MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Sunday Estimates by Klady – 10/5

Borat.
Win. Win. Win.

Be Sociable, Share!

24 Responses to “Sunday Estimates by Klady – 10/5”

  1. Lota says:

    Good for Borat.
    Was sold out in my hood although a number of people walked out. it is shocking but part of its charm.
    Flushed Away was cute, and I cannot imagine why Santa Clause 3 did so well. The first one was funny enough but #3 was just tiresome.
    I wonder with the success what are the defintie number of screens for Borat and The Queen this next week?

  2. Blackcloud says:

    Great for Borat. But if it does the same business next week on twice or triple the screens, is it a win, loss, or a draw?

  3. felix says:

    amazing

  4. Lota says:

    Borat can’t lose at this point. I bet it hits 100 million in at most 3 weeks. It’s something for adults, that adults want to see.

  5. xiayun says:

    The Queen’s number is more than good. It has kept pace with Sideways every week so far in fewer theaters:
    Week 1
    Sideways – 4 theaters, $207,042, $51,761 PTA, $207,042 total
    The Queen – 3 theaters, $122,014 (2-day), $40,671 PTA, $122,014 total

    Week 2
    Sideways – 16 theaters, $404,605, $25,288 PTA, $710,076 total
    The Queen – 11 theaters, $401,978, $36,543 PTA, $634,788 total

    Week 3
    Sideways – 66 theaters, $1,047,607, $15,873 PTA, $1,917,590 total
    The Queen – 46 theaters, $1,022,475, $22,227 PTA, $1,861,414 total

    Week 4
    Sideways – 144 theaters, $1,414,773, $9,825 PTA, $3,751,301 total
    The Queen – 99 theaters, $1,510,081, $15,253 PTA, $3,768,588 total

    Week 5
    Sideways – 279 theaters, $1,828,760, $6,555 PTA, $6,039,004 total
    The Queen – 152 theaters, $1,909,139, $12,560 PTA, $6,289,941 total

    Week 6
    Sideways – 497 theaters, $2,912,836, $5,861 PTA, $9,950,066 total
    The Queen – 387 theaters, $3,010,000, $7,777 PTA, $10,087,000 total

  6. Chucky in Jersey says:

    “The Queen” has its Oscar nominations bought and paid for. After all it’s from Miramax!

  7. Wrecktum says:

    A Daniel Battsek Miramax is not the same thing as a Weinstein Miramax. Miramax has no inherent advantage over any other studio.

  8. David Poland says:

    Interesting, xiayun, but not really the same machinery.
    By Week 4, Searchlight started dropping all TV for Sideways, having decided to wait to go wide until January and the presumed Oscar nod. Not a bad idea of The Queen, but as far as I know, not the plan.
    “Good,” btw, is based on the company it keeps, not a disconnected objective analysis about a movie about the Brit monarch and Young Tony Blair dealing with politics. The movie is doing GREAT by that standard. My “good” is about Oscar and LMS and other standards of the current indie year.

  9. David Poland says:

    Wreck – The Queen has Amanda Lundberg and an on-a-mission Cynthia Swartz… that is a lot of what Harvey had at old Miramax. That is an advantage, even if 42 West is on a million other campaigns.

  10. EDouglas says:

    Miramax without the Weinsteins seems to be doing better than the Weinsteins without Miramax, at least in terms of quality movies/Oscar buzz. And at least so far, they don’t seem to be going to the lengths to get Oscars except by picking up quality movies and making sure the right people see them.
    I think it’s interesting that the per-theatre average for Borat is higher than Star Wars Episode III… and oddly, the character’s fans are only slightly more annoying than Star Wars fans in their fanaticism. I wonder if Universal signed the papers on that deal for his next movie before Friday.

  11. EDouglas says:

    BTW, David, 42West is working on one of the Weinstein Company’s campaigns. Do you know which one it is or should I tell you? (Should be obvious)

  12. Cadavra says:

    Yes, waiter, I’ll have the crow, fries, salad with ranch on the side, and a large Alka-Seltzer.

  13. anghus says:

    timing is everything.
    i look at the weekend box office for Borat.
    Then i open last week’s EW which has the lead story about Internet buzz not translating to box office, and how Borat was about to suffer the same fate as Snakes on a Plane.
    I wonder if EW will write an article entitled “EW eats massive load of shit” next week.
    Once again, proving that the ‘gurus’ have no real clue what’s going on, their thumbs far from the pulse and firmly planted up their own asses.

  14. David Poland says:

    The mistake, in my opinion, was not really understanding what Fox was going with the 800 screen thing. It was making the best of a problem, not retreating. If Fox was retreating, they would have increased screen count, not dropped it.
    A lot of media never really understood Snakes, which was a niche film… and whose web hype was not driven by the studio.
    The pulse is almost impossible for anyone to get accurately. The best minds are often wrong when you get past black and white. What drives me nuts is the thinking that what is bouncing around The Bubble is the truth and not just a myopic experience that demands serious caution.
    I don

  15. martin says:

    True Dave, and you were far ahead of the pack on predicting huge Borat money and best pic possibilities (96% on rottentomatoes). But I’m confused when you say “the writing on the wall”. Based on the weekend numbers, the writing on the wall that the film was not tracking was way off-base. Since Borat got the #1 spot in 800, it will have lots of nice press this week. But that doesn’t mean that the downsize decision was a great one. Surely a $40 mill out-of-nowhere open would have gotten just as nice press.

  16. Wrecktum says:

    The one thing Poland got wrong was his Oscar nod prediction. Borat won’t see any noms, even in a year with an unusually weak lead actor category.

  17. Jeffrey Boam's Doctor says:

    Borat opened to well.
    I still think Dave is off with his 35m for second week – those extra screens are all in areas where they don’t care about the BORAT experience. Calls of 180m are as insane as Borat’s oscar nomination. I called the film at 80m early on and I don’t think its going to fly past that in its 2nd week. Its avg is going to drop down below 6k next weekend.
    The 800 screens were carefully selected and calculated to return high per screen averages. My problem with the film is that the targets are soft and the five writers who came up with this material really needed to be tougher on each others material. I mean come on.. whats so sharp about knocking over stuff in an antique store?
    Also the minute they obvioulsy setup gags they lost a lot of the anarchic spirit of his original material. And why the hell was the Pam Anderson storyline necessary? Was Anna Nicole busy?

  18. T.H. Unfassung says:

    I’m sorry, where’s Babel? What’s Paramount Vantage’s plan for it?

  19. EDouglas says:

    TH, Babel opens wide on Friday. It was #18 with around $918 thousand according to BoxOfficeMojo. Should be able to make $5 – 6 million next weekend.
    The thing about Borat Week 2 is that a lot of people in the first region will have seen it… will they see it again? And will the people in the other areas (the ones where the movie/character isn’t as well known) flock to see it the same way as in the big cities and college towns? There’s also some serious competition this weekend for all demos from Will Ferrell and Russell Crowe (unlike this past weekend where it was really just two family films).

  20. ployp says:

    I read somewhere that Borat is a ‘non-fiction’ film? Would anyone please clarify that for me? I know that Borat is a fake persona for Sacha Cohen (or whatever his name is). So, is he really pretending to be from Kazhakstan and interviewing people for real? The interviewee had no idea that they were being fooled? Thanks in advance.

  21. T.H. Unfassung says:

    Thanks. I like Babel and I think it will make money in the end, but as good as it is, and everyone who’s into film should see it, captive in a theatre, because it’s powerful and muscular, I think it’s dead in the water awards wise, except for technicals live cinematography and editing and sound editing (wow is it a device), maybe even a DGA award. I saw it again, there’s more to the hairy monster shot than I thought the first time; should be an all time fav screen grab. Now, get to work. My dog’s waiting on me for a walk, and a zillion other things are being avoided.

  22. T.H. Unfassung says:

    P.S., Drama/Mex played Toronton is in competition at AFI and playing Monday night. It’s got similarities, I’ll call them Babelesque.

  23. jeffmcm says:

    I agree with Wrecktum, however much Borat makes, it still has too much naked wrestling for the Academy to ever reward with nominations.

  24. I’m predicting Borat either stays pretty even next week or actually falls just a bit. I just cannot see it making $35mil next week.
    In other news: I’m happy that Flushed Away didn’t indeed get flushed away and that in fact it nearly beat Santa Clause 3 (what’s the bet that “$20.0 mil” gross drops on Monday?)
    And what’s the status on Flags? Is $35mil the end spot for it? Whither art thou Oscars…

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