SEE THE “NEW IN TOWN” MARKET

Since the days of “Bridget Jones” and “Chicago,” Renee Zellweger has hit that alarming pause in an actress’s career, in which the need for a hit grows more urgent with time. “New in Town” won’t bring it. In this fish-out-of-cultural-water comedy, Renee’s uber-professional character is shipped off to frozen Minnesota to play the bad cop in a corporate restructuring. Many jokes ensue about Minnesotan accents and freezing cold, as she comes to find love, in the form of unlikely outdoorsman Harry Connick Jr. The film targets the date-movie crowd, coming as it does right before Valentine’s Day, but we expect the following week’s “He’s Just Not That Into You” to dominate the rom-com scene this year. We see single digits, as Zellweger’s return to form will have to wait.

SEE THE “UNINVITED” MARKET

“The Uninvited” comes in a January already crowded horror releases. But Dreamworks’ contribution to the genre will try to carry a little more heft than its predecessors, boasting stars Elizabeth Banks and David Strathairn, as well as producers from “The Ring” and “Eagle Eye.” Of course, familiar elements will be there – most notably spooky dead kids coming back from the grave to right some past wrong. Elizabeth Banks plays the tramp (and possibly killer) who seduces the father of two smokin’ hot sisters. We see nothing original to hook audiences, but we do see a healthy marketing budget. As with the others, we see low teens at best.

SEE THE “TAKEN” MARKET

In this genre thriller, Neeson’s character – who has some sort of shady professional badass background – finds himself on the phone with his daughter’s abductor. Abductor gives notice that said daughter is headed for the sex-slave trade. Neeson gives notice that he’s gonna enact some real-time revenge in the near future. For a star with a low-profile Neeson often hangs out in the box office stratosphere (“Schindler’s List,” “Star Wars Episode I” and more). Still, “Taken” may well have been postponed from September to the graveyard of January for a reason, and it may be one of his many bombs (unless you’re a fan of “Breakfast at Pluto”).