Monday Morning Mixer: Box office is 'Taken' over by Liam Neeson

Posted Monday, October 8, 2012 at 11:59 AM Central
Last updated Monday, October 8, 2012 at 1:09 PM Central

It's October, which means that it's officially fourth quarter for the studios and that should mean more exciting news throughout the week and even the weekend. As the unofficial kick-off to awards season, October is an interesting mix of Summer leftover fare mixed in with the annual Halloween chillers and the first signs of actually good movies.

This weekend was a bit of both worlds as Taken 2 was like that last strong day of Summer in the Fall that makes you yearn for days at the beach, while Frankenweenie is a scary movie aimed at the little tykes.

As for the celebs, the mostly behaved themselves. I guess Lindsay Lohan was out of the country filming a movie or something.

Sit back and grab a good cup of joe because we're about to mix things up!

Box Office 411

I still can't wrap my head around Liam Neeson, action hero. The 60 year old actor has sort of reinvented himself in the last three years, after the release of Taken. While he was in always a versatile actor, this film propelled him into Chuck Norris territory.

So, you can imagine that there was a sort of built-in audience with pent up expectations for Taken 2. From all accounts, the sequel lived up to those high expectations, even if it took a killing from critics. But then again, what action film ever scores well with critics?

Taken 2 had the third best opening ever for October with its $50 million haul. This number was also good enough to check in as Neeson's sixth largest opening of his illustrious career.

With little competition in the next few weeks, I wouldn't be surprised to see Taken 2 surpass its predecessor's total box office take of $145 million. I think $150 million when the dust clears is a nice, round number for this revenge flick.

On the other end of the spectrum, Frankenweenie performed well under last week's animated monster flick Hotel Transylvania. Frankenweenie only brought $11.5 million to life at the box office, a far cry short of Hotel Transylvania's $42.5 million opening.

The otherwise made-for-Halloween Tim Burton failed to scare up audiences like he normally does, especially at this time of the year. It might have something to do with the fact that he was without his golden boy Johnny Depp who stars in many of Burton's films.

I'm sure that the unexpected stiff competition from Hotel Transylvania was also a factor. Whatever the case, it's clear that Tim Burton's vanity project failed to connect with audiences this time around.

Pyscho Cats

I'm a dog person. It's just who I am. I've always been a dog person and I'll always be a dog person.

This could have something to do with the fact that I'm allergic to cats, but I've just always been more comfortable with dogs. I'm also a Walken person. I can't get enough of his films.

Like any good dog person though, I can appreciate and laugh at cat videos. At this point, you're probably wondering where I'm going with this. I'm glad you asked.

Christopher Walken has a new film coming out this weekend called Seven Psychopaths and I'll be honest, I loved the trailer. In case you missed, I've embedded it below. It's not nearly as good as the red-band trailer, but CBS Films won't let me embed that one.

Well, if this wasn't awesome enough, CBS Films released a new trailer this weekend. It's called "Seven PsychoCATS" and yeah, it's pretty much what it sounds like. All of the actors from the Seven Psychopaths trailer have been replaced with cats. Again, the green-band version is below, but I highly recommend you click on the link in the trailer for the red-band version.

Is it just me or is the hairless cat playing Christopher Walken absolutely inspired casting? Seven Psychopaths hits theaters on Friday.

Good Ben Affleck

As reported by TMZ not all of the Hollywood's finest had a quiet weekend. Ben Affleck was out driving and accidentally sideswiped a parked car, knocking off its mirror.

While some of Hollywood's lesser upstanding actors and actresses would simply speed away from the scene of the crime, despite the throngs of paparazzi who witnessed it, Ben proved he's a good guy by stopping and leaving a note owning up to the accident. As you can see from the shot on TMZ, Ben had a bit of fun with it with a friendly greeting.

I'm sure the car owner will be pleasantly surprised when he rings up "Ben" from the note and realizes that it's one of Hollywood's top actors/directors. Speaking of which, Affleck's latest film Argo also opens in theaters on Friday.

Adele 'Skyfalls' for Bond

We teased a while back that Adele had been tapped to sing the title song for the latest Bond film Skyfall. Well, the song has been leaked out officially and the fine folks over at IGN took the song snippet and set it to the latest Skyfall trailer.

I think you'll agree that the result is classic Bond and that Adele really hit it out of the park. Of course, why would you take my word for it when this is the Internet and you can check it out for yourself.

The true 'Hunger Games'

We all know of the colossal failure that was Battleship this Summer. You would think that Hasbro, the toy company behind the property that the film was based on, would learn from its mistakes and simply move on.

Of course they wouldn't, this is Hollywood, where rationale thoughts don't exist. Believe it or not, Hasbro is working on a Hungry Hungry Hippos big screen adaptation.

Our good friends over at Film School Rejects heard about that development and decided to create this amazing fan-made trailer for the film.

I suppose if we can have enormous crocodiles and piranhas wreaking havoc on nubile young things, then why not a hippo, right? Well, don't worry, the word is that the Hungry Hungry Hippos is going to be an animated feature geared towards children.

Although, looking at this trailer, I might buy a ticket to that film. Well, that's all the morning will hold for us. Until next week, mix well friends.