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The Preview Reel: War for the Planet of the Apes vs. Wish Upon

Scott Davis
The Preview Reel

Welcome to this week’s “Preview Reel” column, where we look at the week’s upcoming wide-release movies. Spider-Man: Homecoming swung into theaters last week with a huge $117 million debut, making it the second biggest Sony opening since Spider-Man 3 in 2007. The movie world is still abuzz over the new iteration of Peter Parker, but another one of the most anticipated movies of the summer opens this week in the form of War for the Planet of the Apes. The final chapter of the acclaimed reboot trilogy will be pitted against the PG-13 rated horror flick, Wish Upon. It might be obvious which one you should see, but let’s break them both down.

 

War for the Planet of the Apes

What we are excited about: If you have seen either Rise of the Planet of the Apes or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), you should be excited to see how this thing ends. The first two installments of the series succeeded in taking the best aspects of the original films, like sharp social commentary, and grounding them in our modern world with spectacular special effects. Andy Serkis has delivered a groundbreaking performance in each of the last two films, something that is sure to be the standard of motion capture acting moving forward. The trailers have looked intense and seem to promise a fitting conclusion to this epic story. There’s not much more we can say other than we are super excited to see how this saga finishes.

What we are worried about: To be honest, not much. If we want to get nit-picky, Woody Harrelson’s villain does look a little too hammy for a franchise that has been so serious. But we’re confident director Matt Reeves wouldn’t have cast Harrelson for such a big part if it didn’t work. Then again, the trailers seem to have painted him as a generic bad guy. That’s a minor compliant for a marketing campaign that has been pretty much spot on so far.

The Buzz: This movie screened for critics almost a month ago, and they cannot stop raving about it. People were excited about it, but critics are suggesting we might have one of the best third chapters in a trilogy ever with this film. The film currently sits at 92% on RottenTomatoes and 79 on MetaCritic, which are both very strong numbers for a summer blockbuster. That should lead to a solid opening of around $65 million, just behind the $72.6 million opening of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

Final Thoughts: Even though this summer has been somewhat of a drag, the recent uptick continues with Spider-Man: Homecoming last week, War for the Planet of the Apes this week, and Dunkirk next.

 

Wish Upon

What we are excited about: We haven’t seen a good horror movie in a while. Sure, It Comes at Night was decent, but it certainly wasn’t the scare fest we were hoping for. While Wish Upon might be just another dumb PG-13 horror flick, it does offer something different for audiences. If you’re sick of the big-budgeted summer tent-pole movies, maybe a quick and potentially fun horror movie will do the trick? It worked for last year’s Lights Out (2016), maybe it will this year work for Wish Upon.

What we are worried about: The trailers look just plain dumb. The scenario is something we’ve seen in countless movies before and none of the situations look all that scary. Add the fact that it’s PG-13 and we aren’t interested. We were thinking along those same lines last July when Lights Out came out and it proved a pleasant surprise, but we highly doubt lightning will strike twice.

The Buzz: Most of the buzz the past few weeks has been dominated by the three big July releases (Spider-Man: Homecoming, War for the Planet of the Apes, and Dunkirk), but this might provide some good counter-programming for the studio. Given that there are no reviews yet for the film and there’s almost no buzz to speak of, we don’t think this will be the breakout horror film of the summer (that will probably belong to next month’s Annabelle: Creation). Look for an opening around $6 million.

Final Thoughts: If you need a change of pace in your summer movie routine, maybe check this out. If not, catch up on movies you might have missed or go see Apes fight humans in War for the Planet of the Apes.

Scott Davis

Scott Davis is a recent graduate of Oakland University where he earned a degree in journalism. He worked for the student newspaper on campus, The Oakland Post, where he became the paper's managing editor. He also earned a minor in Cinema Studies at OU. Scott enjoys all things film and TV related, especially the blockbuster kind. He might be the biggest Christopher Nolan fan you know.
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