28-year-old USC alumni Jon Chu directs the sequel to gritty dance film “Step Up” entitled cleverly “Step Up 2 The Streets.” Summit Entertainment reaped the rewards of the first film in August of 2006 by earning over $65 million in box office which didn’t include a tally of nearly $50 million in international box office take (shared with Summit’s foriegn licensees, Disney distributes for Summit in North America) and all this was achieved for a very modestly budgeted film – ($12 million)  – that’s a lot of money…

‘Step Up 2 The Streets’ which could should have been entitled “Step Up 2: Electric Boogaloo” is based on the characters created by evil-genius Duane Adler. Adler, a distant cousin of Elvis Presley and he is also the brainchild behind the “dance movie” fad craze that emerged after his first film “Save the Last Dance” was released in 2001 and in subsequent films Adler’s relied on virtually the exact same premise (if you don’t believe me, check out his other credits which include “The Way She Moves” “Step Up” “Save the Last Dance 2” and the upcoming dance movie entitled “Make it Happen.”)

The upcoming film “Step Up 2” doesn’t include either of the 2 lead actors from the first film – Channing Tatum or Rachel Griffiths, (they were either unavailable or too expensive, I’m hoping it was the latter and that they kept the budget below $15 million to maximize profits.) Box office expectations must be considerable as the first film opened at over $20 million in box office in 2006 (against Oliver Stone’s “World Trade Center” and the 2nd weekend of “Talladega Nights“.)

Disney releases the film on a Thursday – February 14th – to coincide with Valentine’s Day. There is stiff competition however on that date as action film “Jumper” (skews to young males so it might only lift-off on Friday and allow ‘Step Up 2′ a jump-start…[no pun intended]) from Fox. Also releasing on Valentine’s Day is the romantic comedy “Definitely Maybe” (film stars Ryan Reynolds)- we estimate a likely opening for the film at $10 to $15 million.

Also launching on Valentine’s Day is Paramount’s “Spiderwick Chronicles” which we don’t feel will get very heavy traction as the dark children’s fantasy genre has been taking a beating ever since “Mr. Magorium’s Emporium” opened last year.

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