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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Weekend Box Office

I’m going to be a lot more concise in this post than in the one that disappeared (see last post) because I already have too much gray hair.

Ladder 49 is, in reality a pretty solid opening for both a drama and for John Travolta, for whom this is the second best opening of his career, after Face/Off, which was a full scale action movie opening in the middle of the summer. This is the best opening for a drama in October ever, but even the one that came closest, Training Day, was celebrated for its opening while this film is being pooh-poohed. Perhaps writers are being a little too quick to want to take down either Travolta or Disney or both.

As for Shark Tale, the opening is the best October opening ever, but that isn’t really all that surprising considering that the industry did DreamWorks a huge favor by opening nothing for kids/families all September long, unless you count Sky Captain and The World of Tomorrow as a kids’ movie.

But as I’m writing this, the finals came in and – taa-dah! – Shark Tale’s estimate was off $1.5 million and it falls behind Scary Movie 3 as the top October opening all time with “just” $47.6 million. And Ladder 47 was $700,000 high, now reporting a final of $22.1 million for the weekend, falling half a million behind Training Day.

But still, Shark Tale is in fairly uncharted territory. As fall animation goes, no other big film has had an October release facing an early November juggernaut and the norm has been that early November opening, followed by room to benefit from Thanksgiving and Christmas vacation with some real juice still in the engine. Antz and A Bug’s Life seem to be the appropriately analogous titles, though neither opened with the force of Shark Tale. Interpreting the box office data of those two films, Shark tale should probably total out domestically just over $200 million. And can anyone really suggest that Shark Tale doing $200 million would be anything less than a big win?

Finally, the opening of I Heart Huckabees on the coasts to around $70,000 a screen, roughly 40% better than The Motorcycle Diaries‘ launch last week. But can it hold up when the mid-wide expansion happens in three weeks? And will word-of-mouth help or hurt? We shall see.

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Leonard Klady's Friday Estimates
Friday Screens % Chg Cume
Title Gross Thtr % Chgn Cume
Venom 33 4250 NEW 33
A Star is Born 15.7 3686 NEW 15.7
Smallfoot 3.5 4131 -46% 31.3
Night School 3.5 3019 -63% 37.9
The House Wirh a Clock in its Walls 1.8 3463 -43% 49.5
A Simple Favor 1 2408 -50% 46.6
The Nun 0.75 2264 -52% 111.5
Hell Fest 0.6 2297 -70% 7.4
Crazy Rich Asians 0.6 1466 -51% 167.6
The Predator 0.25 1643 -77% 49.3
Also Debuting
The Hate U Give 0.17 36
Shine 85,600 609
Exes Baggage 75,900 62
NOTA 71,300 138
96 61,600 62
Andhadhun 55,000 54
Afsar 45,400 33
Project Gutenberg 36,000 17
Love Yatri 22,300 41
Hello, Mrs. Money 22,200 37
Studio 54 5,300 1
Loving Pablo 4,200 15
3-Day Estimates Weekend % Chg Cume
No Good Dead 24.4 (11,230) NEW 24.4
Dolphin Tale 2 16.6 (4,540) NEW 16.6
Guardians of the Galaxy 7.9 (2,550) -23% 305.8
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4.8 (1,630) -26% 181.1
The Drop 4.4 (5,480) NEW 4.4
Let's Be Cops 4.3 (1,570) -22% 73
If I Stay 4.0 (1,320) -28% 44.9
The November Man 2.8 (1,030) -36% 22.5
The Giver 2.5 (1,120) -26% 41.2
The Hundred-Foot Journey 2.5 (1,270) -21% 49.4