Though they’re not necessarily competing for the same audience, 20th Century Fox’s Alvin and the Chipmunks and Warner Bros.’ I Am Legend will be vying for box office dominance this weekend. Hoping for better audience turnout than last weekend saw, Fox is showing confidence in its live-action/CG update of the 1950s Chipmunks cartoon property by releasing it in nearly 3,500 theaters nationwide. Legend, however, gets the widest deployment with more than 3,600 venues offering the post-apocalyptic action-horror flick.
Alvin and the Chipmunks stars Jason Lee (My Name is Earl) as David Seville, a guy whose life is turned upside-down by Alvin, Simon and Theodore, three singing rodents brought to the screen via CG technology by Rhythm & Hues. The film was directed by Tim Hill, who previously co-wrote and directed Fox’s Garfield: A Tail of Two Kitties and directed Disney’s Max Keeble’s Big Move and Sony’s Muppets from Space. He has also served as head writer on SpongeBob SquarePants: The Movie and created a number of shows for Nickelodeon.
Richard Matheson’s novel, I Am Legend, was first brought to the screen in 1964 with the Vincent Price vehicle The Last Man on Earth, followed by the 1971 Charlton Heston cult favorite The Omega Man. The latest cinematic adaptation stars Will Smith as a scientist who manages to survive a plague that has wiped out humanity, leaving only night-dwelling mutants for him to contend with. Sony Pictures Imageworks under visual effects supervisor Jim Berney handled the lion’s share of the vfx work, which has been getting high praise. The film is one of 15 short-listed for this year’s Academy Award for best effects.
With no other movies are opening wide this weekend, holdovers should remain strong as well. Last week’s champ, New Line’s The Golden Compass and Disney’s Enchanted will stick around through the holidays even as Columbia Pictures’ fantasy film, The Water Horse, debuts next Friday.
