Debuting in wide release this weekend were two movies: Cop Out and The Crazies. While I predicted Crazies would top Kevin Smith’s latest the box office results proved me wrong. Both films on Friday made $5.9 million, however by Sunday Cop Out took second place with $18.6 million. Though Smith only served as director of the project, the flick had the highest opening weekend ever for any one of his films. This could be due to the unexpected controversy over Smith being described as “too fat to fly” on a Southwest Airline plane, and then later booted off, or it could be due to Cop Out’s being the most commercial Smith movie. About two police officers en route to find a missing baseball card, the comedy surpassed Smith’s previous work Zack and Miri Make a Porno’s first admission of $10.1 million in October 2008. Critics didn’t help the movie’s total too much, however. Cop Out finished on Friday with a rotten rating of 20% on site Rotten Tomatoes.

Breck Eisner’s remake of George A. Romero’s horror The Crazies was also introduced this weekend. The revival, about a government’s accidental spreading of a lethal war contaminant, managed $16.5 million at #3. This opening gross didn’t beat director Eisner’s last effort Sahara, probably due to the fact that the former had a rating of PG-13 with recognizable stars while Crazies held a restricted tag and starred no one as big as Matthew McConaughey. Although this flick earned itself a fresh 71% on Rotten Tomatoes; Chicago Tribune critic Michael Phillips even went as far as to calling it “better than the original”. Crazies was unable to overcome last February’s horror reboot Friday the 13^th’s opening haul of $40.6 million. But to be fair nobody called that one making as much as it did.

James Cameron’s massive success Avatar dropped only 13.8% to fourth place with $14 million, still in the top five after 11 weeks in release. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief brings us out at #5 this weekend with $9.8 million. The kiddie flick’s total is up to $71.2 million in three weeks.

Out of the top five-

• Jacques Audiard’s French gangster fiasco A Prophet (Un prophète), nominated for best foreign film at next week’s Oscars, started off on nine screens and grossed $170,000, a per screen average of $18,900.
• Adam Kane’s thriller Formosa Betrayed starring James Van Der Beek debuted with $69,000 playing on 15 screens.
• Writer-director Peter Stebbings dramedy Defendor, starring Woody Harrelson as a regular guy who thinks he has super powers, opened with $21,000 on four screens after playing on one less last weekend.

Here are the box office results according to studio estimates Sunday-

1. 1. Shutter Island…$22.2 million
2. 2. Cop Out…$18.6 million
3. 3. The Crazies…$16.5 million
4. 4. Avatar…$14 million
5. 5. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief…$9.8 million
6. 6. Valentine’s Day…$9.5 million
7. 7. Dear John…$5 million
8. 8. The Wolfman…$4.1 million
9. 9. Tooth Fairy…$3.5 million
10. 10. Crazy Heart…$2.5 million

Shutter Island is a spectacle and a mysterious film by the works of Martin Scorsese.  This is a unique movie choice for the living legend but you can’t argue with a director trying to take a new creative project.  His leading actor Leonardo DiCaprio joins him for their 4th movie together and the movie will leaves people debating and talking about it for some time.

Teddy (DiCaprio) and partner Chuck (Ruffalo) are US Marshals sent to Shutter Island to investigate the whereabouts of one of the facilities mental patients who is a murderer.  As the investigation begins, the two encounter creepy and mysterious things about the island and it’s staff that leads to a wild ride thriller from there on out.  This movie leaves a lot to be talked about and will stop here from continuing to talk about the plot and what happens do to the spoiler.  It’s a complicated movie that has some pros and cons, and I’m still debating whether I thought this was an excellent movie or not.  The acting was great, but with Leo, Ben Kingsley, and Ruffalo, you expect nothing else and for the performances a lone I would see them.  Kingsley does a great job at playing the smart and sophisticated doctor who runs the show although has enough creepiness in his demeanor that you don’t quite trust him.  Leonardo is my favorite actor and may be considered the best actor of over the past decade.  The cinematography was gorgeous and Scorsese does a great job of bringing this island alive.

The movie runs about 25 minutes too long and gets complicated in certain areas.  It’s a little too tricky for its own good at times, and some sequences were not pieced together the best way and left me and other viewers confused about what the point of it was.

All in all this is a different type of movie that should be watched, and definitely needs to be watched a second time in order to find the subtle clues that may have been missed the first time, although I don’t know if it is a movie worthy of seeing a second time.  Scorsese did a nice attempt at this thriller, but I think there are too many things preventing it from being a classic.

Here is my snap video of Shutter Island.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Shutter Island

Falling 69.5% to second place with $17.2 million was Valentine’s Day, Garry Marshall’s star-studded film surrounding interlacing love stories on the title holiday. Pic’s total is up to $87.4 million on a $52 million budget. Dropping 31.8% to third was James Cameron’s nine-time Oscar-nominated Avatar with $16.1 million. The sci-fi’s domestic total is nearing $700 million.

Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief stooped 51% from its opening last weekend, bringing in another $15.3 million for a stateside total of $58.8 million in ten days. The book-to-movie adaptation surely benefitted from many school districts having the week off, kids flocking to the movie theater. Joe Johnston’s The Wolfman finishes the top five with $9.8 million, falling 68.7% from last tally. Its grand sum is $50.3 million, far far away from its budget of $150 million. That must hurt, Universal. 2010 isn’t starting off too well for you, is it?

Out of the top five-

• The only other notable release this weekend was Roman Polanski’s controversial The Ghost Writer, about a ghostwriter for a bygone U.K. prime minister who discovers that his client is guilty of war crimes. Polanski, currently under house arrest for allegedly having relations with a minor in 1977, won best director for Writer, starring Ewan McGregor and Pierce Brosnan, at the Berlin Film Festival over the weekend. The Silver Bear-winning drama opened with $179,000 on only two screens in New York and two in Los Angeles.
• Writer-director Julio DePietro’s poorly received romantic-comedy The Good Guy, starring Alexis Bledel, debuted on nine screens and opened with $36,200.
• Opening at last year’s Berlinale and playing at numerous festivals since then, Mitchell Lichtenstein’s drama Happy Tears, following two sisters who come back home to nurse their sick father back to health, finally opened wide around the U.S. this weekend, managing $14,000 on 15 screens.

Here are the box office results according to studio estimates Sunday-

1. 1. Shutter Island…$40.2 million
2. 2. Valentine’s Day…$17.2 million
3. 3. Avatar…$16.1 million
4. 4. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief…$15.3 million
5. 5. The Wolfman…$9.8 million
6. 6. Dear John…$7.3 million
7. 7. Tooth Fairy…$4.5 million
8. 8. Crazy Heart…$3 million
9. 9. From Paris with Love…$2.5 million
10. 10. Edge of Darkness…$2.2 million

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It has been confirmed to TheMovieBanter.com that Shutter Island has been pushed to February 2010.  An interesting move if you ask me.  I have one theory why this happened.  This movie is going to suck.

Now if you watch the trailer, the movie looks like a pretty standard suspenseful horror movie where the employees of a bizarre institutional facility are secretly cahooting together to hurt patients.  Basically, something you’d expect to see fellow Wash U grad Peter Sarsgaard in.

I remember sitting in theaters a couple weeks ago, for The Hurt Locker

, and the trailer for Shutter Island popped up. My buddy leaned over next to me and said, that looks awesome. I looked at him and said, that movie looks awful – he subsequently gave me an “are you insane” glance.  That person knows who they are.  Anyways, the basis for him saying “that looks awesome” was entirely on the fact that Martin Scorsese is directing it and Leo is starring in it.  Well, both of those guys probably now regret making the film.

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By being pushed to February 2010, Shutter Island complete misses the Oscar season. Was that strategically done?  Hmmmm, probably.  Most February premiering movies are sort of lost as well.  At that time, people are pretty much only seeing Oscar buzz’d movies. Shutter Island will probably just get lost in the Oscar fog.

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Flight from Ashiya movie Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back trailer Leo should not have done this movie and Scorsese should not have made it.

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Will this impact any of their careers? No, they are both legends. But it will be interesting to see if this movie does in fact suck

What do you think?

Check out the trailer below

Click here to view the embedded video.