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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Weekend Estimates by Klady

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Sony is reporting that Quantum of Solace opened to $70.4 million.
* All-time best opening ever for the Bond franchise
* $23 million stronger than Die Another Day.
* Worldwide to date, Quantum of Solace has earned more than $322 million
* #1 in each of the 73 territories where it has opened
* Japan, Australia and Spain not open yet
* Exits run 54% male and 46% female. 58% over 25. 42% under 25.
Top per-screen of the weekend… Slumdog Millionaire (no “s”)
Is it a good number?
Juno opened to $413,869 on 7 screens last year… result, $143 million total.
This is not quite as good. But…
The month of November is looking very,very muscular. Bond is easily the biggest non-family opening in the history of the month. Madagascar 2‘s strong opening made the 1-2 only the second Novemeber with two $60m-plus openings in history. The #3 opening in the first circumstance – 2001 – was Shallow Hal with $22.5m. Expect both Twilight and Bolt to crush that next weekend. (Heck… Role Models almost matched it.)
The only time there were four November openings of as much as $30 million was 1999. That should be matched next weekend and could be beat with the opening of Four Christmases the week after.

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48 Responses to “Weekend Estimates by Klady”

  1. Blackcloud says:

    I guess the abdication of the Half-Blood Prince won’t affect the box office this month after all.

  2. Could High School Musical 3 make to $100 million before it’s all over?
    I saw Role Models at a packed 10:00pm show last night. A terrific movie that has an “action” climax that the audience actually got cought up in.
    I sure wish Rachel Getting Married was doing The Queen-like business. It certainly packs more of an emotional punch than that fine Oscar-bait movie.

  3. David Poland says:

    I think it is, BC… just differently than expected. It made more space for more movies that audiences wanted to see. The biggest winners are Madagascar 2 and Bolt, but Bond too is getting a better berth, closer to the extra Thansgiving money that it might not have seen has it opened last week and Potter stomped all over the 5-day holiday..

  4. Blackcloud says:

    Right, Dave. Should have said won’t affect it negatively. I think we’ll know for sure from how Twilight and Bolt do this weekend.

  5. a_loco says:

    I’m gonna have to disagree (respectfully) with you on Rachel Getting Married and The Queen. I liked both, but I felt The Queen was better than Rachel by far.

  6. The Queen is about a person who learns to be more skilled with her PR.
    Rachel Getting Married is about how we live, here and now. It vibrates with so much life that I don’t know if one’s feelings can be fully articulated. It’s personal filmmaking of the highest order.

  7. chris says:

    That’s certainly one way of looking at “Rachel.” But another is that it’s phony, melodramatic and that the “style” is merely an attempt to hide more than one movie’s worth of sturm und drang.

  8. But what about Repo! The Genetic Opera. Geez Louise!

  9. movieman says:

    Dave- You haven’t shared your thoughts on “Revolutionary Road” yet.
    Didn’t you LA-ers see it yesterday? Still no screening notice announced for the Cleveland market, but I’m assuming they’ll sneak it in before the December 7th BFCA first ballot deadline.
    “RR” is still the year-end movie I’m most anxious to see.

  10. Chucky in Jersey says:

    Went to “Zack and Miri” and walked out halfway through. Kevin Smith has become an overgrown fanboy who now has a potty mouth.
    Speaking of “Rachel”, SPC will have trouble adding and/or holding theaters. “Twilight” is expected to open huge — at least 1 megaplex plans a midnight show Thursday night.

  11. Bennett says:

    Hey…call me crazy…but is Repo gonna actually get a wider release or is Twisted Pictures gonna cut their losses…..I wanna see it especially after hearing the director’s interview on NPR’s The Business…
    Also, has Dave given his review of Australia yet…I love Baz and the trailers…but the clips I have seen on Good Morning America has left me underwhelmed…
    Maybe seeing Bond later is better….I had such high expectations after CR..but now they are probably a more reasonable level.

  12. martin says:

    As much as I respect Hugh Jackman as an actor, every time I see clips for Australia I think damn, Russell Crowe is really a greedy ass for not doing this film. Crowe and Kidman would be been the ideal pairing IMO (though obviously I haven’t seen the film).

  13. movieman says:

    Hey, Chucky- Every megaplex from coast to coast that’s opening “Twilight” is doing midnight shows on Thursday.
    Hell, they’re even doing 12 A.M. “previews” of “Bolt” which makes absolutely no sense to me at all.
    (“Hey, kids! You don’t have to go to school on Friday this week. I’ll take you to a midnight showing of that new Disney cartoon-aroonie Thursday night when you’re supposed to be fast sleep in bed, just so that we can beat the Saturday matinee rush.”)
    What’s next? Thursday midnight previews of “The Tale of Despereaux” and (eeek!!) “Delgo”?
    Methinks this whole “padding-the-opening-weekend-gross” b.s. is getting a wee bit out of hand.

  14. jeffmcm says:

    Chucky: I take it from your comment above re: Zack and Miri that you have never seen a single Kevin Smith movie before, nor been exposed to him on television?

  15. Hallick says:

    Am I only one getting shit-faced tired of the typo in the title “Zack and Mira Make a Porno”? How many weeks is it now, really? Somebody can manage to spell “Quantum”, “Madagascar”, “Chihuahua” and “Synecdoche”(!!!) correctly, but a fucking simple four-letter name like “Miri” trips the brain fart wire?!?
    It’s simple: the letter ‘a’, on a standard American keyboard, is over here, under the left pinky. Whereas, the letter ‘i’ would be over here on this side, just above the right middle finger, which I am now holding up and shaking at whoever it is that keeps screwing up this movie title. Quit PMS’ing me here!

  16. Bennett says:

    Maybe it is just me, but I wonder how often people walk out of movies. I mean I am quick on the eject button with my Netflix, but if I take the time to go to the theater and pay my ten bucks a ticket then I stay…I have been pissed about the experience…annoying texters/talkers, bad sound and picture( I had to complain about the audio four times in a recent W showing I was at), too cold(I saw Castaway in a theater without heat) but never enough to leave. Granted I am sure that many people here go to the movies every weekend, and I only go a couple times a month…….but it just seems like a waste to walk out….and granted it wasn’t the Godfather or even Clerks 2, but you gotta stay in Z&M at least until the poop joke.

  17. jesse says:

    movieman, are you in NYC? I know here, some theaters do 12:01s of some of the most ridiculous stuff, especially in the summer. Not quite the CGI mouse movie, but close. I’m pretty sure the 34th St AMC-Loews did a 12:01 Catwoman back in ’04. And last summer, when I was looking over the many, many theaters doing Dark Knight midnight shows, I noticed that my favorite busted-ass (but also extremely cheap — like $5 matinees, last I checked, and not just that “11AM is the matinee” crap) Queens theater was supposedly doing a 12:01 SPACE CHIMPS screening alongside the Bat.
    Bennett, I’m with you. I’ve never walked out of anything and I think a lot of people who do walk out, do so in order to be able to say “oh it was so bad I just left,” just like how people download current releases not because it’s such a terrific experience to watch The Dark Knight on your laptop, but it sure is fun to TELL people you watched it on your laptop.
    If something was really causing you pain or irritation, I can understand leaving the theater (or maybe deciding you screwed up your choice, and doing an impromptu theater-switch into something else), but, yeah, as you say, if I’m paying the money and I had an interest in seeing the movie in the first place, I want to stick it out… while if something is really boring the hell out of me on Netflix, off it goes.

  18. EOTW says:

    that’s crazy. I just now saw that it is “Mira’ and not “Miri.” I eally thought it was “Miri” all this time. Strange. Of course, I have no idea to actually pay money (or my time) to see the hting, but still strange, nonetheless.

  19. movieman says:

    Nope, Jesse: Northeastern Ohio here. I haven’t lived in NYC since ’88 (NYU Cinema Studies brat).
    On an unrelated front, the only time I ever walked out of a movie was “The Rise and Fall of Idi Amin” at a crumbling (single screen!) old movie palace in downtown East Orange, New Jersey on Easter Sunday (I shit you not) 1982.
    It was double-featured with Leon Isaac Kennedy’s “Penitentiary 2” (which I did see from beginning to end).
    The Amin flick was pretty bad, but the reason for my departure was good old-fashioned white-boy-out-of-his-element fear.
    A fight broke out in the theater, and someone began waving a gun around. It seemed like a good time to beat a hasty retreat.

  20. Chucky in Jersey says:

    jeff@6:10: Yes, I have seen every Kevin Smith movie — all of them in theaters. I paid to see an R movie and got something that was clearly NC-17.
    I am not a prude nor a bluenose, yet I do not expect to put up with out-and-out crap.

  21. yancyskancy says:

    Chucky: Then don’t see Kevin Smith movies. Rimshot!
    As for Rachel Getting Married, I liked it. But it does sometimes feel a bit like Hollywood trying to squeeze into a pair of indie shoes (“Hurry! You’re late for the Dogme party!”). The problem isn’t so much that Demme isn’t Altman; it’s more that screenwriter Jenny Lumet isn’t Cassavetes. All the idiosyncracy and unpredictability is in the margins. The doc-style camerawork and improv-style acting sometimes seem like deliberate, if not desperate, distractions from the rather banal story, and Lumet’s dialogue often wrenches subtext to the surface, as if we’re not to be trusted to grasp the obvious. Still, the concept clearly inspired Demme and his great cast, and it’s well worth seeing. Maybe I’ll like it even better next time around.

  22. Dave’s not allowed to discuss Revolutionary Road, which is probably why there’s no word from him yet. Also, Australia‘s world premier is tomorrow so I believe he gets to see it after that.

  23. christian says:

    ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO felt like a cinematic rimshot.

  24. jeffmcm says:

    Chucky: Kevin Smith has always been overweight, always been a fanboy, and always had a potty mouth. “Crap” is subjective, obviously. I enjoyed Z&MMaP more than Jersey Girl or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (neither of which I would walk out of either).

  25. a_loco says:

    Chucky, I find it hard to understand why you would like other Kevin Smith movies, but not Z&M. They’re all pretty much the same…
    except for Chasing Amy, which was better.
    I really fail to see how this film was more NC-17 than the donkey fucking in Clerks II.

  26. leahnz says:

    the only movie i ever walked out of was ’52 pick-up’ with roy scheider and ann-margret, but not of my own choosing, though it was pretty lame if memory serves. i was with a friend and for some reason the movie really pissed her off, she got more and more annoyed until she walked out in a huff with me scrambling behind. for the life of me i can’t remember what got her knickers in a such a twist.
    the most dramatic ‘storm out’ i’ve witnessed was this elderly fellow sitting behind me during ‘perfect strangers’ with sam neill. he started ranting loudly about it being a ‘feminist diatribe’ and ‘a woman’s movie’ – my friend and i looked at each other, mystified, as it was a weird little film set down south on the west coast about this woman who goes mad after killing sam’s character, her kidnapper – making a spectacle of himself until he could no longer stand it and stormed out gesticulating about idiots and feminists. very bizarre, tho i can’t say i was sad to see him go.
    (movieman, i must say your walk-out sounds downright harrowing!)

  27. yancyskancy says:

    leah, I haven’t seen “52 Pickup” in a good long while, but I remember really enjoying it, particularly for the supporting triumvirate of John Glover, Clarence Williams III and Robert Trebor. I seem to recall Pauline Kael digging it, too.
    I’ve never walked out of a movie. I did have to leave “Semi-Pro” about half an hour in, but only because I was the designated driver for some friends who called when they decided to cut their night short.

  28. leahnz says:

    i only saw about half the movie, i may have been influenced by my malcontent mate! i’ll have to watch it in its entirety one day; until this thread brought back the memory, i don’t think i’ve given ’52’ second thought since that fateful 80’s evening

  29. movieman says:

    Leahnz- In retrospect, my East Orange experience seems more amusing than frightening…and it definitely made for a great story that I’ve been telling (and retelling) for the past 25 years, lol.
    The weirdest part is that I used to regularly check out double–and triple-features–at 42nd Street grindhouses when I was in college, and never once felt the urge to bolt before the movie(s) ended. And you can imagine just how colorful some of those audiences were back in NYC’s pre-Guiliani/”Taxi Driver” era….
    You should definitely take another look at “52 Pick Up:” it’s one of my favorite post-“Manchurian Candidate” Frankenheimer films.
    Totally agree with your thoughts on “Rachel,” Yancy. Loved the performances, but really, really disliked the film and all of its irksome affectations. But I’m willing to give it a second look once the “awards consideration” screener finally turns up.
    “Australia” screens here on Wednesday just like it is in most parts. But to be perfectly honest, I’m more enthused about “Four Christmases” that same day which looks like a breath of fresh (and not hot) air.
    I hadn’t heard about a press blackout on “Revolutionary Road,” Kam.
    While I’m not expecting a full Dave review, a simple “good,” “bad” or “indifferent” would suffice. In fact, any feedback would be greatly appreciated at this point. (Did you see “RR” over the weekend, too, Scooter?)

  30. 52 Pick-up is a great revenge melodrama. There isn’t a bad performance in the entire film. Actually, it is possibly the most “faithful” adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel ever made. (Yes, I am fully aware of Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, and Out of Sight.)
    John Glover’s Alan Raimy would’ve been the Villian of the Year in any other year than 1986. He’ll have to settle for Bronze in the year of Frank Booth (Silver) and Francis Dolarhyde (Gold).
    ’86 was truly one of the great movie years of the entire decade.
    (BTW: 52 Pick-up is available on a bare-bones DVD. I urge you to pick it up. There’s nothing like mid-80s sleaze and nudity and violence.)

  31. leahnz says:

    that settles it, i’m going to rectify my one and only walk-out! now i just have to find it
    i’m psyched to see ‘revolutionary road’

  32. movieman says:

    You and me both, Leahnz.
    As I mentioned earlier, there isn’t another 2008 movie that I’m more anxious to see.
    Loved the book, DiCaprio and Winslet are the premier actors of their generation and Mendes hasn’t disappointed me yet.
    I really think he’s the most gifted, theater-trained film director to emerge since Mike Nichols burst onto the scene in the mid-60s.

  33. leahnz says:

    it’s hard to see how mendes, dicaprio and winslet could stuff it up, but dp doesn’t sound so enthused in his byob opening, movieman 🙁
    (some chat about mendes on the byob, too. i think he has an englishman’s detachment that some people find disengaging, but i’m not one of them. and oh for the glory days of fleeing for one’s life from a grindhouse!)

  34. LexG says:

    52 PICKUP ***OWNS***.
    That shit is hardcore as hell, and Glover is a smarmy maniac; Isn’t that one of the rare “good” Cannon movies? (I think they’re all good, but I mean it was one of their rare semi-prestige outings, a la “Runaway Train” and “Barfly.”) Of course it’s still in that completely wan mid-80s Cannon/Orion overcast lensing, which makes it seem even seedier than it already is.
    I never read the source novel, so I always wondered if the way Glover gets owned at the end is from the book or just an homage to/steal from Bronson’s “Tbe Mechanic.”
    Also, Kelly Preston was SMOKING hot in that. And Ron Jeremy pops up at some point. And Clarence Williams III is awesome.

  35. movieman says:

    Leahnz- I just read Todd McCarthy’s Variety review of “RR” and it’s a “qualified” rave. Thank heavens.
    And he compared DiCaprio’s performance to “Five Easy Pieces”-era Nicholson. High praise indeed!
    (P.S.= Run time is a perfectly manageable 119 minutes, too. Hurrah!)

  36. frankbooth says:

    Silver, Jimmy? SILVER?!!!
    I will admit that Raimy and Dolarhyde are good guys, and that we often play poker together in Hell. But our games suck lately, because that fuck Falwell always wins.

  37. LexG says:

    Sorry, but BRAD WHITEWOOD SR. OWNED 1986 and stands as my favorite “villain” of that year.

  38. leahnz says:

    in case you miss it in the other thread, frankb. not only is he a complete psycho, the man is picky about his suds
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aH8FEZvaiAI

  39. leahnz says:

    i’m so youtube tonight
    that murdering bastard father in one of my fave madonnas
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9BkuPDFnc8

  40. LexG says:

    leah… YES!!!!! Now we’re talking; MADONNA OWNS, FOLEY OWNS, WALKEN OWNS, PENN OWNS, and LIVE TO TELL = GREATEST SONG EVER MADE.
    I’m tearing up like a pussy just watching this video, as this is no bullshit sort of my favorite movie ever made, grew up on it, and it never gets old AND stands as THE most underrated movie, song, Penn performance, Walken performance, directorial effort OF ALL TIME, so says the LEX.
    AT CLOSE RANGE = MEGA-TOTAL-OWNAGE, as does LIVE TO TELL.

  41. movieman says:

    Glad to hear there are some other “At Close Range” fans out there. It’s one of the most underrated movies of the ’80s–though not by me.
    “ACR” made my 1986 ten best list, along with “Manhunter,” “Something Wild,” “Blue Velvet,” “Hannah and Her Sisters,” “A Room With a View,” “Peggy Sue Got Married,” “Desert Bloom” by one-shot-wonder Eugene Corr (does anyone else remember that?), “The Color of Money” and “Platoon.”
    Hell, I’m such a Jim Foley fan that I love “Who’s That Girl?” which I still think is the best screwball comedy simulacrum this side of Bogdanovich’s “What’s Up, Doc?”
    Proud to say that I own the “Girl?” soundtrack album: on vinyl, no less.

  42. leahnz says:

    ‘desert bloom’ is terrific, movieman, touching and bittersweet from what i remember, i haven’t seen it for many, many years but it struck a chord with me, having an alcoholic patriarch in my own family. plus i adore jobeth williams, who had a good run in the 80’s but sadly faded from there (i hope i’m thinking of the right movie)
    i also hope ‘at close range’ will be viewed in time as the classic i believe it is; penn’s perf is riveting and intense, and there’s something esp. touching about his turn alongside his bro. i’d watched him closely since ‘taps’, and ‘range’ and ‘falcon and the snowman’ really cemented my admiration for him.
    (funny movieman, your ‘best of ’86’ list might as well be mine – if i had a list from ’86, which i don’t because i was too busy being a legal drinking age idiot)

  43. movieman says:

    That’s the movie, Leahnz.
    I really think “Desert Bloom” is something of a minor coming-of-age classic. It’s too bad that virtually nobody knows it today.
    Of course, “At Close Range” isn’t a film that a lot of people automatically think of when discussing the great movies of 1986 either (and there certainly were enough to go around, weren’t there?)
    Some other ’86 films I love: “Down and Out in Beverly Hills,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” “8 Million Ways to Die,” “Therese,” “Summer,” “Vagabond,” “Betty Blue,” “Round Midnight,” “The Fly,” “Parting Glances,” “Mona Lisa,” “Trouble in Mind,” “My Beautiful Laundrette,” “Down by Law,” “That’s Life,” “Ruthless People,” “Absolute Beginners,” “Sid and Nancy,” “Sherman’s March,” “The Mosquito Coast,” “The Sacrifice,” “Salvador,” Always” (Jaglom), “Menage,” Marlene,” “Stand by Me,” “Nothing in Common,” “Ferris Bueller,” “Heartburn” and….I haven’t even mentioned guilty pleasures like “Top Gun,” “Pretty in Pink,” “Jo Jo Dancer,” “The Boys Next Door,” “Big Trouble in Little China,” “The Voyage Home,” and “Space Camp” yet, lol.
    In case anyone was wondering how I could have left it off my
    list(s), I never really loved “Aliens.” It’s still my least favorite of the series.

  44. leahnz says:

    ‘I never really loved “Aliens.” It’s still my least favorite of the series.’
    shock horror, movieman!!! 😀 (we’ll have to agree to disagree on that one, ‘aliens’ would be the top of my ’86 list, and would figure on my ‘all-time’ list for that matter; but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, that’s the great thing about art. your taste is impeccable, imho)
    i’m so bad with exact years for movies, i tend to clump them in my mind according to events and eras of my life instead. but wow, so many good movies from ’86, who knew? quite a few on that extended list that i couldn’t leave off a top ten list (‘stand by me’ being most notable, an all-time fave; my boy watches it all the time now and he loves chris chambers, even as a kid river had it all going on!). i’m seemingly incapable of making a top ten list i can stick with, i struggle with a top 20 list.

  45. movieman says:

    I’ve tried, Leahnz; I really have.
    But every time I’ve watched “Aliens” I wind up dozing off at some point. Weird, I know, lol.
    Although I’m not the biggest Rob Reiner booster (I’ve always felt the same way about Reiner’s movies that I do about Ron Howard’s: three hours after seeing one you’re hungry again), “Stand by Me” is pretty terrific. In fact, I’ve always felt that it had a quasi-European (definitely French) quality to it; maybe that’s why I like it so much.
    And since I’ve already gone on record as being one of River Phoenix’s greatest fans, I probably don’t even have to go there….

  46. leahnz says:

    no, i know all about you and river by now, as i hope you do about me and river…(that doesn’t really make sense but you know what i mean).
    i agree, ‘stand by me’ is far and away reiner’s greatest achievement, possibly the greatest ‘boys own’ movie ever made. my son commented to me the other day how different it is from most of the movies he loves, in that there is very little action and mostly talking, and yet he’s completely enthralled. i asked him why that is and he said, ‘it’s like it’s real, not actors in a movie, like really being there with them.’ i thought that said a great deal about the power of ‘stand by me’.

  47. movieman says:

    Thanks for sharing that, Leahnz.
    Your son just brought a tear to my eye, and he made me remember why I’ve always loved that movie.

  48. leahnz says:

    my pleasure, movieman. what are kids good for if not to make us sentimental and philosophical from time to time? (and laugh. kids are seriously weird!)

Leonard Klady's Friday Estimates
Friday Screens % Chg Cume
Title Gross Thtr % Chgn Cume
Venom 33 4250 NEW 33
A Star is Born 15.7 3686 NEW 15.7
Smallfoot 3.5 4131 -46% 31.3
Night School 3.5 3019 -63% 37.9
The House Wirh a Clock in its Walls 1.8 3463 -43% 49.5
A Simple Favor 1 2408 -50% 46.6
The Nun 0.75 2264 -52% 111.5
Hell Fest 0.6 2297 -70% 7.4
Crazy Rich Asians 0.6 1466 -51% 167.6
The Predator 0.25 1643 -77% 49.3
Also Debuting
The Hate U Give 0.17 36
Shine 85,600 609
Exes Baggage 75,900 62
NOTA 71,300 138
96 61,600 62
Andhadhun 55,000 54
Afsar 45,400 33
Project Gutenberg 36,000 17
Love Yatri 22,300 41
Hello, Mrs. Money 22,200 37
Studio 54 5,300 1
Loving Pablo 4,200 15
3-Day Estimates Weekend % Chg Cume
No Good Dead 24.4 (11,230) NEW 24.4
Dolphin Tale 2 16.6 (4,540) NEW 16.6
Guardians of the Galaxy 7.9 (2,550) -23% 305.8
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 4.8 (1,630) -26% 181.1
The Drop 4.4 (5,480) NEW 4.4
Let's Be Cops 4.3 (1,570) -22% 73
If I Stay 4.0 (1,320) -28% 44.9
The November Man 2.8 (1,030) -36% 22.5
The Giver 2.5 (1,120) -26% 41.2
The Hundred-Foot Journey 2.5 (1,270) -21% 49.4