IMAX delivered a super opening weekend to “Super 8” with $4.4 million (12% on just 239 screens) of Paramount’s weekend-topping overall $37 million domestic gross for the J.J. Abrams family thriller, according to Hollywood.com Box Office.
Meanwhile, Paramount’s 3D release of Dreamworks Animation’s “Kung Fu Panda 2,” featuring some the year’s most dynamic 3D images in a very cute , ranked fourth in its third weekend with $16.6 mil. for a domestic total-to-date of $126.9 million, and nearly $300 mil. worldwide.
Disney’s 3D movie, “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” with very minimal 3D impact but a slightly improved entertainment value over the previous two episodes of the franchise, 3D has surpassed $200 mil. domestically and is closing in on $900 mil. globally after another $10.8 mil. in U.S. grosses.
“Super 8” feels like exactly what it is, an homage to Steven Spielberg produced by a filmmaker who can create all the elements of his mentor but cannot match the underlying soul or substance of his idol.
But since even Spielberg has been unable to create films in recent years that match his own best work of the 1970s and 1980s, J.J. Abrams offers perhaps the closest thing we’ve seen in a couple decades. Abrams delivers, as usual, on the action and tension of another thriller involving an alien, all of which gets maximum effect from the out-sized IMAX visual presentation and sound system. Adding to the fun is a score full of 1970s pop songs that sound terrific in an IMAX auditorium.
Abrams even manages to evoke terrific performances from young child actors as Spielberg did so often, including a newcomer as his star, Kyle Chandler, and the talented Elle Fanning. And that’s worth paying to see, especially in IMAX, where everything is once again bigger and better, a key asset in a film as big and effects-laden as “Super 8.”
The film is like a best-of Steven Spielberg movie; there is nary a scene that doesn’t immediately remind you of another movie — oh, that’s just like “ET,” that’s a scene right out of “Close Encounters,” there’s “Poltergeist,” “Jurassic Park,” “War of the Worlds.” There are even direct comparisons to non-Spielberg films from “Stand By Me” to “Jeepers Creepers.”
If you liked those movies (and who didn’t?), you’re sure to enjoy “Super 8.”
— By Scott Hettrick