New Movies to Crave: Will The Lucky One Live Up to Its Name?

By Chris Kavan - 04/20/12 at 03:11 PM CT

After four week atop the box office, The Hunger Games looks to face its toughest challenge yet: a film that specifically targets its strong female audience.

April 20, 2012 brings us a few new contenders looking to win the weekend:

1) Up first has to be the romantic drama, The Lucky One. Zac Efron and Taylor Schilling look to make beauty, sappy puppy dog eyes at each other - which for me is an automatic pass, but the appeal of Nicolas Sparks at the box office cannot be denied, as both Dear John and The Notebook have proven to be rather effective at bringing in their target audience (and whatever husband/boyfriend is unlucky enough to be dragged along). All signs point to Katniss and co. finally giving up the box office crown - though I hope they put up a valiant effort.

2) Disneynature has taken on Earth, Oceans and big cats - so the next logical step is monkeys or, more aptly, Chimpanzees. However, because of its somewhat low theater total, it probably won't reach as wide an audience as The Lucky One - or The Hunger Games. Each Disneynature film has also grossed less than its predecessor, so we'll see if these chimps can match the $15 million of the last film or if it will have even less returns.

3) Not content with just romance for the weekend? Then Think Like a Man gives you some comedy (as opposed to the straight up drama) to go along with your relationship issues. In this case, a bunch of women take Steve Harvey's advice and use it against their significant others, only to have the men turn the tables on them when they find out. The cast looks promising, including Taraji P. Henson, hot comic Kevin Hart, Regina Hall, Meagan Good, Gabrielle Union and, surprisingly Chris Brown - but despite all the talent, for some reason I highly doubt this is going to be any different from the thousand or other "men vs. women" comedies that have shown up over the years. But then again, Tyler Perry continues to somehow make money hand-over-fist, so anything's possible.

I'll be back on Sunday to see if The Hunger Games will finally be knocked down a peg and if Hollywood can notch another win over last year's totals.