MCN Columnists
Leonard Klady

By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com

‘Cock of the Walk

Where there’s a Will (Smith), there’s a weigh (ty) opening and his latest, Hancock, easily out-paced the Independence holiday frame competition with a debut weekend gross estimated at $66.3 million. There was scant incoming competition though Kit Kittredge: An American Girl went wide and generated a disappointing $3.2 million that ranked it eighth overall on the charts.

Conversely there was torrid activity in niche and specialized realms. Dueling Bollywood entries saw audiences opting for the more traditional Jaane Tu Yu Janne Na that grossed a hearty 242,000 while the expensive, futuristic Love Story 2050 eked out a torpid $74,600 from almost twice as many playdates. There was excellent response for the aggressively released Hunter Thompsondoc Gonzo of $174,000 from 25 screens and potent returns for exclusive runs of American indie and Sundance fave The Wackness of about $130,000 from six sites and French thriller Tell No One of $160,000 from eight venues. In a sole Manhattan engagement, another indie, Kabluey, bowed to an impressive $7,900.

Overall business was slightly down from 2007 but last year’s Wednesday celebration was disadvantaged by its mid-week placement.

Hancock, the wry take on movie superheroes, was highly anticipated thanks to Smith’s participation and pundits were generally expecting its 5 ½ day tally to ring up somewhere in the range of $115 – $125 million. The marginally lower result might be attributable to misinterpreted data, good weather or generally downbeat critical response. Regardless, exit polls once again reflected the performer’s appeal to both genders as well as roughly equal drawing power for younger and older audiences.

Internationally Hancock bowed in 50 countries and generated an estimated $78 million. In the U.K. it opened to $13 million, Australian box office was $7.4 million while Brazil added $2.5 million. It generally ranked first including a $1 million total in the depressed German market and will easily wind up generating at least 50% more than domestic box office that’s likely to have difficulty exceeding $200 million if it fails to sustain against upcoming blockbusters.

Following strong numbers in exclusive runs, Kit Kittredge went wide for the holidays as counter-programming to the weekend behemoth. However, the result proved to be a mismatch on the order ofBambi meets Godzilla and the pre-teen literary giant wussed out with theater averages of less than $1,800.

Weekend box office dipped slightly below $180 million or 11% diminished from seven days earlier. It was also 5% behind the 2007 pace when the debut of Transformers led with a $70.5 million weekend and counter-programmed freshman entry License to Wed ranked with a $10.4 million gross.

Holdover titles generally experienced drops between 40% and 50% including a sharper than expected 46% sophomore session drop for Wall-E. The latest Pixar animated entry is experiencing stiffer than expected competition from Kung Fu Panda despite critical hosannas and appears to be headed toward a comparatively disappointing domestic run.

– Leonard Klady


Weekend Estimates – July 4-6, 2008

Title Distributor Gross (average) % chan Theaters Cume
Hancock Sony 66.3 (16,710) 3965 107.6
Wall-E BV 33.9 (8,500) -46% 3992 128.6
Wanted Uni 20.8 (6,520) -59% 3185 90.9
Get Smart WB 11.2 (3,120) -45% 3574 98.1
Kung Fu Panda Par 7.5 (2,240) -36% 3347 193.5
The Incredible Hulk Uni 4.9 (1,600) -49% 3043 124.8
Indiana Jones Par 3.9 (1,790) -24% 2192 306.7
Kit Kittredge Picturehouse 3.2 (1,740) 2900% 1843 5.7
Sex and the City WB 2.4 (1,860) -38% 1275 144.9
Don’t Mess with the Zohan Sony 1.9 (1,120) -39% 1731 94.7
The Love Guru Par 1.7 (630) -69% 2648 29.3
Iron Man Par 1.5 (1,500) -32% 1019 311.9
The Happening Fox 1.4 (780) -64% 1795 62
Mongol Picturehouse .85 (3,360) 4% 253 3.6
Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspia BV .55 (1,360) -47% 403 128.8
Cruising Bar 2 Alliance .45 (3,780) -50% 120 1.7
The Visitor Overture .34 (1,940) 15% 176 8.1
Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na UTV .24 (6,920) 35 0.24
The Strangers Uni/Alliance .22 (680) -65% 324 52
Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) $162.00
% Change (Last Year) -5%
% Change (Last Week) -11%
Also debuting/expanding
Gonzo Magnolia .17 (6,960) 25 0.17
Tell No One Music Box .16 (20,120) 8 0.16
The Wackness Sony Classi .13 (21,030) 6 0.13
Love Story 2050 Adlabs 74,600 (1,150) 65 0.07
Diminished Capacity IFC 11,300 (2,830) 4 0.01
Kabluey Regent 7,900 (7,900) 1 0.01
Holding Trevor Regent 6,800 (3,400) 2 0.01

Domestic Market Share – To July 3, 2008

Distributor (releases) Gross Market Share
Paramount (12) 1055.4 22.50%
Warner Bros. (16) 683.5 14.60%
Fox (13) 649.6 13.80%
Universal (12) 496.4 10.60%
Sony (15) 476.1 10.20%
Buena Vista (10) 475.1 10.20%
Lions Gate (8) 203.8 4.30%
Fox Searchlight (5) 150.6 3.20%
Par Vantage (9) 71.8 1.50%
New Line (4) 61.8 1.30%
Focus (5) 60.1 1.30%
Miramax (5) 48.1 1.00%
MGM (9) 46.4 1.00%
Summit (2) 34.9 0.70%
Overture (3) 28.5 0.60%
Other * (176) 149.7 3.20%
* none greater than 0.45% 4691.8 100.00%

Top Grossers Canada – To June 26, 2008

Title Distributor Gross
Iron Man Par 27,056,630
Indiana Jones & Kingdom of the Cryst Par 26,394,563
Sex and the City WB 15,701,296
Juno * Fox 14,809,547
Horton Hears a Who Fox 12,554,101
Kung Fu Panda Par 12,436,892
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspi BV 12,175,488
National Treasure: Book of Secrets * BV 11,573,264
10,000 B.C. WB 10,458,225
21 Sony 9,915,912
I Am Legend * WB 9,671,048
Alvin and the Chipmunks * Fox 9,318,547
27 Dresses Fox 8,922,972
What Happens in Vegas Fox 8,723,658
The Bucket List WB 8,400,593
Harold & Kumar Escape from Guantan Alliance 8,319,460
Jumper Fox 8,254,128
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan Sony 8,127,918
The Incredible Hulk Uni 7,805,116
Step Up 2 BV 7,481,090

Top Global Grossers – To June 19, 2008

Title Distributor Gross
Iron Man Par 300,785,869
Indiana Jones & Kingdom of the Cry Par 282,420,731
Horton Hears a Who Fox 153,493,503
Kung Fu Panda Par 133,896,159
The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Ca BV 133,758,371
Sex and the City WB 125,920,375
Juno * Fox Searchlight 115,568,583
10,000 B.C. WB 94,784,201
The Bucket List * WB 92,781,554
National Treasure: Book of Secrets * BV 86,700,433
21 Sony 82,629,719
Cloverfield Par 80,048,433
Jumper Fox 79,914,335
You Don’t Mess with the Zohan Sony 76,855,203
27 Dresses Fox 76,808,654
What Happens in Vegas Fox 76,751,534
The Incredible Hulk Uni 74,919,370
Vantage Point Sony 73,083,080
The Spiderwick Chronicles Par 71,748,431
Fool’s Gold WB 70,321,498
* does not include 2007 box office
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Klady

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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