The American public has voted and in this cinematic deal or no deal the winner was clearly Jackass: Number Two with an estimated opening frame of $27.9 million. Debuting a distant second was the upscale Jet Li actioner Fearless at $9.8 million. The passed over included the First World War heroics of Flyboys with $5.2 million and the awards ballyhooed All the King’s Men at $3.7 million.

The session also featured a very good opening for The Science of Sleep of $350,000 from 14 venues.

Considering the performance of the previous cinematic Jackass and its relatively inexpensive cost to produce one can only ask why it took four years to produce a sequel. Expectations were that the new outing of outré, presumably real dumb antics would bow at about the same $23 million level as the 2002 edition. The unexpected franchise from the MTV corral is apt to be back for more but not necessarily better.

Fearless premiered in China late last year to great success and has amassed about $35 million from Asian and European exposure to date. Based on the real-life story of a famed and influential late 19 th century martial artist, the film has largely targeted an action crowd with no great effort to tap into potential art house crossover. It performed slightly better than expected.

Also surpassing expectations was Flyboys, though many presumed a Great War yarn of flying aces was destined to crash and burn. While by no means close to a hit, it nonetheless registered a noticeable if faint commercial pulse.

On the heals of the previous weekend’s soft revenues, ticket sales accelerated about 26% to $95 million. However, that was still 5% behind the 2005 box office when the $24.6 million debut of Flightplan was the top attraction.

Valiant efforts to turn All the King’s Men from a film maudit to a cause celebre clearly failed. The taint of a missed 2005 Oscar berth and gossip of considerable tinkering and additional filming translated into predominantly thumbs down verdicts from major critics. The public clearly accepted the summary judgment.

On the holdover front, Gridiron Gang and the animated Everyone’s Hero had impressive second weekends though the latter film’s poor opening would have required a box office boost to provide commercial solace. The news was dire for The Black Dahlia that followed a middling entry with a steep decline.

Alternative fair continues to be a strong option for movie goers with both The Illusionist and Little Miss Sunshine maintaining box office potency and performing well beyond industry predictions. Both films will shortly confront apples to apples options as the flow of award contender movies begins to enter the marketplace.

Though unfavorably compared to Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, The Science of Sleep from the same director certainly received initial benefit of doubt. Its $25,000 plus theater average is a very good starting point.

The rest of the freshman class rendered mixed results including the animated Renaissance with a tepid $10,100 gross at two locations. Recent strong Bollywood box office could not be maintained by Khosla Ka Ghosla and the $19,000 single screen bow of the music doc American Hardcore while solid provides no hint for expansion prospects.

– by Leonard Klady

Top Grossing Domestic Releases: To September 21, 2006

Domestic Market Share: To September 21, 2006

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