Friay Estimates by Klady
Quarantine is about right for a Screen Gems movie. The openings – and thus, the final numbers, are not quite what they were in recent years past, so the question is whether there is some dip in what and how they are delivering or whether the market has simply softened for those kinds of genre pictures. (My guess is the latter.)
You know, it’s interesting that Sony and Disney are now the only two companies with strong niche plays… and I don’t mean specialty Dependents. I mean that Sony’s SPC is the only specialty arm that really focuses on foreign, doc, and lower expectation indies. And Screen Gems, with the narrowing of Rogue and the living death of Fox Atomic, is really the only studio arm so focused on raw genre, with Paramount claiming Vantage is going there and, of course, true indie Lionsgate still sawing.
Anyway…
Beverly Hills Chihuahua‘s drop is surprisingly small, Opening Fiday-to- Second Friday. INevnitably, the weekend drop will be smaller than the 45% estimated for yesterday.
Body of Lies will be Ridley Scott’s second worst opening of this millenium (the worst is A Good Year, which Fox couldn’t figure out how to sell), thought it will be in the top third of the opening histories of both Crowe and Dicaprio. The film, which Warners is telling people cost $70 million (ha ha), is headed to under $50 million total domestic. But with these actors, the internation will almost inevitably be north of $80 million and could well be over $100 million… which is why they were hired at these prices.
Universal’s shot at the uplifting feel-good sports drama, The Express, just never found any momentum. To be honest, I had no idea it was even coming until a couple of weeks ago. No screening that I was even invited to. Minimal advertising. Has Rob Brown done a single show? Oh well, I guess it’s better than The Babe, whihc was sold to within an inch of its life and found a similarly uninterested audience.
It’s hard to know what Pramount Vantage is trying to accomplish with The Duchess. They have taken the same release tack as Pride & Prejudice, but that release happened in November and went to 1299 screens over Thanksgiving weekend. The result looks like it was about triple what The Duchess will do on this Columbus Day weekend “holiday.” And with all the awards buzz around that film, it was still the best weekend they ever had.
City of Ember on 2022 screens… an unmitigated distribution car wreck. The film is heading to one of the very worst opening weekend per-screeens of this year (around #115 of 125 wide releases). The crew at Fox Walden seemed to be working without an ad budget and with a lot of energy… that didn’t take. The choice to launch the film at Fantastic Fest instead of prioritizing the national media ended up defining the experience.
And, one must say, that Jeffrey Godsick’s return to Fox just days ago tells us that “they” knew exactly what was about to happen, that Jeffrey was taken back onto the mother ship as the studio surely agreed to do if things didn’t work out, and that the end of Fox Walden as a production entity is unannounced but inevitable.
I did not see much in the way of marketing (I suspect the TV buys were on shows I don’t watch) but, wow, that “City of Ember” gross is shocking.
I’ve not yet seen “City of Ember.” (Looks like I should go this week based on that number.) But I’d be very sad if it meant the end of Gil Kenan. I lovd “Monster House” and “Ember” looks like a lot of fun, too. Isn’t this pretty much the same spot in which Fox dumped “The Seeker” last year?
It definitely looks like a dump job for “City Of Ember”. When I first saw the trailer awhile back I assumed it was a big release. But I was surprised to see in yesterday’s paper that it was actually opening yesterday. I was baffled as well to see no advance reviews. Weird.
Can any Horror experts pass along whether or not “Quarantine” is worth a look? I was hoping to see “Rec” first, but that may not happen.
I’ve not seen “Quarantine,” and it looked like fun … until I put two and two together about the spoiler in the TV ads and figured knowing the ending going in wouldn’t be as fun. (I know this was discussed in a previous post.)
Ember was previewed for most Chicago critics on Tuesday afternoon, after the deadlines for print editions of weekly publications.
The “Ember” screening was last-minute in the Twin Cities, too, but I’m surprised to hear about you and “Express,” DP. They screened the heck out of it here, in that we-think-this-is-a-crowd-pleaser way.
QUARANTINE has some similarity to THE STRANGERS; it looked pretty routine, but it’ll get some decent word-of-mouth because audiences are finding it legitimately scary, which is unfortunately not the standard for modern horror movies these days.
BODY OF LIES is doing better than I expected; it seemed like Warner blatantly phoned in their marketing efforts. It’ll be propped up as a victim of the Iraq War topic, but the topic of AN AMERICAN CAROL will be quietly skirted.
Can’t believe CITY OF EMBER is such an utter failure. How soon before it’s just 20th proper, New Regency, and Searchlight on the Fox lot again?
I refuse to see QUARANTINE until I can get my hands on a [REC] DVD. I’d rather see the original first.
I’m disappointed with the ASHES OF TIME: REDUX number. I know it’s a re-release of an older film (and I’m assuming just NYC and LA) but it’s still WKW and it’s never had a proper release in the US in any format (unless you count that abomination of a video that covered the bottom 1/5 of the image with a black bar that obscured the original chinese subs.)
Very disappointed to see how dismally City of Ember is doing, I really loved what Kenan did with Monster House,and he’s a very brainy, energetic kid with a lot of talent. I expect he’ll survive this, but he needs to knock it out of the park next time to recoup.
Also, wasn’t The Express given a nationwide sneak a weekend or two ago?
Quarantine is a success relative to the low bar that horror finds itself in these days. Like The Strangers, it has enough jump-out-of-your-seat moments to satisfy most audience members, and it’s less annoying and stupid than Cloverfield. Also like The Strangers, it has an odd ‘was there any point to all of that?’ feeling when it’s all said and done. Why are so many young horror directors so uninterested in anything beyond framing and loud noises in their movies these days?
Not only was “The Express” sneaked nationally last weekend, but Universal was doing promotional “screenings” in NE Ohio as far back as late August. I really thought it was going to be one of the season’s major sleepers.
The “City of Ember” disaster was a lot more predictable. That thing had “Seeker 2” written all over it despite having a much better director (and cast). Fox did next to nothing to sell the damn thing.
Will Fox’s recently dismal fortunes take a dramatic upturn next weekend with “Max Payne”? To be perfectly honest, I haven’t a clue. Considering how closely they’re keeping that one under wraps (still no Cleveburg “screening” announced), I’m beginning to smell a stinker of epic proportions.
re Quarantine, I was at the (sold out) midnight show at the Arclight last night and the audience loved it. I thought the movie was one of the best horror movies in a while with some genuinely scary moments. I predict it will hold ground at least through Halloween because the only other horror movie will be Saw 5 which to me seems rather tired.
RocketScientist did you notice that Quarantine and The Strangers had the same producers who also did The Ring and The Grudge.
The comparison between “Quarantine” and “The Strangers” is actually pretty dead on. Both are “pretty good but not quite” horror flicks, with the key difference being that “Quarantine” is pretty consistent with its ‘B-‘ quality, while “The Strangers” had moments and sequences of real intensity, filmmaking skill and potent, memorable moments, only to flounder during other sections.
What both films share, though, is a lame jump-scare final shot, with the only difference being that “Quarantine’s” was shown in every trailer and TV spot.
another horror film opening this month is ‘the haunting of molly hartley’…..and, even though it looks pretty low budget, it’s having a huge ad campaign on the cw and n …….and, it features chace crawford (from ‘gossip girl’)…..
…except “Seeker” stunk, movieman, and “Ember” does not — the failure to find even just a family audience for it is incompetent marketing, IMHL.
(Oh, and “Max Payne” is not a “stinker of epic proportions”).
That’s good to hear, for the last year or two the other studios seemed to cede the October horror market to Lionsgate, thus guaranteeing unwarranted high grosses for the Saw sequels.
Given the pedigree of the cast, you have to think “Ember” cost at least $50 million. Wasn’t Fox Walden announced just about 18 months ago?
“Seeker,” “Magorium,” “Nim,” and now “Ember..” seemed the quality of the films was gradually improving from utter shit, but the marketing…wtf? What was the studio thinking? It is indeed telling that their projects have all been yanked till at least 2010…that specialty division is dunzo.
“Ember” got OK reviews (especially over at metacritic) which is sad, and Kenan is great. Goldstein’s Fox tomato streak continues…I’m officially worried for “Australia” at this point.
For anyone interested in [Rec] I found the entire subtitled film posted, in eight parts, on YouTube. The movie’s running time is under 80 minutes. Since it’s not available here, I watched it on YouTube and then took a look at the trailer for “Quarantine”. They look identical, almost shot for shot. I thought [Rec] was pretty effective although I bet it packs a much bigger punch on the big screen than it did on my computer. Considering they look identical, it doesn’t surprise me in the least that audiences are jumping out of their seats for “Quarantine”.
I didn’t say that “Ember” DESERVED to flop like “The Seeker,” Chris; only that the piss-poor marketing campaign indicated to me that Fox had absolutely no faith in the movie whatsoever and were perfectly fine with letting it die on the vine…just like the clearly inferior “The Seeker” did last October.
You’ve seen “Max Payne” and liked it??!! As I mentioned earlier, the Cleveland agency who handles Fox hasn’t breathed a word about any pre-release screening yet (I was told there “might” be one next Thursday nite), so I naturally assumed they were hiding it. Hell, they even showed “Ember” last Tuesday afternoon.
I’m actually surprised that you think “Payne” is good: isn’t it a film by John (“Behind Enemy Lines,” “The Omen ’96”) Moore??
Fox is slow on the draw consistently with their films nowadays; they rarely do promotional/all media screenings on a wide basis (last time they did that was with the “sleeper hit of the summer,” THE ROCKER). MAX PAYNE will probably be screened for regional critics, knowing Fox, spontaneously in the middle of next week. Fox doesn’t seem to have much interest in supporting their product via promotions or publicity.
I still think the remake of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, first because it was green-lighted in the first place, but secondly because it is painfully, tear-jerkingly awful to anyone even remotely familiar with the original. Hell, even that small bit of footage previewed on the Fox network suggested how vomitous the final product will be.
And while we’re talking Fox meltdowns, they have some high profile product for next year, but are these rumors about the undeniably terrible DRAGONBALL Z movie already being seen as a flop true?
‘max payne’ has screened for critics and junket press twice in the past few days in anticipation of tomorrow’s interviews…. and, while it’s not very good, i wouldn’t call it an epic fail….
oh, and just for the record, jeff godsick is one of the all time best studio publicists…jus’ sayin’….
That’s not quite what I said, movieman; just that it is not an “epic stinker.”
MAX PAYNE IS COMING TO FUCKING SCHOOL YOUR ASS. GET READY TO GET COMMANDED BY GOD WAHLBERG AND THE HOTNESS KUNIS.
YOU ARE POWERLESS IN ITS THRALL.
But, NOOOOOOOOOO, you’re FILM GEEKS and thus you’d rather see MERYL STREEP IN A NUN COSTUME MAKING STUPID FACES instead of WAHLBERG RAINING HELL ON FUCKERS WHILE MANSON PLAYS.
THEY SHOULD HAVE A FUCKING MOSH PIT IN THE FRONT OF ANY THEATER SHOWING MAX PAYNE. But let me guess, NO ONE ON THE COLD BLOG WOULD MAN UP FOR THE PIT because film critics are all WEAK ASS BITCHES WHO DON’T LIKE CONFRONTATION.
BE A MAN AND BE YOUR OWN COMMANDER. SEE MAX PAYNE EVERY DAY THAT IT’S ON A THEATER SCREEN SOMEWHERE.
THE FACT THAT YOU WILL NEVER KNOW MILA KUNIS SHOULD MAKE YOU RECOGNIZE YOUR INFERIORITY.
Basically, I JUST WISH YOU PEOPLE WERE HONEST WITH YOURSELVES INSTEAD OF PRETENDING TO BE REMOTELY HAPPY WITH A DOUCHESISTENCE.
FUCK YEAH.
LexG: I am seeing Max Payne on Wednesday. Then I am going out to have a thick steak and a bottle of Merlot for lunch. And you know what? I WILL GET PAID FOR THIS. Just like a few years ago, in Sarasota, Florida, at a French film festival, I sat on a beach at sunset with Catherine Deneuve, drinking white wine and talking about Francois Truffaut. And you know what? I GOT PAID FOR THAT, TOO.
Life is good. Sometimes.
If I sat next to Catherine Deneuve the main thing I would tell her is that “THE HUNGER” and “HUSTLE” OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWN.
You would not sit next to Catherine Deneuve. You would KNEEL BEFORE HER. Because she would have TOTAL OWNAGE of you.
Hustle is underrated.
I was pleasantly surprised how well-made Quarantine turned out to be. The sold-out 9:40 crowd ate it up.
I’m guessing the pitch wnet something like,” Cujo meets Dawn of the Dead, doen Cloverfield-style.” it’s amazing something as simple as that can get greenlit.
My pitch for a gangster parody is: “American Gangster Goes Jewish,”
Scooter: who’s Godsick? Great name, whoever they are.
Lex: I fucking hate you for being a pathetic idiot WHINY loser. Shut up.
Given the economy you would think SPC distribution would be folded into regular Sony. If “Rachel Getting Married” gets shut out of megaplexes blame the snobs at SPC.
At least Vantage piggybacks on Par and Searchlight piggybacks on 20th. That’s why megaplexes picked up “The Duchess” and will open “The Secret Life of Bees” next week.
Piggybacking on Chucky’s comment, does anyone know of any expansion plans for “Rachel Getting Married”? Non-NY/LA friends of mine have been asking about it…
Total Ownage? More like pussy ownage. There is NO WAY to adapt Max Payne as a PG-13 movie realistically. NO WAY.
If you’re 14, maybe this IS total ownage for you, but how are they even going to explain that the hallucinations are drug-induced in a PG13 flick?
Laaaaaaaame. After John Moore’s rant about the MPAA last week, its BS that they didn’t cut chunks out of this movie to knock it down to PG-13.
Just like Fox screwed with “Die Hard,” they’re screwing with “Payne.” “Hitman” was terrible but at least they went with the R-rating.
FEEL THE FUCKING PAYNE.
JOHN MOORE OWNS YOUR FUCKING ASS.
FUCK YEAH, BE A GOD, NOT A TRICK-ASS BITCH.
MAN UP.
Is this the same John Moore who defecated on the OMEN and FLIGHT OF THE PHOENIX remakes?
A man of such calibre should remake Bunuel’s THAT OBSCURE OBJECT OF DESIRE next.