'Hunger Games' sinks 'Titanic 3D' at box office

Movie sensation "The Hunger Games" survived fresh competition from the "Titanic" and the gross-out "American Pie" gang to notch its third domestic box office win over the weekend. "Hunger Games" took in $33.5 million at U.S. and Canadian theaters from Friday through Sunday and lifted its domestic sales through three weekends to $302.8 million, according to studio estimates released on Sunday. The Easter weekend receipts for "Hunger Games" topped "American Reunion," a sequel to one of film's biggest comedy franchises, and a 3D remake of "Titanic" timed for the anniversary of the ship's sinking. It was the third straight box office win for "Hunger Games." The Lions Gate Entertainment Corp movie about teens forced to fight to the death stormed into theaters on March 23 with a staggering domestic take of $152.5 million, the third-biggest weekend debut and the highest for a non-sequel.

Fan fever, plus a lack of big competitors at multiplexes, has kept "Hunger Games" hot, said Paul Dergarabedian, president of the box office division of Hollywood.com. "Great word of mouth, coupled with a release date that has given it a pretty open playing field, has allowed the film to effectively dominate the marketplace," he said. The movie stars Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss Everdeen, the skilled archer and heroine of the post-apocalyptic story based on Suzanne Collins' best-selling young adult novel.

In second place for the weekend, "American Reunion" met studio forecasts by ringing up $21.5 million in North America (the United States and Canada). International sales added $19.3 million, for a global total of $40.8 million. Universal Pictures, a unit of Comcast Corp, and privately held Relativity Media co-financed "American Reunion" for about $50 million. "Reunion" is the fourth movie in the "American Pie" franchise that kicked off 13 years ago with a pack of high-schoolers out to lose their virginity before graduation. The original film, famous for a scene in which a pie is used to simulate sex, spawned two big-screen sequels and helped lead the way for future raunchy adult comedies. The first three "Pie" films grossed more than $750 million around the world. In the new movie, the friends played by actors including Jason Biggs, Seann William Scott and Alyson Hannigan come together for a wild high-school reunion. Exit polls showed 61 percent of "Reunion" filmgoers were older than 25, suggesting that it drew heavily from fans of the previous movies. Audiences gave the movie a "B+" grade in polling by survey firm CinemaScore.

"Titanic" sailed back into theaters on Wednesday with a 3D makeover and grossed an estimated $61.2 million around the world through Sunday. Of that total, $17.4 million came from domestic Friday-through-Sunday sales, placing the movie in third place on North American charts and meeting studio forecasts. The original 1997 "Titanic," starring Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio as young lovers on the doomed ship, was a movie phenomenon that led domestic box office charts for 15 weeks. It earned more than $1.8 billion at theaters, the second-highest total for any film. Partners 20th Century Fox and Paramount spent $18 million on the 3D conversion, which was released to coincide with the 100th anniversary of the Titanic's sinking on April 15, 1912.

Rounding out the top five, 3D action sequel "Wrath of the Titans" rung up $15.0 million domestically. The movie had bigger sales overseas, where it pulled in $43.0 million and helped lift the global total after two weekends to $211.4 million. Snow White story "Mirror Mirror" took in $11.0 million, landing in fifth place. The family film has grossed $36.5 million domestically since opening last weekend.

Beauty and the Beast 3D

Walt Disney Pictures' magical animated classic "Beauty and the Beast" returns to the big screen in Disney Digital 3D , introducing a whole new generation to the Disney classic with stunning new 3D imagery. The film captures the fantastic journey of Belle, a bright and beautiful young woman who's taken prisoner by a hideous beast in his castle. Despite her precarious situation, Belle befriends the castle's enchanted staff -- a teapot, a candelabra and a mantel clock, among others -- and ultimately learns to see beneath the Beast's exterior to discover the heart and soul of a prince.

Recommendation - Must See

Early Reviews:Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1

At Comic-Con, "Dreamgirls" director Bill Condon talked about how he approached "Twilight: Breaking Dawn (November 18), which I will see at Monday's premiere. Condon had been eager to direct a horror movie, and landed the finale to this mother of all horror epics, which he and Summit agreed to break into two parts, "Harry Potter"-style. "It's all third act, which does make it easy," he says, "and scary too, there are some pretty crazy things." The film wound up earning a PG-13 rating after trims of a scene where Bella and Edward have sex for the first time, which features some nudity, and when she gives birth to their baby, with blood flying around the room.

Condon says he went for grown-up emotion here--aimed squarely at female Twihards. If Catherine Hardwicke was able to channel the teen POV in the first film, Condon is revealing the couple as adults: falling in love, getting married, living together, having a child, "set against a big mass-market studio movie," he says. But, befitting a vampire/human liaison, they don't have your ordinary kid; they have no idea what is growing super-fast inside Bella, eating away at her--and in the next installment, Bella becomes a vampire. Condon is relieved that he and Summit finally decided not to shoot the final films in 3-D. In the arena of dramatic intense emotion, 2-D works best, he says. The first round of trade reviews are up.

THR:

"The film is like a crab cake with three or four bits of crab in it surrounded by loads of bland stuffing,..The actors have long since been set in their performances and there are no surprises here. In the end, given how little goes on in Breaking Dawn—Part 1 despite the major plot points, what you're left with is to gaze at the three leads, all of whom have their own constituencies and reasons for being eminently watchable. The only hope is that they'll have more to do next time around."

Variety:

"Bella Swan kisses abstinence and mortality goodbye in 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 1,' in which the vampire-loving teen gets hitched, knocked up and almost destroyed from within by her little bundle of joy. All the more disappointing, then, that a story so pregnant with dramatic possibilities should wind up feeling like such an unconsummated opportunity,..the film is rich in surface pleasures but lacks any palpable sense of darkness or danger, which is a roundabout way of saying that Summit has protected its investment well."

Recommendation - Must See

Tree of LifeAvailable Exclusively On Blu-ray Combo Pack October 11

Through stunning cinematography and raw emotional power Malick’s hymn to life excavates answers to the most haunting and personal human questions through a kaleidoscope of the intimate and the cosmic, from the raw emotions of a family in a small Texas town to the wildest, infinite edges of space and time, from a boy’s loss of innocence to a man’s transforming encounters with awe, wonder and transcendence.

The Blu-ray Disc presentation utilizes maximum bit rate encoding and 7.1 audio and a 2.0 stereo mix to bring Malick’s visually stunning masterpiece to life providing consumers with a premium cinematic viewing experience for the home. An exclusive 30-minute documentary on the making of the film, Exploring The Tree of Life, allows fans to dig even deeper into Malick’s visionary work and his cinematic legacy through interviews with his collaborators and cast members as well as with directors Christopher Nolan and David Fincher who share an appreciation for his work.

An impressionistic story of a Midwestern family in the 1950's, the film follows the life journey of the eldest son, Jack (played as an adult by Sean Penn), through the innocence of childhood to his disillusioned adult years as he tries to reconcile a complicated relationship with his father (Brad Pitt).

Recommendation - Must See