New in Theaters March 29: G.I. Joe Retaliation, The Host, Tyler Perry's Temptation

By Chris Kavan - 03/28/13 at 04:19 PM CT

Last week was another solid week for Hollywood. It's too bad comparisons to last year have to involve the Juggernaut known as The Hunger Games or else the news would have been much better received. An action movie proved that people haven't totally given up on the genre - which is good news, as there is a big one coming out this weekend. Another movie targeting the YA audience will try to make its mark and Tyler Perry gives us something without Madea - that's a... good thing?

G.I. JOE: RETALIATION The first G.I. Joe movie had a decent $150.2 million run (on a $175 million budget mind you) thanks to some strong foreign grosses, we're now looking at a sequel. We have seen this year that action movies with big names doesn't mean you're going to have a hit. Dwayne Johnson, Channing Tatum, Bruce Willis - they are all certified action stars, but will they be enough to make this movie popular? Olympus Has Fallen proves that audiences will still turn out for a good action movie and G.I. Joe at least has some name recognition - but I just can't gauge whether this movie is going to follow Olympus and glory or be more like A Good Day to Die Hard and vastly under perform. If enough people want to see this, I would probably watch this in theaters. It has the best chance of knocking The Croods out of the top this week as far as I'm concerned.


THE HOST It has been a rough year so far for films targeting the young adult crowd. While Warm Bodies was a semi-hit, Beautiful Creatures was an abject failure (as of this blog, grossing less than $20 million on a $60 million budget). The Host has the benefit of being based on the work of Stephanie Meyers (who also wrote a little something you may have heard of, Twilight) and also stars Saoirse Ronan - an actress I still think is one of the best young talents out of Hollywood. The only thing is that the marketing has been relatively quiet for a movie aimed at this audience. I've seen trailers and a few TV spots - but unlike Twilight, there hasn't been word of legions of fans aching to see this. This is the kind of film I might secretly stream at home at some point - despite being firmly rooted in sappy romance - but if the young, female audience turns out for this as much as Twilight - it has the potential to be huge. I just don't know if they have been won over or not.


TYLER PERRY'S TEMPTATION I'm not a Tyler Perry fan - comedy or drama - so my personal views on this are to avoid at all possible costs. I'm not the target audience for Perry films - black, urban audiences drive his films - often to pretty good numbers - and I have a feeling this is going to perform just as well. It won't burn up the box office, but it should have no problem in keeping Perry in the movie business. Hey, at least it's not another Madea film (don't worry - we're going to have one of those before the year is out). People who love Perry and his films will continue to support him - I'm just never going to be counted amongst them.


This weekend certainly has the potential to continue the nice run we've had. The Croods should still be going strong and all three new movies have the potential to be medium to major hits. Will you be watching any of them this weekend? I'll be back Sunday with the final results.

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