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Wanted is directed by Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, whose "Night" series of films make Michael Bay look like Terence Malick. Kinetic doesn't seem to be an adequate word to describe his projects, which use so many effects and CGI that it probably comes close to qualifying as the second animated movie of the week.


Wanted's insane stunts and bulletplay are what's driving interest in this film, with several scenes that qualify as money shots. That bullet-bending clip will drive a lot of people to theaters (and then possibly lead to the premature end of a number of would-be William Tells). None of the film's stars are really able to open an action film all by their lonesome (even Jolie), but together, and combined with the subject, could lead to a pretty substantial weekend. It appears to be very much a love it or hate it movie, with your stance depending on how you like your style (in this case, a lot) and your substance (not too much). For at least one weekend, style should win out, with Wanted coming in with about a $45 million weekend.

Get Smart was a solid number one film in its debut, with $38.7 million, making it three out of four Steve Carell films that have opened in the top spot (Dan in Real Life, we're all disappointed in you. Apparently it needed more pratfalls.) The action-comedy hybrid was a decent audience pleaser and should outrun its mediocre reviews to have some legs, though the new films from this week could nip that back a little. Look for $22 million for its second weekend.

"Uh oh" has to be the operative thought process at Universal and Marvel studios after the second weekend performance of The Incredible Hulk, which fell 60 per cent to $22 million. After a successful reboot of the franchise, expectations were high that it would, at least, not completely crater in its final weekend. So much for that, and it appears that the well has just been poisoned too much for anyone to take the property seriously. Aside from the Avengers Movie, it'll probably be a long time before we see another Hulk movie. Look for just $10 million in its third weekend.

Kung Fu Panda fared much better with $22 million of its own in its third weekend, though it faces some pretty direct competition from Wall*E. The films have very different tones, so that should mitigate some of that, but it's very clearly not the main show. It's on track for about a $13 million weekend.

The Love Guru and The Happening are about to start their race to the bottom, after Guru bombed with a $14 million opening weekend, and The Happening dropped almost two-thirds from last week. Both should end up around $5 million this weekend, and might be gone from the top ten next weekend.

Forecast: Weekend of June 27-29, 2008
Rank	Film	Number of Sites	Changes in Sites from Last	Estimated Gross ($)
1	Wall-E	3992	New	73.2
2	Wanted	3170	New	44.7
3	Get Smart	3915	+4	22.5
4	Kung Fu Panda	3670	-383	13.4
5	The Incredible Hulk	3354	-154	10.0
6	The Love Guru	3012	0	5.6
7	The Happening	2483	-503	5.2
8	Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull	2556	-615	4.7
9	Sex and the City	1755	-687	3.8
10	You Don't Mess With the Zohan	2147	-1131	3.2

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