

#10 – PULP FICTION
Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace in all her swagger. Yes, she does wind up with a sharpie circle on her chest and a shot of adrenaline, but the whole gritty movie is captured with this image.

HONORABLE MENTION
- in no particular order -
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE
SWEENEY TODD
MEAN STREETS
AMADEUS
GONE WITH THE WIND
METROPOLIS
KING KONG (1939 Fay Wray version)
CLOVERFIELD
THE SEVEN YEAR ITCH
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter@LAMase.

Hoping to reboot, the new “Fast & Furious” reunites the four main players from the original and is so stripped down and back to basics the title refuses to make room for even a “the” or an “and.” Within thirty minutes the story credibly and effortlessly reunites the cast (hat tip to the screenwriters for that) and a simple revenge plot is set up to allow for at least five major racing sequences, a couple of which are alone worth the price of admission.

Vin Diesel returns as Dominic — He Who Lives Life a Quarter Mile at a Time — Toretto and little’s changed since undercover FBI agent Brian O’Conner (Paul Walker) let him go eight years earlier. Toretto may be a an American fugitive hiding out in the Dominican Republic always looking over his shoulder, but he’s still with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and still making ends meet with dangerously elaborate hijackings carried out on the open road.

The plot turns in ways I won’t spoil, and Toretto finds himself back in Los Angeles determined to hunt down a mythical drug smuggler who did him wrong. As it happens, O’Brien, who’s still with the F.B.I., is after the same smuggler and so the old adversaries, who share a wary respect, form an uneasy partnership in order to survive undercover and achieve a mutual goal.

It’s both good and bad that the opening — a brilliantly shot and choreographed sequence that has Toretto and Letty attempting to hijack an oil truck — is far and away the best scene in the film (and one of the best action scenes of the year).  With this jaw-dropper, “Fast & Furious” sets the bar pretty high and never quite reaches it again, but the goodwill the scene engenders gets you through the rest of a film that unfortunately gets worse and worse as time passes, though always remains highly watchable.

There’s a second racing sequence staged on the streets of Los Angeles that’s nearly as good, but most of the action afterwards is too obviously CGI’d and so busy and hectic you go a little numb as opposed to being engaged in the moment. But for all this, the reboot does reclaim the charm of the original with a refreshing refusal to reach for any ambition above and beyond taking you away for a couple hours. “Fast & Furious” is a Hollywood film with a plot involving drug smuggling over the Mexican border that never once mentions illegal immigration, and for that rare display of maturity and discipline we should all be grateful.

For years I’ve bitterly complained about the dreaded shaky-cam that at this point has spoiled too many films to count, including “Transformers” (2007), ”Quantum of Solace” (2008), the last couple “Bourne” films and the nausea-inducing “Cloverfield” (2008). Thankfully, F&F doesn’t force that dreadfully lazy style on us more than a few times, but the spectacular opening hijack, which is filmed normally, is immediately followed by a foot chase involving Walker’s character shot with the shaky-cam, and being able to see the two styles, one right after the other, closes the case on why all shaky-cams must immediately be destroyed for the good of the children.

How was your week? Did you whistle on your way to work or buy extra lottery tickets? Those of you who’ve pinned hope on the Lotto, “Fast & Furious” is for you; a couple easy, entertaining hours in the dark with fast cars, good-looking women, a brainless plot and a generous lack of pretention that washes over you for 107 escapist minutes. Sure, the dialogue’s clunky and the acting a little wooden, but that’s only a bad thing if you see it after work because  ”Fast & Furious” might be the most perfect Called-In-Sick-When-I-Wasn’t movie since the original “Aliens vs. Predator” (2004).

As a production company, Summit is responsible for some monster hits, including commercially and/or artistically successful films like Once (Oscar nominee for Best Picture), American Pie ($102..5M domestic), Memento (Oscar nominee for Best Original Screenplay: Chris Nolan), Mr. & Mrs. Smith ($186.3M domestic) and In the Valley of Ellah (Tommy Lee Jones nominated for Best Actor). But as a distributor, they got off to a slow start.

SUMMIT RELEASES
- in sequential order -
11/9/07 – P2 – $4M cume
2/29/08 – Penelope – $10M cume
3/14/08 – Never Back Down – $24.8M cume
8/15/08 – Fly Me To the Moon – $13.2M cume
10/17/08 – Sex Drive – $8.4M cume
11/21/08 – Twilight – $191.3M cume
2/6/09 – Push – $30.9M cume
3/20/09 – Knowing – $24.8M opening – $55M-$60M projected cume

As I wrote Friday, I think that word-of-mouth is weak for Knowing, but the movie held up pretty well over opening weekend. It is definitely helped by it’s PG-13 rating, its appeal to Males Under 25 (especially Under 17’s), and its similarity to Cage’s National Treasure franchise.

Meanwhile, I Love You, Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) ticked up 8% on Saturday to about $6.8M, and it will have banked about $18M by Monday morning. That is on par with Paul Rudd’s Role Models ($19.1M opening) and Jason Segal’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall ($17.7M opening). I’m sticking with $65M-$70M as my projection for domestic box office for this very funny movie that happens to have a very good heart.

I really wonder about the R-rating for I Love You, Man. It is a very, very soft R. There is no nudity or sex (although there are references to oral sex in particular), and it doesn’t roll up a high count of F-bombs. It seems to me that the ratings board was hard on this one, and a PG-13 rating could have meant an additional $5M-$8M (at least) on opening weekend.

DUPLICITY is Julia Roberts' first feature lead since 2003's MONA LISA SMILE

The other new wide release is Duplicity (Universal), starring Julia Roberts and Clive Owen. This is a very smart, densely-plotted, stylish-looking movie for grown-ups. Writer/director Tony Gilroy is among the best screenwriters in town with all three Jason Bourne movies on his resume along with the legal thriller Michael Clayton, nominated for 7 Academy Awards.

With Females 25 Plus as its most important demo, the film got a big 27% Saturday bump to almost $6M. I saw the movie Saturday night, and it was about 60% women with lots of women in pairs and groups. That is a very good sign for future weeks since Females 25 Plus are never in a rush to see a movie on opening weekend. The audience I was in was mesmerized and laughed in all the right places, but overall, the CinemaScore exit survey was only a C. I still belive that, after a $14.4M third-place finish, Duplicity will get to the $45M-$50M range in the US.

Not strong enough to hold an audience for weekend #2 of RACE TO WITCH MOUNTAIN

Race to Witch Mountain (Disney) is not holding well at all, dipping to $13M for the weekend. A 46% second weekend drop spells an early end for the new one starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. It is just not especially well-liked, and Monsters Vs. Aliens (Dreamworks Animation) will destroy it next weekend.

Sorry Rohrschach, WATCHMEN is completely burned out

Finally, Watchmen (Warner Bros) suffered a second consecutive disastrous 3-day, down another 62% to $6.7M for a 17-day cume of $98M. Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel is unlikely to reach much past $110M in the US, and with a soft foreign performance as well, it will struggle to reach any real profitability.

STUDIO 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Knowing (Summit) – $24.81M, $7,447 PTA, $24.81M cume
2. NEW – I Love You, Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $18M, $6,640 PTA, $18M cume
3. NEW – Duplicity (Universal) – $14.4M, $5,595 PTA, $14.4M cume
4. Race to Witch Mountain (Disney) – $13M, $4,080 PTA, $44.71M cume
5. Watchmen (Warner Bros) – $6.72M, $1,916 PTA, $98M cume
6. The Last House on the Left (Universal) – $5.92M, $2,465 PTA, $24.04M cume
7. Taken (Fox) – $4.4M, $1,654 PTA, $133.43M cume
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $2.7M, $1,306 PTA, $137.2M cume
9. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) – $2.51M, $1,368 PTA, $87.2M cume
10. Coraline (Focus) – $2.14M, $1,498 PTA, $72.8M cume

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter@LAMase.

Will reviews and word-of-mouth catch up to KNOWING?

Reviews for Knowing, written and directed by Alex Proyas, the inventive filmmaker behind the visually striking 1998 film Dark City and the 2004 Will Smith mega-hit I, Robot, has received overwhelmingly negative reviews (25% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but thanks to Twitter, real-time movie-goer reactions spread like wildfire. Here are some Tweets I just grabbed off the social networking platform.

You can Follow me on Twitter@LAMase

Just saw the Knowing. How and why some movies get made is beyond me.

Nobody go see Knowing.

The Knowing was a great movie. BUT it made absolutely no sense, got kinda scary, and made me cry.. three times. Imagine Noah’s Ark in space.

Getting home from a lame movie. “Knowing” is better left unknown.

Just saw “Knowing” with Nicholas Cage – LOVED IT – don’t think many will though

Notice the last Tweet. That movie fan is actually already anticipating bad word-of-mouth. Maybe they saw Knowing with friends, and they were the only one who liked it, or maybe the general reaction in the theatre was negative. Here’s an even scarier Tweet.

I’m in the worst movie ever, Knowing. Horrible.

Think about this. Someone is sitting in the theatre on a Friday night, and, while the movie is still playing, they send out a terrible personal review. Studios used to be able to count on suckering people into theatres for a bad movie as long as they had a big star and some cool commercials. Now, because of texting, Twitter and even Facebook (which has switched to a more Twitter-like status report format), poor reviews from Friday ticket-buyers may depress box office on Saturday and Sunday.

You have to wonder who is giving Academy Award winner Nicolas Cage career advice. Look at the Rotten Tomatoes review scores for his last 10 movies.

ROTTEN TOMATOES REVIEW SCORES FOR THE LAST 10 NIC CAGE MOVIES
-live action lead roles -
Knowing – 25%
Bangkok Dangerous – 9%
Ghost Rider – 27%
National Treasure 2 – 32%
Next – 30%
The Wicker Man – 15%
World Trade Center – 70%
Lord of War – 61%
The Weather Man – 57%
National Treasure – 43%

Obviously, there is sometimes a huge disconnect between critical and commercial success. Ghost Rider and the National Treasure films were huge blockbuster hits, but The Wicker Man, Next, and Bangkok Dangerous were flat-out awful.

From Best Actor to WICKER MAN

Despite initial reactions, the family-friendly PG-13 rating and similarity to National Treasure will still sell some tickets in the next few weeks. The movie is likely headed to something in the $52-$60M range in the US, and it will likely perform fairly well overseas because of Cage’s drawing power.

Jason Segal (left) and Paul Rudd, the likable stars of John Hamburg's I LOVE YOU, MAN

At #2 for the day, and most likely for the 3-day, is John Hamburg’s I Love You, Man starring Paul Rudd and Jason Segal. Riding phenomenal reviews (81% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes) and huge buzz from its screening at the South By Southwest Conference and Festival, the R-rated comedy has opened to about $6.35M Friday, and I am projecting $18M for opening weekend.

Among the Twitteratti (tech slang for the early adopters of Twitter), I Love You, Man is already a word-of-mouth hit. Here are some sample Tweets.

go see I Love You Man, its HILARIOUS.

i love you, man is one of the funniest movies i have seen in a while.

Just saw I Love You, Man. Waaaaaay funnier than I expected. Oh god, it was good. Stay a little bit into the credits if you go.

Just saw “I love you, Man” it was awesome!

Just saw “I Love You Man.” Loved it! Haven’t laughed that hard in awhile!

I love I Love You, Man. I’m also in love with Rashida Jones.

“I Love You, Man” – while not lol hysterical, was pretty funny in parts (albeit raunchy) … overall, I enjoyed it … solid B or B+

We are in a sort of a Golden Age for raunchy R-rated comedy, and this movie is an above average example. Rudd, who made his name as a supporting player in Judd Apatow films like Anchorman and The 40-Year-Old Virgin, is on a roll. Fresh from the success of last year’s Role Models ($67.3M US), he is the protagonist here, playing a charming dork without a best friend to be the best man at his wedding. Enter Jason Segal from TV’s How I Met Your Mother, a guy who scored huge with last year’s sleeper hit Forgetting Sarah Marshall ($63.1M domestic). As Sydney Fife, Segal is the ideal Venice Beach bum talking about his “Man Cave” and idolizing the band Rush, which reached its pinnacle in the 70’s and 80’s.

Writer/director John Hamburg

Writer/director John Hamburg, who previously wrote the classic Meet the Parents, followed by Zoolander (a cult fave of many) and Meet the Fockers (a mega-hit with over $500M worldwide despite falling well short of the laughs in the original Meet the Parents), made his directorial debut with the forgettable Along Came Polly ($88M domestic), starring Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston.

Rashida Jones, the daughter of musical legend Quincy Jones and 1970's icon Peggy Lipton (THE MOD SQUAD), co-stars in I LOVE YOU, MAN

If you wouldn’t have shown me the credits for I Love You, Man, I would have assumed that comedy king Judd Apatow has something to do with this one, but his name is nowhere to be found. Hamburg has grabbed reliable Apatow players like Rudd and Segal (Apatow produced Forgetting Sarah Marshall and the short-lived TV series Undeclared, starring Segal), and created a pic that looks and feels like an Apatow movie.

In my mind, the so-called Golden Age of R-rated comedy began in the summer of 2005 with Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Audiences have a real appetite for this niche, and, aside from Will Ferrell’s misguided hoops pic Semi-Pro, The Heartbreak Kid from the Farrelly Brothers and Weinstein Company’s 2008 Zack & Miri Make a Porno, the movies have delivered both critically and commercially.

THE TOP 15 GROSSING R-RATED COMEDIES FROM “THE GOLDEN AGE”
1. 7/15/05 – Wedding Crashers – $33.9M opening – $209.2M cume
2. 8/17/07 – Superbad – $33M opening – $121.4M cume
3. 7/25/08 – Step Brothers – $30.9M opening – $100.4M cume
4. 6/1/07 – Knocked Up – $30.7M opening – $148.8M cume
5. 11/3/06 – Borat – $26.4M opening – $128.5M cume
6. 8/13/08 – Tropic Thunder – $25.8M opening – $110.5M cume
7. 8/6/08 – Pineapple Express – $23.2M opening – $87.3M cume
8. 8/19/05 – The 40-Year-Old Virgin – $21.4M opening – $109.4M cume
9. 11/7/08 – Role Models – $19.1M opening – $67.3M cume
10. 4/18/08 – Forgetting Sarah Marshall – $17.7M opening – $63.1M cume
11. 2/29/08 – Semi-Pro – $15M opening – $33.5M cume
12. 10/5/07 – The Heartbreak Kid – $14M opening – $36.8M cume
13. 9/21/07 – Good Luck Chuck – $13.6M opening – $35M cume
14. 10/31/08 – Zack & Miri Make A Porno – $10M opening – $31.4M cume
15. 8/25/06 – Beerfest – $7M opening – $19.2M cume

The multiple – the number you multiply opening weekend by in order to reach the final domestic gross – will be high here. My early rough projection for gross domestic box office for I Love You, Man is something in the $67M-$75M range.

Tony Gilroy with his MICHAEL CLAYTON star George Clooney

The other wide release is Tony Gilroy’s Duplicity (Universal), starring Oscar winner Julia Roberts and Academy Awards nominee Clive Owen. Gilroy is directing for only the second-time after his Oscar nominated performance with Michael Clayton. He is a writer first, and, in addition to scripting the three Jason Bourne movies, he loves corporate paranoia (like in 1997’s over-the-top The Devil’s Advocate) and intricate plotting (as in 2000’s Proof of Life and Michael Clayton). Duplicity plays to his strengths.

Does she still have "it"?

Despite the presence of the rarely-seen Roberts, the film has failed to top industry expectations. Duplicty grabbed an estimated $4.7M on opening day and seems headed for about $14.86M and fourth-place by Monday. I have been told that Duplicity received a very soft C rating from opening day audiences surveyed by CinemaScore, but because 25 Plus Females don’t always rush right out to see a movie, this one could still get to $40M-$45M domestic, which would be respectable.

I had penciled in Disney’s Race To Witch Mountain, starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, for #3 with about $17M, but the movie is not holding well at all. Race managed only $3.8M on its second Friday, and I am targeting $14.63M for the weekend. That’s a 10-day cume of a rather soft $46.34M. The Dreamworks Animation 3-D spectacle Monsters Vs. Aliens will wipe it out next weekend.

It's past Doomsday for WATCHMEN

Rounding out the top five is Watchmen (Warner Bros), suffering another 62% drop. The Zack Snyder-directed graphic novel adaptation sold just $2M in tickets Friday, and the 3-day will be about $7M, and possibly less. On Monday, the movie’s domestic take will be at $97.81M, and Watchmen will look to fizzle to about $110M in the US.

PLEASE NOTE: I appreciate links to this column, but on some sites, people have been copying and pasting the whole column. It’s fine if some numbers are re-printed, but please link for the full story. Thanks!

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY FRIDAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Knowing (Summit) – $8.95M, $2,686 PTA, $8.95M cume
2. NEW – I Love You Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $6.35M, $2,342 PTA, $6.35M cume
3. NEW – Duplicity (Universal) – $4.7M, $1,825 PTA, $4.7M cume
4. Race to Witch Mountain (Disney) – $3.8M, $1,192 PTA, $35.51M cume
5. Watchmen (Warner Bros) – $2M, $577 PTA, $93.36M cume
6. The Last House On the Left (Rogue) – $1.97M, $820 PTA, $20.09M cume
7. Taken (Fox) – $1.37M, $517 PTA, $130.41M cume
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $800,000, $391 PTA, $135.3M cume
9. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) – $795,000, $433 PTA, $85.49M cume
10. Coraline (Focus) – $630,000, $440 PTA, 71.34M cume

EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON EARLY 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Knowing (Summit) – $23.27M, $6,984 PTA, $23.27M cume
2. NEW – I Love You, Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $18M, $6,640 PTA, $18M cume
3. Race to Witch Mountain (Disney) – $14.63M, $4,591 PTA, $46.34M cume
4. NEW – Duplicity (Universal) – $13.86M, $5,384 PTA, $13.86M cume
5. Watchmen (Warner Bros) – $6.48M, $1,846 PTA, $97.81M cume
6. The Last House on the Left (Universal) – $5.31M, $2,213 PTA, $23.44M cume
7. Taken (Fox) – $4.4M, $1,654 PTA, $133.43M cume
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $2.93M, $1,428 PTA, $137.44M cume
9. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) – $2.74M, $1,495 PTA, $87.44M cume
10. Coraline (Focus) – $2.29M, $1,607 PTA, $73M cume

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter@LAMase.

In the spirit of March Madness, I’m calling for the upset. I Love You, Man may not actually be a Judd Apatow movie, but it sure does look like one in trailers and commercials. The movie reportedly “rocked the house” at the South By South West Festival last week, and the buzz is very positive. I am calling for $21.5M, which would be above industry expectations.

Robert DeNiro, hilarious in MEET THE PARENTS

Writer/director John Hamburg is at the helm with the likable Rudd and Segal in tow. He previously wrote Meet the Parents (brilliant) and its sequel Meet the Fockers (a lot less brilliant). He also wrote the cult hit Zoolander, which I hated, but has a loyal core of fans.

Meanwhile, tracking suggests that Knowing will open strongly. The reviews are generally negative (21% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), but Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times has published a rave, saying that “Knowing is among the best science-fiction films I’ve seen — frightening, suspenseful, intelligent and, when it needs to be, rather awesome.”

Director Alex Proyas established himself as someone to watch with the striking visuals in 1998’s Dark City, and he followed with the commercially successful Will Smith vehicle I, Robot ($144.8M domestic) in 2004. But It’s been 14 long years since Nicolas Cage won his Academy Award for Best Actor, and he’s made a lot of bad movies since then. In fact, you could argue that nobody makes more bad movies than Cage. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Windtalkers, The Weather Man, The Wicker Man, Next and last fall’s Bangkok Dangerous were all commercial failures and critical disasters. Still, it’s hard to argue with the success of 2007’s Ghost Rider ($115.8M in the US) or the $800M worldwide box office generated by the National Treasure franchise.

Knowing looks an awful lot like National Treasure, and with Cage on familiar turf, the picture is likely to click. Industry expectations are that it will win the weekend, but I’m, calling for a #2 finish. I expect the movie to bank a possible $20.25M by Monday.

The third new wide release is Duplicity (Universal), which is running at 59% positive on Rotten Tomatoes. Director Tony Gilroy’s last movie was Michael Clayton, a 7-time Oscar nominee, and I was a huge fan of that George Clooney legal mystery-thriller. There is certainly room in the marketplace for a smart, grown-up movie right now, but whenever you have a film with 25 Plus appeal, the reality is that the audience doesn’t always show up on opening weekend.

The last major studio film with Julia Roberts as the clear lead was 2003’s Mona Lisa Smile ($11.5M opening – $63.8M). Here, she is re-teamed with Closer co-star Clive Owen, who received an Oscar nomination for his work in that dark Mike Nichols-directed relationship drama.

Oscar winner Julia Roberts with husband Danny Moder & kids with (faces blurred)

Is she still a movie star? I say the answer is yes, but her ingénue days are over. With Duplicity, Gilroy has crafted a sort of Mr. & Mrs. Smith with corporate espionage replacing gunplay, and this is exactly the kind of movie Roberts should be making. I am targeting $14.5M for opening weekend, which will likely be enough for a #4 finish, behind Disney’s family-themed Race To Witch Mountain. The latest starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson could dip only 30% to anout $17.1M.

FINAL PREDICTED BOX OFFICE FOR MARCH 20-22
1. I Love You, Man (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $21.5M
2. Knowing (Summit) – $20.25M
3. Race To Witch Mountain (Disney) – $17.1M
4. Duplicity (Universal) – $14.5M
5. Watchmen (Warner Bros) – $9.6M
6. The Last House On the Left (Rogue) – $6.35M
7. Taken (Fox) – $5.1M
8. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $3.8M
9. Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) – $3.45M
10. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) – $2.35M

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.

TOP 10 SATURDAY GROSSES IN 2009
1. March 7 – Watchmen – $18.3M
2. February 21 – Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail – $16.6M
3. February 14 – Friday the Thirteenth – $14.3M
4. January 17 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop – $13.2M
5. January 10 – Gran Torino – $12.1M
6. January 31 – Taken – $11.65M
7. March 14 - Race To Witch Mountain – $11M (estimated)
8. February 7 – He’s Just Not That Into You – $10.9M
9. January 17 – Paul Blart: Mall Cop – $10M
10. January 17 – Gran Torino – $10M

The last family film that teamed Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Disney was 2007’s The Game Plan. That film opened with $23M and finished with a $90.6M domestic take. That’s a 3.93 multiple ($23M X 3.93 multiple = $90.6M). But, after opening on September 28, 2007, that movie had 5 full weeks without any other significant family films in the market (Bee Movie from Dreamworks was released on November 2). Race To Witch Mountain, however, will face a minor challenger next weekend with Summit’s Knowing, starring Nicolas Cage, and then Monsters Vs. Aliens (Dreamworks) will be a box office buzzsaw starting March 27. Because of the competition, the Race is likely to finish with $80M-$85M domestic.

Meanwhile the Saturday-to-Saturday drop for Watchmen (Warner Bros) was less steep than anticipated. On opening weekend, Zack Snyder’s adaptation of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel generated $18.3M on Saturday, and the movie was down 58% to about $7.7M yesterday. The final weekend take will still be a disappointing $18.07M, down 67%, but here’s a positive spin. If the opening weekend Thursday midnight business of $4.5M is deducting from last weekend’s $55.2M haul, the drop is a more respectable 64%.

The movie is being supported now by second-time (and even third-time) ticket purchases by hardcore fanboys, but ultimately, the picture will likely finish in The $100M-$110M range, which is a disappointment. Watchmen is a disaster in international markets, and although it may still break even or reach marginal profitability when ancillary rights are factored in – home video, cable, syndication, video games – it’s hard to imagine any sort of sequel. You could argue that the movie is “sequel-proof” anyway, although a Minutemen prequel would be a possibility.

The Last House On the Left (Rogue) is a strong #3 for the weekend. The R-rated remake of Wes Craven’s 1972 twisted classic played out as horror films tend to do – down 5% from Friday-to-Saturday to about $5.3M. LA Times blogger Patrick Goldstein raises an interesting point, suggesting that Last House may have merited an NC-17 rating instead of an R because of a brutal rape scene. James Berardinelli from Reelviews sums up the way Goldstein feels.

This is an uncompromising film. It is unapologetically violent, to the point where those who are upset by screen brutality will have a tough time sitting through it. It features one of the most upsetting rape scenes committed to film. The MPAA’s decision to award an R to The Last House on the Left is yet another example of how flawed the U.S. classification system is. If anything is deserving of an NC-17 for adults-only content, this is it. The violence is not cartoonish or in any way sanitized; it is grim and gut-wrenching. Nothing is spared. Consider, for example, a scene featuring a hand and an in-sink garbage disposal. There’s no need to use your imagination regarding what happens – the movie shows it in bloody detail.

This is the kind of movie that I just cannot pay to see. I like great horror films like The Shining, Carrie, Rosemary’s Baby, George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (and Zack Snyder’s more recent remake of Dawn of the Dead), Silence of the Lambs, Scream, The Exorcist and Halloween (the original from John Carpenter). I even appreciate the evil genius of the first Saw movie. But enough is enough. When it comes to brutal rape with my popcorn, I’ll take a pass every time. The movie should wrap up its domestic theatrical engagements with something in the $35M range – hopefully, not enough to encourage more of the same.

Everything else played out about the way I reported in my Friday Early Estimates story.

STUDIO 3-DAY ESTIMATES
1. NEW – Race to Witch Mountain (Disney) – $25M, $7,844 PTA, $25M cume
2. Watchmen (Warner Bros) – $18.07M, $5,004 PTA, $86M cume
3. NEW – The Last House on the Left (Universal) – $14.65M, $6,105 PTA, $14.65M cume
4. Taken (Fox) – $6.65M, $2,327 PTA, $126.83M cume
5. Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes To Jail (Lionsgate) – $5.13M, $2,329 PTA, $83.2M cume
6. Slumdog Millionaire (Fox Searchlight) – $5.02M, $1,949 PTA, $132.62M cume
7. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (Sony) – $3.1M, $1,359 PTA, $137.76M cume
8. He’s Just Not That Into You (Warner Bros) – $2.9M, $1,537 PTA, $89M cume
9. Coraline (Focus) – $2.65M, $1,502 PTA, $69.14M cume
10. NEW – Miss March (Fox Searchlight) – $2.35M, $1,349 PTA, $2.35M cume

Steve Mason is on Facebook and now also on Twitter.