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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Sunday, November 12th, 2006 - 13 Comments »
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Sunday Estimates by Klady

Weekend (estimates) November 10 – 12, 2006
Title | Distributor | Gross (average) | % change | Theaters | Cume
Borat | Fox | 28.6 (11,130) | 8% | 2566 | 67.4
The Santa Clause 3 | BV | 16.9 (4,890) | -13% | 3458 | 41.1
Flushed Away | Par | 16.7 (4,510) | -11% | 3707 | 39.9
Stranger Than Fiction | Sony | 14.2 (6,280) | new | 2264 | 14.2
Saw III | Lions Gate | 6.5 (2,170) | -56% | 3013 | 69.8
Babel | Par Vantage | 5.5 (4,420) | 502% | 1251 | 7.4
The Departed | WB | 5.1 (2,310) | -34% | 2210 | 109.6
The Prestige | BV | 4.7 (2,090) | -38% | 2236 | 46
The Return | Focus | 4.7 (2,360) | new | 1986 | 4.7
A Good Year | Fox | 3.8 (1,850) | new | 2066 | 3.8
Flags of Our Fathers | Par | 2.8 (1,440) | -36% | 1963 | 31
The Queen | Miramax | 2.6 (5,430) | -10% | 484 | 13.8
Harsh Times | MGM | 1.8 (1,910) | new | 956 | 1.8
Man of the Year | Uni | 1.6 (1,000) | -57% | 1568 | 36.5
Open Season | Sony | 1.3 (1,180) | -55% | 1122 | 83.4
Flicka | Fox | 1.2 (990) | -55% | 1235 | 19.5
Marie Antoinette | Sony | 1.2 (1,670) | -47% | 705 | 14.9
The Guardian | BV | .75 (1,200) | -54% | 626 | 53.5
Facing the Giants | IDP | .67 (1,850) | -4% | 363 | 8.2
Running with Scissors | Sony | .61 (1,230) | -58% | 497 | 6.4
One Night with the King | Gener8Xion | .57 (1,290) | -47% | 440 | 12.7
Also debuting/expanding
Night of the Living Dead 3D | Midnight | .21 (1,060) | new | 200 | 0.21
Volver | Sony Classics | .17 (33,340) | -16% | 5 | 0.46
Copying Beethoven | MGM | 73,600 (2,830) | new | 26 | 0.07
Shut Up & Sing | Weinstein Co. | 67,300 (6,120) | -11% | 11 | 0.24
Come Early Morning | IDP | 49,400 (2,250) | new | 22 | 0.05
Fur | Picturehouse | 31,200 (7,800) | new | 4 | 0.03
Iraq in Fragments | Typecast | 23,400 (3,610) | new | 7 | 0.02
F*ck | Thinkfilm | 5,600 (2,800) | new | 2 | 0.01

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13 Comments »

13 Responses to “Sunday Estimates by Klady”

  1. Tofu says:
    November 12, 2006 at 10:57 am

    BOM actually has Facing the Giants up by 0.8%…
    This flick is getting almost zero visible press, was in only 441 theaters at it’s widest release, and worked on a $100,000 budget… Yet has been sticking around for seven weeks now, well out of the top 15, and has raked in $8.2 million all the same.
    Saw III is now 4 million behind Saw II, despite opening 2 million higher.
    Ridley Scott hasn’t had a good two years now.

  2. Direwolf says:
    November 12, 2006 at 11:52 am

    Hey Tofu. I am glad someone else noted that Saw 3 is lagging Saw 2. It is probably attributable to Borat which hits the same audience (and apparently much more). But the Saw franchise has likely hit its peak. LGF will have to find a new hit to drive growth in its theatrical line.

  3. Corbeau says:
    November 12, 2006 at 11:54 am

    Russell definitly needs to be badass again. All of the attempts made by him to be loved, with a good image from his movies to the marriage has failed. It’s time for the guy to follow his instinct. Throw more telephones at people, I don’t care, as long as he’s himself and makes watchable flicks.

  4. Joe Straat says:
    November 12, 2006 at 12:01 pm

    Well, even if it’s declining, they’re still doing Saw IV: The Quest for Pieces.

  5. MattM says:
    November 12, 2006 at 12:07 pm

    Saw’s audience can decline a lot more and still be hugely profitable. Saw III was probably profitable by (at the latest) the end of its first weekend in release. Now, based on what I’ve read about the ending, there may be a number of fans not back for Saw IV, but even if it “only” grosses half of what Saw III did (35M, more or less), it’ll almost assuredly be profitable.

  6. Direwolf says:
    November 12, 2006 at 12:17 pm

    I am not arguing about the profitability of any film inthe Saw franchise. But as an investor, or ptetnial investor in this case, what I am interested in is how a company can drvie growth. LGF has a nicely growing TV biz, a declining catlogoue biz, and a stagnant theatrcial biz. If Saw has peaked then somehting else has to emerge to drive growth at the movie studio.

  7. Josh Martin says:
    November 12, 2006 at 1:34 pm

    LGF’s catalog biz probably wouldn’t be declining so much if they actually had one. There’s a huge chunk of the Republic Pictures catalog that they’re just sitting on right now.

  8. jeffmcm says:
    November 12, 2006 at 1:41 pm

    If you want to ‘drive growth’ go invest in some other field than filmed entertainment, it’s more sexy than profitable.

  9. Direwolf says:
    November 12, 2006 at 1:57 pm

    Actaully I think what LGF characterizes as catalog generates over $200 million a year in revenue. That figure has stalled and margns are collapsing as wholesale pricing of library (non recent releases) has collapsed.
    And you you are right, Jeff, filmed entertainment is not a great growth business.

  10. jeffmcm says:
    November 12, 2006 at 2:00 pm

    Is it a Lions Gate problem with library/catalog assets, or an industry-wide slowdown?

  11. Direwolf says:
    November 12, 2006 at 2:39 pm

    Industry-wide problme, Jeff, although I think there is a feeling that the quality of the LGF’s large catalogue is not that great, except for horror, which they are tyring to exploit via the FearNet VOD “channel” in joint venture with Comcast and others.

  12. martindale says:
    November 12, 2006 at 2:42 pm

    Tofu, what makes Facing the Giants’ performance even more remarkable is that it is truly an “amateur” production (cast, crew, etc.).

  13. Bruce says:
    November 13, 2006 at 2:36 pm

    Hi,
    I just saw Borat and loved it! Great to see people can still make politically incorrect comedy!

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