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3) Friday the 13th

I was joking with my wife yesterday that the prolific number of horror re-makes all but assures we'll be seeing a new Scream re-boot in a few years. I look forward to all sorts of self-referential jokes about the rules and conventions of the horror re-make. This is all Michael Bay's fault for that insipid Texas Chainsaw Massacre do-over. Friday the 13th as an original franchise effectively died when they sent Jason into space in Jason X, a movie I thought was a lot of fun. Rather than continue to explore the galaxy, however, Friday the 13th has returned to its roots. This means it should experience roughly the same success as the recent re-make of My Bloody Valentine ($46 million thus far) and probably a bit more. Friday the 13th lacks the technology of 3-D as a selling point, but being a much more established name should matter more.

4) Jonas Brothers: The 3-D Concert Experience

I have a lot of trouble deducing the whims of the target audience here. I am inclined to believe that Miley Cyrus and her alter ego, Hannah Montana, are trending downward a bit now that (over)saturation has set in. How do these ugly little Jonas Brothers fit into that equation? That haven't suffered from as much overexposure and they are undeniably THE boy band of the moment. Is that enough to allow them to duplicate the $65 million success of Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert Tour? I'm inclined to say no but girls of this age group are the very definition of inscrutable.

5) Confessions of a Shopaholic

Everything about this project is insulting. The message here is unmistakable. Women must buy lots of shoes and clothes, but they are too dumb to understand math and finance. For this reason, they get huge credit card bills and need men to sweep in and save them from financial doom. It's insulting, it's chauvinistic, and it doesn't even fact check with the current economic crisis created by all of the men running major corporations. Despite all of this, the buzz for Confessions of a Shopaholic is significant enough that I could see this one breaking out...and this saddens me.

6) The International

My love of Clive Owen is well established and I am glad to see him getting lead roles in action thrillers such as this one. That's the good news. The bad news is that there doesn't seem to be anything special about The International. An ominous overlord of a bank is the villain? I guess this film has some parts of The Firm, Eagle Eye and Inside Man (Owen's second best recent film after Children of Men) meshed together, but how appealing is that? I have to say not very. I strongly expect to like this movie, but I think it's going to be a mediocre box office performer in the $15 million opening/$40 million finish range.

7) Madea Goes to Jail

This is the scariest title in February from my perspective. I never seem to anticipate the appeal of Tyler Perry projects. When one strikes me as having huge popularity, it winds up being a Daddy's Little Girls ($31 million domestic). When I think one is going to bomb, it always seem to do Madea's Family Reunion-level box office ($63.3 million). I wash my hands of this. Madea Goes to Jail strikes me as the most marketable movie he has ever made and, as such, I am predicting it only makes about $38 million. My logic here is largely based on the fact that I'm always wrong about the dude's films. God, am I ever dreading making a Star Trek prediction.

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