Wait a Minute. Maybe this is the Summer of Owen.

Woody Allen and Owen Wilson from Midnight in Paris

With another stellar showing at the box office, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris looks to be the famed director’s biggest hit in two decades. The film looks to earn about $7 million this weekend from only 944 theatres, putting the cume at approximately $15 million. The film has already spent several weeks in the lower reaches of the top 10, and is clearly catching on as the adult alternative to superheroes and bloated sequels. A final domestic gross of over $50 million is no longer out of the question, with increased returns overseas.

Here in Fratville we care about this because the star of the movie is Owen Wilson, who seems to be connecting with audiences as “the Woody Allen character” much more deeply than Will Ferrell did a decade ago in Melinda and Melinda. Importantly, Wilson seems to be drawing good critical notices as a writer who experiences some fantastic travels in the city of Paris. Who’d have thunk this film could far surpass the box office of potential Oscar bait How Do You Know or supposedly kid-friendly Marmaduke, two 2010 films that barely topped $30 million.

And the hits keep coming for Wilson, who has Cars 2 coming in a couple weeks. Given that Kung Fu Panda 2 has been underperforming, one would give the chances for Pixar’s latest to not suffer the same fate. Unlike Panda, the commercials are clearly showing that this is no sequel retread, an important factor for audiences who’ve already seen a number of retreads (ironically, Panda 2 isn’t as much of a retread as the commercials would indicate).

Look, I still think this is the Summer of Bateman. But, it’s nice to see our pal Owen Wilson having a nice little summer as well.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 11th, 2011 at 10:44 pm and is filed under Cars 2, Midnight in Paris, Owen Wilson. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.