20th Century Fox’s May tentpole, “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” despite being spread all over the Internet via pirating less than a month before its release and the postponement of its Mexican opening due to the outbreak of swine-flu stands to do a healthy amount of business on its opening this weekend.
According to THR,“”X-Men Origins: Wolverine” looks likely to open with at least $80 million domestically — though Fox execs insist even a $70 million bow would be acceptable on the pic.” Holy shit. Not bad for a film that reportedly cost $150 million to produce and seems to have been hit with endless bad luck.
The movie may have to also fight the fact that its not very good. Even though reviews of the film are “under embargo” until the day of the release May 1* (‘cept for people like this guy), Justin Chang at Variety said the film was “dim-witted,” and “bears all the marks of a work for hire, conceived and executed with a big budget but little imagination.” Umm, that’s saying it nicely to be frank. *What does that tell you when a studio wants you to hold releases to the day of? Duh, figure it out.
In the end, the negative reviews and low-low quality of the film probably won’t matter and the movie will rake in its $80 million opening weekend, which is sad state of affairs that you should weep about. As with any flashy May tentpole, the standards are low enough that the action-starved comic-book contingency will head to the theaters for just about anything, even this piece of tripe-looking swill.
