Opening this Week: ‘Eat Pray Love,’ ‘The Expendables,’ and ‘Scott Pilgrim’

This is the last big week of the summer movie season and it is quite the box office battle. In one corner, we have The Expendables, starring ten of the hugest (in every sense) action stars in movie history: Sylvester Stallone (who wrote and directed), his “Rocky IV” nemesis, Dolph Lundgren, WWE superstar Stone Cold Steve Austin, Ultimate Fighting Champion Randy Couture, martial arts master Jet Li, former NFL player Terry Crews, “Iron Man 2’s” Mickey Rourke, and “Transporter’s” Jason Statham — plus brief appearances by Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is touting itself as “the manliest movie ever made” and what would happen “if testosterone mated with explosions” and a fight scene had the crowd in Hall H at Comic-Con cheering. It also features Eric Roberts as the bad guy.
Ten action heroes just about add up to the three-woman team behind the other movie: international best-seller Elizabeth Gilbert, box office champ Julia Roberts, and empress of all media Oprah Winfrey. “Eat Pray Love,” based on the Oprah-endorsed international best-seller, has been made into a movie starring Julia Roberts and directed and co-written by Ryan Murphy (of “Glee” and “Nip/Tuck”). So, the Roberts siblings are both starring in movies opening on August 13.
And then there is another movie that had the Comic-Con crowd in ecstasy, “Scott Pilgrim vs. The World,” based on the graphic novel series, starring Michael Cera, and directed by Edgar Wright, about as powerful a combination for the comic/gamer/fantasy crowd as Stallone et al and Oprah et al are for their respective fans. Any guesses on who’s going to win the box office this weekend?