After a remarkable career as a child, which included memorable turns in Taxi Driver, Bugsy Malone and  Freaky Friday, she established herself as an important actress with her Oscar wins for The Accused in 1988 and for 1992's The Silence of the Lambs. Her searing performance as Clarice Starling opposite Anthony Hopkins also made her a movie star, as Silence topped $130 million domestic. Four of her last five major studio releases have opened with $20 million-plus on opening weekend and each has gone on to top $88 million domestic.

The Inside Man (2006) — $28.9 million opening, $88.5 million cume
Flightplan (2005) — $24.6 million opening, $89.7 million cume
Panic Room (2002) — $30 million opening, $96.3 million cume
Anna and the King (1999) — $5.2 million opening, $39.2 million cume
Contact (1997) — $20.5 million opening, $100.9 million cume

Reviews for The Brave One are coming in mixed to positive. The film is rated 64 percent Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and it has a MetaCritic score of 60, so it won't necessarily get a big bounce from consistently great reviews on Friday. What's more, the industry tracking shows weakness with Under 25s, especially males.

I'm choosing to use final tracking figures for 2007 releases Zodiac and Shooter as comparables in order to figure out how well The Brave One will perform on opening weekend. The Brave One has the weakest Un-Aided Awareness of the three films with just 2 percent, compared to 5 percent for Zodiac and 4 percent for Shooter. The Total Aware for the Foster vehicle is at 64 percent, which is better than for Mark Wahlberg's Shooter at 59 percent, but trails the Fincher period thriller (71 percent).

In terms of Definite Interest, The Brave One has some problems. Its 35 percent score is comparable to Shooter with 37 percent and Zodiac with 34 percent, but the demos seem problematic.

DEFINITE INTEREST: Males Under 25
Zodiac — 41 percent
Shooter — 40 percent
The Brave One — 24 percent

DEFINITE INTEREST: Males 25 Plus
Shooter — 38 percent
The Brave One — 34 percent
Zodiac — 28 percent

DEFINITE INTEREST: Females Under 25
Zodiac — 40 percent
Shooter — 33 percent
The Brave One — 30 percent

DEFINITE INTEREST: Females 25 Plus
The Brave One — 48 percent
Shooter — 36 percent
Zodiac — 29 percent

This urban street justice tale isn't resonating with Under 25s, and the most reliable movie-going demo, Under 25 Males, have little or no interest.

Of those surveyed, 11 percent report that The Brave One is their First Choice this weekend, and that's a tick better than Shooter scored (10 percent), but Zodiac left the starting gate with a 17 percent First Choice. Again, the problem is the younger demos as The Brave One only manages a 6 percent First Choice with Under 25 Females and a miserable 3 percent First Choice with Under 25 Males.

Zodiac opened with $13.3 million on opening weekend and Shooter grabbed $14.5 million, and those appear to be pretty good benchmarks. I'm targeting $13 million-$16 million for The Brave One on opening weekend, which would have to be categorized as a disappointment given Foster's recent track record.

Billy Bob Thornton, everybody's favorite Bad Santa, stars in Mr. Woodcock (New Line), another comedy where he plays an irascible, cranky, short-tempered jerk who (I hope I'm not spoiling the movie for you) will almost certainly turn out to have a heart (at least partially) made of gold by the time the credits roll. Critics are definitely not jumping on the Woodcock train. The would-be comedy is only rated 21 percent Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, though its has a score of 40 from MetaCritic.

The picture will open at 2,200 or so locations on Friday, and it should be noted that New Line went with fewer runs than they had originally anticipated. Why make prints when people are most likely going to watch it on DVD in a few months?

Un-Aided Awareness for Mr. Woodcock is at 1 percent (who are those people?), and its Total Aware is 61 percent. I think that Balls of Fury is a pretty good comparable here. That was another PG-13 comedy with a lame premise, bad reviews and a star who seemed to be mailing it in. Balls opened with 5 percent Un-Aided Awareness and a 67 percent Total Aware. The ping-pong comedy has an advantage in Definite Interest 34 percent-30 percent and First Choice 10 percent-5 percent.

All of this adds up to a soft Woodcock. Balls managed a three-day of $11.3 million, but it was Labor Day weekend so it got a Sunday boost. It looks like New Line is headed for no better than $6 million-$9 million here.

The third wide release is a bit of a sleeper. It's called Dragon Wars, and it's being distributed by Freestyle Releasing. It's easy to dismiss a film like this. Generally, Freestyle handles "service deals," which means companies pay them to get their movies into theatres, and they may not exactly have any pride of ownership (it's not really their movie). This film, however, might be different.

First of all, it's a real movie with a real budget of $70 million, mostly spent on very good visual effects. Derek Elley from Variety saw this picture when it played at the Berlin Film Festival (it was then titled D-War), and he wrote a generally positive review.

"Bad-mutha Korean serpents trash downtown L.A. in English-language monsterfest [Dragon Wars], a feast of A-grade F/X married to a Z-grade, irony-free script. After some eight years in planning, production and post, and just over two years since live-action shooting wrapped, South Korea's biggest-budget production by far (reportedly $70 million) looks likely to end up the most expensive cult movie on DVD. Though often visually entertaining, and superior to helmer Shim Hyeung-rae's last monster outing (1999's Yonggary aka Reptilian) pic looks to have an uphill fight in the hardtop arena.”

As Derek says, it's "an uphill fight" commercially, but Freestyle has secured over 2,200 runs, and the tracking is very surprising. Dragon Wars has low Awareness of 35 percent and low Definite Interest of 25 percent, but Under 25 Males appear to be excited about this movie. Compare the tracking for Under 25 Males for this weekend's three wide releases.

TOTAL AWARE: Under 25 Males
Mr. Woodcock — 67 percent
The Brave One — 51 percent
Dragon Wars — 48 percent

DEFINITE INTEREST: Under 25 Males
Mr. Woodcock — 42 percent
Dragon Wars — 39 percent
The Brave One — 24 percent

FIRST CHOICE: Under 25 Males
Dragon Wars — 11 percent
Mr. Woodcock — 6 percent
The Brave One — 3 percent

Most everyone has penciled in $2 million-$3 million for Dragon Wars, but it is poised to deliver an upside surprise. It's even possible, though not likely, that it could beat Mr. Woodcock, which would be a pretty staggering upset. I say that Dragon Wars is headed for $3 million-$6 million in its opening three days. Not exactly Eragon ($23.2 million opening, $75 million cume), but certainly not the throwaway title I was expecting.

Final weekend predictions for September 14-16:
1. The Brave One (Warner Bros.) — $15 million
2. 3:10 to Yuma (Lionsgate) — $9.1 million
3. Mr. Woodcock (New Line) — $7 million
4. Dragon Wars (Freestyle Releasing) — $5.7 million
5. Superbad (Sony) — $5.4 million
6. Halloween (MGM/Weinstein) — $4.3 million
7. The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal) — $3.5 million
8. Rush Hour 3 (New Line) — $3.3 million
9. Balls of Fury (Rogue Releasing) — $3 million
10. Mr. Bean's Holiday (Universal) — $2 million

In addition to the wide releases, I'll be following the Per Theatre Average performance of the first wave of prestige titles and Oscar hopefuls throughout the weekend. That will include Universal's Beatles extravaganza Across the Universe, Warner Independent's December Boys starring Daniel Radcliffe, David Cronenberg's Eastern Promises (Focus Features) and In the Land of Elah (Warner Independent) from Oscar winner Paul Haggis.