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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Friday Estimates by Klady

Not an exception hold for Mission:Impossible 3, but not a nightmare either. Is there some backlash by real people against the media showing itself to be worse hos than Mr. Cruise, now making the movie one that has to be seen so it can be talked about?
Poseidon at $18 million – $22 million is not a slot disaster. Nor is it a success. It

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33 Responses to “Friday Estimates by Klady”

  1. Rob says:

    The real story here is Lindsay Lohan being totally over.

  2. Nick says:

    Wonder if she’ll get the Cruise-style press treatment for a disappointing opening.

  3. MattM says:

    That’s one of four stories this weekend. The biggest will be Poseidon tanking (and word of mouth is going to be awful). #2 will be that M:I 3 holds decently for a big blockbuster release, and gets a second week at #1. The last, and quietest, will be that movies about soccer don’t sell in the U.S.

  4. TheManWho says:

    I will simply state my position on Lindsay Lohan yet again. The moment she lost all that weight. The moment all the BIG and HOPEFUL opportunities for her career–came crossing down to earth. At least this is easy to rebound from. Lohan aside, Poseidon not winning the weekend. Well, someone at Warners, will have to hope overseas bails them out again. MI:III winning the weekend again? Shocking–that might be the position in the press.

  5. Spacesheik says:

    I have never seen a studio exec publicly admiting bad tracking for a film (POSEIDON) and warning Friday will be ‘a different kind of disaster’ or something of that nature.
    The reviews were worse than I expected (with a few surprises as the NY, EW and Rolling Stone positives) – that could not have helped.
    Everyone is screaming bloody murder about the short running time and the lack of characterizations including teenagers used to DATE MOVIE 5 and the like…
    It’s a real pity. You have the right ingredients. Wolfgang Peterson – a master at epic seafaring movies – 150 million budget, action and adventure and two solid leads AND a great kick-summer date.
    Very sad the way this whole thing worked out. With some more screen time allocated to character scenes and fleshing out (in particular the Dreyfuss role) and a James Gandolfini type (a la Ernest Borgnine) cast instead of Josh Lucas, this could have delivered the goods.
    MI3 opens in a dissapointing manner, POSEIDON follows (although it was expected), XMEN 3 had shitty buzz, and SUPERMAN RETURNS is not exciting audiences via previews or otherwise — whats left? DA VINCI and PIRATES – they will eb huge, especially the latter.
    This summmer every single studio is gonna have at least one bomb. WB looks like the one that will be hurt the most (150 for POSEIDON and over 200 for SUPERMAN).
    If POSEIDON made around 7 million Friday then we can assume it makes 20-25 million this weekend. Still might be minimal chance the ship picks up Saturday business over MI3 and takes #1.

  6. Crow T Robot says:

    Well I guess it’s official… America has no problem with MI:III.
    (Wouldn’t it be cool if the sequel to “I, Robot” were titled “II, Robot”?)

  7. Martin says:

    I wonder what the expecations were for the Lohan movie. I didn’t see much press or advertising for it, then again I’m not the target audience. As far as MI3, it held OK, $150 mill. is still a long way away. And Goal was barely released, soccer’s never been able to catch on here whether because it seems kind of fruity or who knows what. But soccer comedies have done OK, I think Ladybugs and that Will Ferrell movie made decent money.

  8. montrealkid says:

    Well, I hate to see “I told you so”….but I guess I did.

  9. montrealkid says:

    Well, I hate to say “I told you so”….but I guess I did.

  10. Spacesheik says:

    MI3 will do HULK-like biz – 120 million or so.
    POSEIDON might sputter to 65-75m (overseas it should do very well).

  11. Pwrgirl says:

    What’s up with Leonard Klady’s Boxoffice report on the main page saying M:I-III made just over 3 million on Friday, when everyone else says over 7 million??? Errr…doy!

  12. Spacesheik says:

    WHATS THIS THEN?!!
    Friday % Change Screens Cume
    Mission: Impossible III 3.8m -54% 4059 67.7
    Poiseidon 4.9m New 3555 4.9m
    Just My Luck 3.2m New 3536 7.3m
    RV 2.3m -18% 2541 2m
    An American Haunting 1.2m 43% 1703 8.4m
    Stick It 1.1m -41% 2009 20.1m
    United 93 1m -33% 1871 23.1m
    Silent Hill 0.7m -42% 1888 43m
    Goal! 0.65m New 1007 0.65m
    Ice Age: The Meltdown 0.6m -36% 1879 2.7m

  13. Spacesheik says:

    haahhaha lets assume the above Klady “modification” or “errors” are true it means POSEIDON wins the weekend with a shitty total gross of 15-20 million or so.
    Talk about a slump Poland.

  14. Pwrgirl says:

    No…I think Klady went on too much of a bender last night, with Lohan.

  15. Spacesheik says:

    Klady originally had Friday numbers close to Mojos (the ones Poland published above) – they were then modified for some reason.

  16. Crow T Robot says:

    Okay, something to cheer you guys up…
    Kevin Smith gives away the ending of Clerks 2:
    http://www.clerks2.com/movies/80s560.mov

  17. Spacesheik says:

    Kladys new numbers are wrong – cume for RV is 2 million for example.

  18. Spacesheik says:

    I guess we can kiss a George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts TOWERING INFERNO remake goodbye

  19. David Poland says:

    The front page was rife with typos
    The list here is accurate.

  20. Nicol D says:

    Lohan is actually very talented but I agree with the poster above. What made her unique in Mean Girls or Drama Queen was that she was not some scrawny young teen WB thing. She looked healthy and like a real girl. She seemed relatable for girls and was also an able comedienne.
    When she went very thin she lost what was unique about her. She should have milked the innocent high school or college persona for a few more films. Once you go adult, you can’t really go back.
    Also, let’s be honest, the innocent, healthy Lindsay plays better with dad’s taking their kids to a movie on a Sunday afternoon.
    That wasn’t called ‘Fully Loaded’ unintentionally.
    As for MI3, I enjoyed it thoroughly and was glad to see it as number 2 for the second week in a row.
    It was played straight, like most Cruise films, and delivered on the right amount of tension and thrills.
    I think this film will have some legs. Da Vinci will own next weekend but MI3 will still get decent business on the May long weekend. Also, at least amongst people I know, word of mouth on it is decent. People who have seen it are saying it is good…and it is.
    I could easily sit through it again. The set pieces and action were very satisfying.

  21. Fred says:

    Any Hollywood studio stupid enough to do an INFERNO remake post-9/11 deserves what it would get.
    Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for exploring 9/11 on film, but surely I can’t be the only one who sees a disaster movie about people desperately trying to escape a massive burning building to be… I don’t know, highly inappropriate?

  22. martindale says:

    Wow, a 50% drop is called a decent hold?! What has the box office come to these days?

  23. David Poland says:

    It’s been years, Martindale. 50% friday-to-friday for a big opener is not terrible. If it stays at or goes over 50 for the rest of the weekend would be less good. And if it keeps dropping at 50% next weekend, that would be bad.

  24. Arrow77 says:

    Why do people go to lengths to explain why Lohan’s movie is flopping?
    Rotten Tomatoes ratings:
    Mean girls: 86%
    Just My Luck: 11%
    Unless you’re aiming for the Rob Schneider demographic, no one can survive that big of a drop.

  25. Martin says:

    50% for an actioner is OK, and 50% for a sci-fi or horror is downright incredible. Dropoffs for the latter seems to avg around 60%.

  26. EDouglas says:

    The strange thing is that Goal was reporting sell-outs in a few theatres, supposedly areas with a large Mexican audience, because Kuno Becker is a bit of a teen star there, I believe… just surprised that it didn’t do very well anywhere else. This was a pretty bad weekend, but I don’t think we need to worry about a slump cause Da Vinci and Over the Hedge will probably make more than STar Wars did last year.

  27. Joe Leydon says:

    Just in case my other message didn’t get through: If you’re on the West Coast, catch “Saturday Night Live” tonight. Al Gore (no kidding) does the opening sketch, and he rocks!

  28. KamikazeCamelV2.0 says:

    Just My Luck’s gross was sort of expected (maybe not that bad. most were guessing $10mil). But just wait until her run of actual adultish movies start. For some reason Just My Luck was the first of her roles as an adult? er, right. Not, we have Bobby, A Prairie Home Companion, Chapter 27 and Georgia Rule and some others I believe (all of which are smaller films) so we’ll see then.
    Did ANYONE think Goal was going to make money in AMERICA?

  29. Crow T Robot says:

    48% drop…
    Nobody fucks with The Tom!

  30. Tofu says:

    I’m less surprised by MI:3’s drop (perfectly normal, healthy even), and more by the boat movie not hitting over $30 million.
    Between this and Stealth, are we done with Josh Lucas being a leading ‘man’? Please?

  31. Chucky in Jersey says:

    “Goal! The Dream Begins” (full title) was dumped. It’s not playing anywhere in Pennsylvania — not even Philadelphia — and there are no ads for this pic in the Newark Star-Ledger. A shame.
    Disney should have used its much-vaunted corporate synergy to promote “Goal!” ESPN and ABC will televise the upcoming World Cup. Futbol/soccer has more of a following than your local sports section would have you believe.
    Incidentally, the one trailer I saw for “Bend It Like Beckham” played up the soccer angle.

  32. sultry says:

    “Steve Buscemi was the one great surprise in The Island.” Huh? Who was surprised?

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon