We have arrived at the official end of summer: Labor Day weekend.  Never a blockbuster in terms of grosses, this year’s late summer crop of movies – two horror titles and a thriller – appears weaker than usual.  In fact, it looks like it will take four days for the newcomers to earn what last year’s Labor Day releases made in only three.

Last weekend the crop of late-summer newbies had that East Coast hurricane to blame for their less than stellar starts.  Too bad there’s no natural disaster to blame this time around.  Another lackluster crop of debuts means that the summer ‘sleeper’ hit The Help will remain in first place for the third weekend in a row.  Of Friday’s three new titles, Relativity’s Shark Night 3D and Dimension/TWC’s Apollo 18 each earned an estimated $2.8 million.  Because Apollo has the bigger screen count, it is expected to pull ahead by Monday – all the way ahead to a four-day total of $11 million!  Focus Features’ The Debt debuted on Wednesday, earning $970,000 from its 1,826 locations.  With an estimated $2.6 million, The Debt was fourth on Friday and is expected to bring in $8 million by Monday.  Details and analysis tomorrow.

Sharks are the ultimate predators, who have inspired terror and fascination in humans for centuries, even inspiring the Discovery Channel to launch Shark Week programming. The new horror thriller Shark Night 3D plays on those fears with a suspense-filled story about a group of college students hunted by various varieties of the hungry, flesh-eaters. When their boat malfunctions and they are stranded in the middle of the lake, with no way to call for help, they struggle to fend off the sharks and stay alive long enough to reach the safety of dry land.

At the film’s press day, actor Chris Zylka did this exclusive interview with Collider, in which he talked about playing the cocky jokester of the group, making sure his character was likeable enough so that audiences will route for him to survive, how humans can sometimes be just as terrifying as sharks, that his favorite type of shark is the hammerhead, what a pleasure it was to work with director David Ellis, and the difference between working with animatronic sharks versus CG piranhas for Piranha 3DD (due out in November). He also talked about the experience of playing Flash Thompson in The Amazing Spider-Man, and what it was like to work with director Marc Webb. Check out what he had to say after the jump:

In Shark Night 3D, a sexy summer weekend turns into a blood-soaked nightmare for a group of college students hunted by blood-thirsty sharks. After they arrive by boat at her family’s Louisiana lake cabin, Sara (Sara Paxton) and her friends strip down to their swimsuits for a weekend of fun in the sun that quickly turns very, very wrong when they discover that hundreds of hungry, flesh-eating predators have been let loose in the lake. As they face one gruesome attack after another, and their options to make it out alive dwindle, reaching the safety of dry land seems less and less likely.

At the film’s press day, actress Sara Paxton did this exclusive interview with Collider, in which she talked about how flattered she was not to have to audition for the role, how emotionally invested audiences will get in the characters and their relationships, how much fun she and her co-stars had working together, the challenges of shooting underwater, how neurotic she was over having to wear a bikini throughout the entire film, and that the a universal fear of what’s lurking underneath the water below you contributes to making this film so scary. She also talked about her next film, The Innkeepers, which is due out in October, and why she loves doing genre work. Check out what she had to say after the jump:

If you didn’t get your fill of 3D dumb-fun horror with Final Destination 5 then get ready for Shark Night 3D!  Teens + shark = potentially satisfying film.  In the first clip from the film, we see a couple of guys feed Katherine McPhee to the underwater beasts.  Fun fact: sharks are immune from McPheever.

Hit the jump to check out the clip.  The film also stars Sinqua Walls, Chris Carmack, Alyssa Diaz, Joel David Moore and Sara Paxton.  Shark Night 3D opens September 2nd.

Relativity has released a ton of new images from the films that will appear at Comic-Con 2011.  There’s Immortals, the stylized ancient Greek epic led by Henry Cavill, the man who will be Superman.  There’s The Raven, a thriller starring John Cusack as Edgar Allan Poe.  There’s Shark Night 3D, in which a shark feasts on college students.  And finally, there’s Haywire, the spy thriller Steven Soderbergh built around MMA fighter Gina Carano.

Hit the jump for all the images, plus official synopses, full cast lists, and release dates.

One of the major reasons that the San Diego Comic-Con has become a madhouse is that the studios have made it their own.  People camp out in Hall H just to see a little bit of footage from an upcoming film and to see their favorite stars quasi-up-close-and-personal.  But while studios try to use the potential buzz from the Con as a spring-board, that doesn’t necessarily carry to the box office.  Universal couldn’t have done a better job promoting Scott Pilgrim vs. The World at Comic-Con but it was considered a box office flop.  Kick-Ass flew on to people’s radar at Comic-Con with a killer presentation, but again: lackluster box office.  TRON: Legacy went to Comic-Con three times and it didn’t cross the $200 million mark domestically (and anyone who tells you that wasn’t a serious goal for Disney is lying).  And while box office doesn’t matter to me personally, it matters a lot to studio shareholders and executives.  But the studios are starting to get wise to the cost of running a serious campaign at Comic-Con and how the risks are starting to outweigh the potential benefits.  Hit the jump for more and to learn who’s coming to Comic-Con and who’s not.

The first trailer for Shark Night 3D has gone online.  It looks just as cheesy as you’d expect and it looks ultra-faithful to horror movie tropes in that the black guy clearly dies first.  Now the issue with a movie about sharks attacking hapless teens at a lake house is that the obvious solution is to simply not go back in the water after the first shark attack.  But it looks like the teens are being forced back in the lake (that’s right, someone transplanted sharks into a lake) as a Hostel-like torture game.  And now that we’ve sent torture porn underwater, hopefully we can shoot it into space.

Hit the jump to check out the trailer.  Shark Night 3D opens September 2nd.

It’s been a busy day for movie posters as we’ve already brought you new sheets from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2, Real Steel, and Green with Envy just to name a few. Now, we’ve got a few more promos to add to the pile thanks to the release of the first posters from Shark Night 3D and The Descendants. Neither sheet does anything particularly exciting as each seems content in reminding moviegoers that Shark Night 3D has sharks (and bikinis) and that Oscar-winner Alexander Payne’s (Sideways) The Descendants has, well, George Clooney.

For those unaware, David R. Ellis’ (Snakes on a Plane) Shark Night 3D stars Sara Paxton, Chris Zylka, and Joel David Moore, and features a group of college friends whose weekend getaway quickly turns sour after an uninvited school of sharks show up. The film hits theaters on September 14th. On the other hand, Payne’s The Descendants is the tale of an indifferent husband (Clooney) who is forced to reevaluate his life after his wife is involved in a boating accident. Fox Searchlight is currently eyeing a December 16th release for the film which promises to be an awards-season contender. Hit the jump to check out the new posters.

Relativity Media has sent over the first image from Shark Night 3D, and it’s pretty much what you’d expect from a movie called Shark Night 3D: it features a good-looking girl, in a bikini, trapped in a shark cage, staring at a shark. Capitalizing on the success of Piranha 3D, this film is directed by Snakes on a Plane helmer David R. Ellis and centers on a group of college students who just want to spend a fun weekend partying at a lakehouse, but instead end up tormented by sharks. In freshwater.

The cast includes Sara Paxton (Last House on the Left), Dustin Milligan (Slither), Chris Carmack (TV’s The O.C.), Joel David Moore (Avatar) and Katharine McPhee (The House Bunny). Hit the jump to check out the image. Shark Night 3D hits theaters on September 2^nd, 2011.

Back in May, we reported that director David R. Ellis (Snakes on a Plane) had come on board to direct Shark Night 3D, even though a few days earlier he signed on to helm The Genesis Code with Hayden Christensen set to star.  It now looks like Shark Night 3D will indeed be Ellis’ next project with Sinqua Walls, Chris Carmack, Alyssa Diaz and Joel David Moore all signing on to star in the film. Hit the jump to find out the which roles each actor will play along with more details on the film.