New Movies In Theaters Jan 11th - Rotten Tomatoes

New Movies In Theaters Jan 11th - Rotten Tomatoes

Three new movies will be in wide release this weekend, and in a bit of an oddity, all three are rated R. (Although none of those Rs seem to have been specifically generated by nudity. Sigh.)

Gangster Squad (3100 theaters): big stars (Gosling, Penn, Brolin, Emma Stone) and mediocre-to-poor reviews (34% at RT) are the two salient characteristics of this noir about cops and robbers in 1949 L.A. This is the film that was delayed from September because it included a movie massacre scene. It's rated R for violence and language.

Zero Dark Thirty (2900 theaters): nominated for the Best Picture Oscar and with 94% positive reviews, this story of the hunt for bin Laden comes with a great pedigree as well as controversy over its manipulation of facts. Rated R for brutal violence.

A Haunted House (2100 theaters) is a parody of the Paranormal Activity movies and other spooky films in the "found footage" sub-genre of horror pics. It is currently sitting at 0% positive reviews, which is not surprising when you consider that two of the top stars are Nick Swardson and Cedric the Alleged Entertainer. Swardson already has one goose egg at RT for Bucky Larson plus some other near misses, while Cedric has five films with an RT score in single figures. One reviewer said, "Mean-spirited, badly made and unfunny is one set of disasters; adding in storytelling incompetence adds to the catastrophe." It's rated R for "crude and sexual content, language, and some drug use."

R-rated films find it difficult to reach blockbuster status, so I guess we can expect nothing very impressive at the box office. Zero Dark Thirty should take the weekend, especially since it got extra publicity from the Oscar nominations, but it will probably win with a modest total in the twenties. Gangster Squad should be right around $20M, which should easily take second. A Haunted House won't take in much more than $15M and may gross considerably less than that, but it may take third place simply because none of the carry-overs are expected to take in much more than that. If Haunted House performs at the low end of expectations, it could drop below the silent letter twins, Django and Les Miz.