The battle of the stars pitted debuts of Jim Carrey in the comedic Yes Man against Will Smith in the three-Kleenex yarn Seven Pounds with laughter prevailing. Yes Man emerged from the weekend with an estimated $17.9 million to top the session charts, with Smith’s weighty affair ranking second on box office of $15.2 million. The third national release — the animated The Tales of Despereaux — took show spot with $10.4 million.

Niche freshmen saw dynamic response of $202,000 for the critical fave The Wrestler in four initial engagements and a good response of $151,000 for Le Grand Depart in Quebec. However other Oscar qualifier runs ranged from poor to dismal, including the acclaimed Italian crime saga Gomorrah grossing $4,500 in a solo flight and the politically charged Nothing But the Truth tallying $3,450 from two venues.

All that said, inclement weather in the Northeast and Mid-west took a sizable bite out of movie-going. Blizzard conditions in a number of major markets saw downturns as severe as 90% and in general distribution mavens are estimating the overall impact to be in the neighborhood of a 40% drop in potential revenue.

While business is expected to experience a sharp spike as Christmas approaches with such anticipated popular releases as Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories and the family-centric Marley & Me, the striking declines of the past two weeks are also expected to have a severe effect. The mainstream strategy of concentrating ad campaigns for big debuts has placed releases of the past fortnight in jeopardy of not being able to rebound from already crippling commercial traction.

Current weekend revenue should top $85 million for a 6% decline from seven days earlier. It’s also down a steep 47% from 2007 when National Treasure: Book of Secrets bowed to $44.8 million and second frames of I Am Legend and Alvin and the Chipmunks followed with respective box office of $33.5 million and $28.2 million. Even with industry wisdom of a 40% weather hit, current weekend results would be off 15% from last year. Current year-to-year comparisons now lag behind 2007 by 0.3%

Advance ticket sales leading up to this weekend’s start proved poor bellwethers of eventual box office outcome. Both Fandango and MovieTickets.com had Despereaux with the largest percentage of pre-sales with Seven Pounds slightly ahead of Yes Man. Studio trackers nonetheless anticipated Yes Man ranking first with an opening salvo between $25 million and $30 million, Seven Pounds opening closer to $20 million and the animated mouse tale squeaking to $15 million.

The strain of the familiar also appeared to provide an edge this weekend with Carrey playing a familiar role while Smith expanded his repertoire. Critics were quick to note the similarity between Yes Man and the actor’s earlier Liar Liar and even in light of diminished grosses exit polling indicated 61% of the audience was 25 years old and younger.

Seven Pounds’ audience was 64% in excess of 25 years old and skewed toward women. More telling was the fact that in markets hit hard by Friday snowstorms, Saturday business got a 40% boost while in unaffected areas it declined by 5%.

Tossing its hat into the award’s arena, The Wrestler received a resounding thumb’s up in key theaters. Still, odds makers don’t anticipate the gritty tale will factor outside performance categories and one pundit is already predicting that the Oscar best picture category will include The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Dark Knight, Frost/Nixon, Milk andSlumdog Millionaire.

Among other current contenders, Doubt and Gran Torino are the sturdiest survivors in slow platform expansions.

– Leonard Klady

Estimates – December 19-21, 2008

Domestic Market Share – To December 18, 2008

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