Weekend Preview: White Hot? Maybe Not

It looks like the hottest kids on the block this weekend are neither FBI agents nor Secret Service applicants: they are once again a pair of lovable monsters. The battle for second place should be a little more heated, with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy in The Heat competing against Channing Tatum and Jamie Foxx in White House Down.

Monsters University easily became Pixar's second highest opening film ever (behind Toy Story 3) with an $82 million opening weekend. Even with positive audience responses, the prequel has no chance of getting close to Monsters, Inc.'s second weekend decline of 27.2%. A second weekend gross around $50 million is most likely, which should keep it on track toward matching its predecessor's final domestic gross of $255 million.

My pick for second place is, surprisingly, White House Down. I'm getting tired of Roland Emmerich's fixation on destroying the White House, but he has somehow manage to keep making money doing it. Though they were used heavily in Sony's ad campaign, White House Down won't reach the opening grosses of Independence Day ($50 million), The Day After Tomorrow ($68 million), or 2012 ($65 million). An opening in the upper thirty millions seems most likely at this point.

As for The Heat, the best comparisons are probably McCarthy's recent hits Identity Thief and Bridesmaids. An opening weekend between that of those two films ($34 million and $26 million, respectively) would be a decent start for the $43 million production.

Tune in next week for some Fourth of July fireworks as Despicable Me 2 and The Lone Ranger battle for first place, Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain opens nationwide, and Fox Searchlight's The Way, Way Back opens in limited release.

June 2013 Preview!

Here is a quick look at the films I plan to see in June:

Much Ado About Nothing (6/7/13)
Joss Whedon's self-financed Shakespearean-reading-turned-film, aka "vacation from The Avengers." Even those who find Shakespeare a little too foreign should enjoy the addition of Whedon's panache to the Bard's work.

Violet & Daisy (6/7/13)
S. Ronan easily became one of my favorite young actors after her performance in Hanna. I can't wait to see her take on what looks to be an equally badd-ass role.

This is the End (6/12/13)
Seth Rogen, Jay Baruchel, and a host of other actors portraying fictional versions of themselves have a party at James Franco's house interrupted by the end of days. This should be good for a few laughs as long as Rogen doesn't laugh in the film and Franco doesn't try to be serious.

Man of Steel (6/14/13)
Directed by Zack Snyder and produced by Christopher Nolan. I smell DC trying to build its own Avengers...not that that's going to stop me from seeing this or any other movies that may or may not be about Justice League members.

Monsters University (6/21/13)
The long-awaited prequel to one of Pixar's most beloved films. It isn't my favorite of Pixar's oeuvre (nor their film most deserving of another round in the theater, in my opinion), but, what the heck, can't say no to the Pixar gods.

World War Z (6/21/13)
I have read Max Brooks' novel on which this film is based at least a hundred times. So when I first heard that it was being adapted into a film I was super excited. Fast forward a couple of years, an odd choice of director, massive production difficulties, extensive rewrites during production (including an attempt at a complete third act rewrite by Damon Lindeloff and then Drew Goddard), and a lead actor/director dispute almost as epic as the events in the book, and the chances of the finished product being anywhere as good as the source material are almost as low as the chances of this sentence making sense. I'm still going to see it though.

White House Down (6/28/13)
Of all the films on this list, this is the maybe-est of the maybes, if for no other reason than the fact that I really don't like Channing Tatum and I think Roland Emmerich is a bit of a nut. But hey, it can't be worse than 2012, right? And that second trailer actually made it look enjoyable.

Which films are you most excited about for June?