Hi, I’m MAK2.0 aka HybridMedia, you may remember me as such classics as my many “Anime Discovery” reviews, my recent featured debut on DREAMcast Ep. 16 and mostly just fucking around on @ Spill.com and it has reoccurred to me that this year has gone fast away. It’s beginning to be April, one month closer to the start of summer to some people and you know what that means, it is that time again where every big-budget (or minimal budgeted) movies either become the big blockbusters they are destined to be or the flops that people will either laugh at or be ashamed to be associated with and yet I bet those movies that might flop won’t be as humiliating and disastrous as Disney’s John Carter and that topic might come up later.

This time, I am doing a look at this year’s summer movies and seeing how they will perform,  hold up and what they will be against at their time but it is up to you who will become……….the champ?

So let’s kick this into mode and get on with the first week of summer movies:

MAY 4:

THE AVENGERS / THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL / LOL

As we kick off this month with one of the highest-anticipated movies of this year, this is no contest that this movie will dominate most of May and there is no denying that the Miley Cyrus’ movie will be the best movie of that month and will……..Oh, wait what? What the hell am I saying? Of course no one is going to think that LOL is going to be a big performer. A movie about her being dumped by her boyfriend, explore her sexuality and experiments with drugs? We can watch that and look at photos of her doing that on the internet, only Demi Moore is in this movie, too….for some reason.

Everybody and their mother knows that THE AVENGERS (I think everybody basically knows the plot to this already, it’s been established throughout the previous Marvel movies) easily has that week covered and other competing movies are likely to have an limited release and I’m not too worried about THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL, a movie about a group of British retirees entering an exotic retirement center in India (something I think that isn’t aimed at my demographic) and it was already released in other countries and it could do some modest results in the U.S., but the bottom line is that THE AVENGERS has that weekend covered.

MAY 11:

DARK SHADOWS / THE DICTATOR

For DARK SHADOWS, it is based on the gothic soap opera of the same name and it is another BurDepp (Tim Burton / Johnny Depp) project and so far on the marketing, no one knows much of this. True, a trailer did come out a few weeks ago and their trailer wasn’t that half-bad to me although I since the fans of the original works won’t like the comedic outlook of the final project and I happened to like some of the cast on here, mostly Chloë Moretz & Jackie Earle Haley but that’s just me.  But like any other summer movie released on the second week of May after the biggest one arrived already, this could be destined to underperform and join the likes of Speed Racer, Poseidon, Robin Hood and Priest; plus, the two former-mentioned movies that underperformed badly were released by Warner Bros., who distributes DS. 

As for THE DICTATOR, I wouldn’t hold my breath of it reaching Borat levels of popularity but like his last movie, Bruno, but I think it could have a slight chance of making more money than DARK SHADOWS or it could surprise us like STAR TREK ’09 did. From the look of its second trailer because the first one is mostly him doing whatever the hell he wants, it looks like it has more of a storyline than the usual Sacha Baron Cohen shenanigans and mischiefs, and the Megan Fox thing counts as that, too.

UPDATE: The Dictator will now be released on the 16th of May, so no competition from Dark Shadows now.

MAY 18

BATTLESHIP / WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING

I might get into a little rant about one of these movies and if you happen to like that specific movie, I won’t hold that against you. It is just my personal opinion……….WHO IN THE HELL IN HOLLYWOOD WOULD FUND AND THOUGHT OF AN STUPID IDEA AND PREMISE OF AN MOVIE!?!?!?? Since when Battleship has aliens in sphere balls attacking every major city? Unlike Transformers & G.I. Joe, there is no backstory to Battleship whatsoever; it’s mainly say some numbers and it’s ‘you sunk my Battleship’. It feels like Michael Bay style all over but it’s from the guy that brought you “Hancock” and “Friday Night Lights”, Peter Berg and stars Taylor Kitsch (from John Carter), Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgård, Rihanna and Brooklyn Decker.

You know, that girl that Adam Sandler was trying to bone in one of his movies and speaking of Decker, she is featured in another movie releasing the same day as that and it’s WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING, a movie about five couples who suffer the many joys of the childbirth process and it is an ensemble cast with too many people to name but most of them consists of J. Lo,  Cameron Diaz, Matthew Morrison, Elizabeth Banks, Chris Rock, Thomas Lennon and Anna Kendrick and trailer of this looks unfunny and just awful all round. But overall, yeah, Battleship is likely to top that weekend but will it makes back its $200 million budget? Well, if it doesn’t, then Taylor Kitsch is going to have a very bad year for himself coming out as a star.

MAY 25 (MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND)

MEN IN BLACK 3 / CHERNOBYL DIARIES / MOONRISE KINGDOM

After being on a film hiatus for 4 years (aside from producing movies), having his son on the big screen, which he was okay but as for your daughter and her music career, never again, Smith; Will Smith is back to take his place of being the King of Summer Movies although this time it’s not in the 4^th of July (Spider-Man now has that date), but yeah, him and Tommy Lee Jones are back for another installment of MIB although it’s been 10 years since the last entry and people hated that movie (I didn’t know any better, I was 11 or 12 when I saw it.) but the new one looks like to be pretty awesome although that Andy Warhol-shiznit line was way too corny, I’m still looking forward to it but not to the new song not performed by Will Smith but by…..sigh….Pitbull. I may like movie soundtracks but why Pitbull?

Also, from the creator of Paranormal Activity, Chernobyl Diaries is about 6 tourists and an extreme tour guide (REALLY?) who takes on the city Pripyat, a former home where the Chernobyl nuclear reaction happened but it appears they’re not alone and so far, it is that typical horror film with nothing new appearing on the screen but it is what it is.  

For you Wes Anderson fans, Moonrise Kingdom is about a young boy and girl falling in love and they are moved to run away together and there is a town search for them and I’ll admit it has that his trademarked style and quirkiness which most fans can look forward to. MIB3 will definitely take this weekend and maybe the next leading to June, which I will cover next time around, whenever there is a trailer, synopsis, or even a poster aware of its existence.

And until then, this is MAK2.0 aka HybridMedia, bringing all the elements in one format.

THE AVENGERS – courtesy of Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures & Paramount Pictures

THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL – courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures

LOL & WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU’RE EXPECTING – courtesy of Lions Gate

DARK SHADOWS & CHERNOBYL DIARIES – courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

THE DICTATOR – courtesy of Paramount Pictures

BATTLESHIP – courtesy of Universal Pictures

MEN IN BLACK 3 – courtesy of Columbia Pictures

MOONRISE KINGDOM – courtesy of Focus Features