Last weekend, the critically-trounced Identity Thief left its mark on the box office, but this week, three solid contenders hope to dethrone it from the top spot.

Given the Valentine’s Day holiday, it comes as little surprise that Hollywood released not one but two films featuring appropriately sweeping love stories, while simultaneously providing effective counterprogramming in the form of a bombastic action sequel.

Precisely what will take the biggest share of the weekend box office revenue remains to be seen, but scroll through trailers for all of the highest-profile films being released this week as you decide which one will get your hard-earned money.

Beautiful Creatures

Escape From Planet Earth

A Good Day To Die Hard

Identity Thief

Safe Haven

Which of these films are you the most excited to see? Watch the trailers above and then let us know your choice – and why it’s your choice – in the comments section below.

Beautiful Creatures is the latest young adult book series to be adapted into what Hollywood hopes is its next great fantasy-romance franchise — complete with supernatural powers, star-crossed lovers and a showdown that determines the fates of people’s lives and loves.

But at the Los Angeles press day for the film, the cast offered a few of their favorite romantic stories, or supernatural franchises, that captured their hearts.

Viola Davis, who plays the “seer” Amma, tells Celebuzz that she was enchanted with Rich Man, Poor Man, and The Sound of Music. “I was always attracted to the forbidden love story,” she said. “But who doesn’t love a love story?”

Emmy Rossum, who plays the deliciously villainous Ridley, reveals that she was obsessed with Harry Potter.

“I was really into all of those books,” Rossum said. “I remember getting them the day they came out, and underlining stuff, and going back. I remember I was so excited when, a couple of years ago, as an adult, when I went to Harry Potter World and drank Butterbeer and thought it was so cool that it really existed.”

Alice Englert, who grew up in New Zealand, said that her country’s deep ties to fantasy entertainment inspired her to rebel against that sort of storytelling.

“I grew up with this genre so present in pop culture that actually it was rebelling against it that left an impression on me,” she explained. “So it was less part of that fantasy genre.

“Although I have to say my father read me The Hobbit when I was a kid, and I love that,” she added.

Beautiful Creatures opens in theaters nationwide Feb. 14.

Watch the Beautiful Creatures cast talk about their favorite fantasy romances in the video, above.

What’s your favorite fantasy romance that made it to the big screen? Tell us below.

Is it possible that the public really has a new young-adult book adaptation worthy of their fandom, devotion, and money?

According to critics, Beautiful Creatures has a pretty good shot at being a replacement for Twilight. The film, which is being released on Valentine’s Day, revolves around a teenage witch who falls in love with a restless smalltown boy, all the while having to deal with a fateful event that will determine whether or not she’ll grow up to be evil.

Despite a rather mixed list of reviews, one common aspect has emerged: Beautiful Creatureshas blatant similarities to another recently-wrapped supernatural romance book/movie franchise, but in the best ways possible.

Here’s a round up of what the critics think:

Todd McCarthy, The Hollywood Reporter

“Nicely cast and made with as much conviction as can be brought to something so intrinsically formulaic, this Warner Bros. release has an large and eager built-in fan base that will pack theaters…[with] people on both sides naturally hoping that this is the start of something big, franchise-wise…and they make Beautiful Creatures look and feel like so many other films of its type: a concoction that makes highly calculated use of fantasy, fates, taboos, young love and visual hocus-pocus to ensnare an audience in a narrative web that’s pretty darn ridiculous.”

Scott Mendelson, The Huffington Post

“…the film is warmly engaging, alternating between scenery-chewing camp from the adults and genuinely emotional pathos from the kids, anchored by fine acting and surprisingly clever and authentic dialogue throughout…[Even] if it doesn’t stick the landing, Beautiful Creatures is incredibly entertaining and engaging for most of its running time and it doesn’t completely destroy its earned goodwill by the end.

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

“Adapted from the popular YA novel by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl, Beautiful Creatures is lushly pictorial and not-too-badly acted. The best thing in the movie is Alice Englert, who has a fresh, unretouched, Jane Austen-gone-goth allure…”

Peter Debruge, Variety

“Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl’s book, the first of four, reps a calculated synthesis of proven YA-lit elements and recent publishing success tactics, which makes for ingratiating storytelling on the page. Fortunately, writer-director Richard LaGravenese has jettisoned most of the novel and refashioned its core mythology and characters into a feverishly enjoyable guilty pleasure, unapologetic in its mass-market rebel ‘tude…”

Alonso Duralde, Yahoo Movies

No doubt designed to follow in the human-supernatural-romance footsteps of “Twilight,” this new film similarly allows fans of the books (in this case, by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl) to take the proceedings seriously while allowing civilians to chuckle at the delicious excess of it all… [Writer-director] Richard LaGravenese makes the love story smart, sweet and believable while letting things go crazy once the film’s witches (or “casters,” as they prefer to be called) start throwing their powers around.

Are you going to watch Beautiful Creatures in hopes of it being the next Twilight? Let us know below!

This Valentine’s day, the world of cinema is giving us all kinds of choices when it comes to that iconic ritual of a “Valentine movie date.”

Going head-to-head-to-head this Thursday, February 14th is the newest installment of the Bruce Willis action franchise, A Good Day To Die Hard, the movie adaptation of another supernatural love story novel, Beautiful Creatures, and the movie adaptation of a more traditional love story, albeit one laced with mystery and danger, Safe Haven.

It’s really impossible to predict which of these movies will draw in the largest crowd on this holiday, because everyone celebrates differently.

Beautiful Creatures, a romantic thriller about a teen witch and a human who fall in love against the backdrop of a sleepy Southern town, features an all-star supporting cast including Emmy Rossum and Jeremy Irons. The film will surely attract people looking to ease their Twilight withdrawals. Meanwhile, the Nicholas Sparks adaptation Safe Haven, starring Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel, will satisfy people who haven’t enjoyed a properly melodramatic romance since The Notebook.

But of course, there will definitely be people who want to go in the complete opposite direction and indulge in some good, old fashioned on-screen car chases and explosions. Die Hard promises to deliver just such an injection of adrenaline, as all the previous movies in the series have.

Only time will tell which movie will dominate the box office, this V-Day. Let us know your predictions in our poll!

Which movie do you want to watch on Valentines day? Sound off with your picks in the comments below!

Emmy Rossum made her Hollywood breakthrough in 2004 as Christine, the ingénue who captures the attention of the disfigured title character in Phantom of the Opera. Nine years later, Rossum is playing Ridley, one of the villainesses in Beautiful Creatures who menaces a young woman (played by Alice Englert).

The transition from would-be victim to antagonist has played out on screen as well as in life for Rossum, who has taken on increasingly mature acting challenges as she’s gotten older.

“I wonder if I looked or seemed as terrified as I actually was when you first met me,” she told Celebuzz, whichpoor  first spoke to Rossum for Opera. “I was not ready for everything that came with that movie, and I was out of my element and had no idea how to handle myself.”

In Beautiful Creatures, Rossum faced not only the prospect of playing a bad guy – or girl – but vamping it up, old-Hollywood style, unlike she’s ever attempted before.

“She kind of channels different old movie stars from Rita Hayworth to Marilyn Monroe,” Rossum explains. “Embracing those different looks was incredibly fun. I loved the challenge of playing this likeable evil villain.”

Although the idea of an “evil villain” somehow being “likeable” might seem counterintuitive – not to mention a tough task for an actor – Rossum says that it’s precisely because of her on- and off-screen evolution that she’s capable of handling the part.

“I guess the roles that I’ve gone after have been more challenging and more adult as I’ve felt able to take on different things,” she says.

Beautiful Creatures opens in theaters nationwide February 14. Watch Celebuzz’s exclusive interview with Rossum, and then head to the comments section and tell us:  what do you think of Rossum as an actress? Is she capable of being really, really bad?

In Beautiful Creatures, Alden Ehrenreich and Alice Englert play Ethan Wate and Lena Duchannes, a restless Southern teenage boy and the girl he hopes will help him escape the boredom of small-town life. Sounds a little bit like a certain supernatural romance between a introverted schoolgirl and a shiny, impossibly good-looking vampire, no?

According to the story, their characters share an almost otherworldly connection. But when the pair met one another before filming began, they immediately liked qualities in the other that would ultimately make their on screen connection that much stronger. For Englert, she jokes that it was the actor’s carefully-sculpted bed head.

“I just thought he had great hair,” she tells Celebuzz.

All kidding aside, the pair did harbor deep-rooted respect and admiration for one another, which created palpable chemistry once they were sharing kisses and creating a relationship for audiences to care about.

“Alice was more intent on presenting herself as someone who had ideas about things,” Ehrenreich says. “[She] was a thinking person with a lot of her own philosophies and values than someone who was just trying to be pleasant – which is kind of a dime a dozen.”

“She brought in this force of her convictions, and a real vision for what she wanted to make out of her character’s story, that I really appreciated.”

Englert says she appreciated Ehrenreich’s commitment to his character, and to bringing the story to life. “Alden’s work ethic really appealed to me. I just thought he was doing this thing for the right reasons. When someone is really passionate about the stories in their work, it’s always exciting.”

Beautiful Creatures opens in theaters nationwide February 14. What do you think of the chemistry between the film’s two leads – is it as powerful as Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart’s, or has the sun set on any Twilight comparisons? Let us know in the comments section below.