Three new movies. Three very different demographics. Who will take the box office?

First, we have The Expendables, the war-action movie starring pretty much every action hero of the past 25 years. Second, it’s Eat Pray Love, with Julia Roberts in the adaptation of Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestseller. Finally, it’s Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, the darling of Comic-Con which stars Michael Cera as a guy fighting the seven evil ex’s of his new girlfriend.

Not surprisingly, there are three distinct interest groups at play here. For The Expendables – it’s men, especially those older than 25. And for good reason — I’m not kidding about the cast: Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Mickey Rourke, Dolph Lundgren, “Stone Cold” Steve Austin, Terry Crews and cameos from Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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Mark Wahlberg and Will Ferrell star in 'The Other Guys'. (Columbia Pictures)

Is there room for The Other Guys at the box office, or will it remain Leo’s dream world?

The Will Ferrell-Mark Wahlberg buddy-cop comedy is the latest film trying to bump Inception off the top of the box-office charts. So far, Salt and Dinner For Schmucks have both fallen short.

And it looks like The Other Guys might meet the same fate. According to data from the social-media/movie site Flixster, the movie isn’t seeing half of the interest level of Inception.
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Paul Rudd checks out Steve Carell's 'mouse-a-rama' in 'Dinner for Schmucks'. (Paramount Pictures)

Will fans of Inception and Salt take a Dinner break?

The Steve Carell-Paul Rudd comedy Dinner for Schmucks is the highest-profile opening this weekend, but even it faces an uphill climb against two relative juggernauts for box office supremacy.

Inception doesn’t appear to show any signs of slowing down its amazing run at theaters, according to data from the social-media movie website Flixster. The film is actually gaining interest from women over 25, a rare phenomenon for a science-fiction film.

Salt, meanwhile, has seen the usual declines from its first week of release. But even Angelina Jolie’s spy actioner may be able to hold off Dinner from second place.
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Angelina Jolie stars in the spy thriller 'Salt'. (Sony Pictures)

This week, do Angelina Jolie’s action moves have the ability to stop the dream world of Inception at the box office? Will Ramona and Beezus pull youngsters’ interest away from Despicable Me?

The answers are: Probably not, and highly unlikely.

Salt, Jolie’s new action film where she plays a CIA officer whose world crumbles when she’s accused of being a Russian agent, faces a bit of an uphill climb, despite some very solid interest.
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Which will win — magic or dreams?

Those are the basic ideas behind the two big releases this week: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Inception.

Apprentice, released by the same Disney studio which made the original Fantasia 70 years ago, stars Nicolas Cage as the sorcerer who must stave off evil with the help of an accomplice, played by Jay Baruchel.

Meanwhile, Inception stars Leonardo DiCaprio in a thriller involving people who can enter others’ dreams and steal, or plant, ideas.

Question is: Which will win out?
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A couple of very different films take aim at The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Will they have enough?

Despicable Me, a 3-D computer animated caper comedy, features the voices of Steve Carell and Jason Segel and has picked up a steady stream of interest. The likely reason has been the offbeat trailers, featuring the tiny, yellow minions of Carell’s character, Gru.

Meanwhile, the other new film, Predators, has one segment of the movie-going public itching to see it — men. Age doesn’t matter: Older guys want to check it out to see if it measures up to the 1987 original, younger guys want to check out the wild action sequences the trailers promise. (Unless they saw Predator on cable — then they fall into the first group.)
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More: ‘Eclipse’ a serious threat to ‘Toy Story 3′ for box office lead

According to The Hollywood Reporter, The Twilight Saga: Eclipse fell just $4.2 million short of the single-day box-office record when it was released on Wednesday.

Eclipse pulled in $68.5 million on its first day, which put it just shy of the record, held by its predecessor, The Twilight Saga: New Moon.

Eclipse, however, did break the record for a Wednesday opening, previously held by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.

UPDATE: ‘Eclipse’ falls just short of single-day box-office record

It’s bigger than Iron Man 2-Robin Hood.

It’s bigger than Shrek: The Final Chapter-Sex and the City 2.

It’s monsters vs. toys, folks. The battle of the summer.

The New York Times‘ Arts Beat blog reports that The Twilight Saga: Eclipse has already beaten one box-office record. Could this spell trouble at the top for Toy Story 3?
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Cameron Diaz and Tom Cruise bring 'Knight and Day' into theaters this weekend, but neither it nor 'Grown Ups' are likely to unseat 'Toy Story 3'. (20th Century Fox)

Despite the presence of some fairly popular date-night films coming along this week, it’s very unlikely we’ll see Toy Story 3 bounced from the top of the box office after one week.

Toy Story 3 had the biggest opening of any Pixar/Disney movie ever last weekend with $110.3 million pulled in. And it looks like there’ll be little drop-off, according to data from Flixster, the social media/film site.

EGP News adds that there’s a very good chance the film will surpass The Incredibles as the highest grossing Pixar/Disney film ever, hitting close to $500 million.
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The question isn’t whether Toy Story 3 will take over the top spot at the box office this weekend — we can assume that will happen.

The question is — by how much?

Clearly holding the highest interest numbers of the summer, Toy Story 3 should take command at the box office for at least this week, possibly several after that.
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