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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Box Office Hell goes Up

bohellup2.png
Based on east coast matinees, C. Nikki Finke and her keepers have already projected ‘Up’ For $17M Friday, $55M Weekend; ‘Drag Me To Hell’ $7M/$18M.
Perhaps I should not point out that, even if we assumed that the Friday guess should be taken seriously after so small a sample, that the opening non-summer weekend for Monsters vs Aliens was $16.8m and the weekend was $59.3m (3.5x Friday), aka Up is a a guess of a bigger Friday and smaller weekend.
I have no idea what standard whoever gave these guesses to La Finke is using, as it doesn’t correlate to Madagascar (3.4x Friday), Cars (3.1x Friday), Ratatouille (2.8x Friday), Kung Fu Panda (3x Friday) or the aforementioned mva.
3.2x Friday… interesting…
(EDIT, 6:42p – first chart posted did not include Drag Me To Hell… fixed now.)

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21 Responses to “Box Office Hell goes Up”

  1. Wrecktum says:

    Finke’s numbers on Up are accurate. The only wild-card is how much the 3D upcharge most theaters are charging will affect the final weekend gross.

  2. David Poland says:

    Can’t be accurate… the numbers haven’t happened yet… even to be estimated.
    But could end up being an accurate guess.

  3. messiahcomplexio says:

    no predictions for “Drag me to Hell” from the “Road to box office Hell?”

  4. David Poland says:

    Oy. Sorry… just assumed that whatever had been gathered had been well gathered… fixing…

  5. anghus says:

    Remember when Ellen Page was supposed to do Drag Me To Hell?
    She’s kind of vanished after the massive amount of goodwill she got for Juno.
    I think an 18 million dollar opening would have served her well right about now.

  6. Wrecktum says:

    “Can’t be accurate… the numbers haven’t happened yet… even to be estimated.”
    Sorry, Mr. Pedantic, I meant that Finke’s numbers accurately reflect studio estimates based on Friday matinee EDI grosses.

  7. Joe Leydon says:

    Excuse me, Wrecktum, but I am Mr. Pendantic… aka, Mr. CF. David is, at best, Mr. Persnickety.

  8. the keoki says:

    That “estimate” looks waaaaay too small. My wife and son went at 4:30 and said they were, sold out for the evening. Add to that a HUGE Sat jump and good word of mouth. Finke is wrongo!

  9. anghus says:

    I can’t remember if Finke hates Pixar or Dreamworks Animation.
    Or does she hate both?

  10. Blackcloud says:

    Ken Loach, leftwing moron. Who’d have guessed?

  11. chris says:

    Didn’t Page bail on “Drag Me” to do the Drew Barrymore roller derby film instead? And she’s in the next Christopher Nolan and an interesting-sounding indie thriller. I think she might be OK.

  12. Whip It features Juliette bloody Lewis! Hence, was a better choice than Drag Me to Hell. Man, I miss Juliette Lewis so much.
    Salvation‘s drop? than Wolverine?

  13. mutinyco says:

    Seems her predicted numbers were wrong. Her Friday PM stats upped up to $19M for 1st day and $60M for the weekend.

  14. What? Finke’s insanely early estimates were inaccurate? No!
    I’m guessing they will be revised upwards at least once more before the official estimates come out.

  15. Chucky in Jersey says:

    If “Up” is selling out it’s most likely in a 3D hall. Disney is pushing the 3D version bigtime — newspaper ads in NYC tell where the 3D version is playing.

  16. mutinyco says:

    Just to note. But, the 3D version IS the movie. Up was created in 3D to be projected in 3D. The 2D version only exists because there aren’t enough theaters equipped to project it properly.

  17. martin says:

    It’s aimed at 10 year olds. It could be in holographic 3D with smellovision and you’d still have to pay me to see it.

  18. matro says:

    Isn’t that normally going to be the case for 3D movies though? At least ones that were shot specifically for 3D? I caught a bit of Journey to the Center of the Earth on cable the other day and couldn’t believe how cheap it looked; you could’ve told me it was a Sci-Fi original and I wouldn’t have been surprised, despite an alleged 60 million dollar budget.

  19. mutinyco says:

    And now it’s a $21.4M Friday for a $65M weekend…

  20. NickF says:

    That’s a good number for Up. Drag Me To Hell’s number is disappointing, but if the movie is as good as reviewers state, it should have a nice little run with some decent WOM.

  21. David Poland says:

    It completely slipped my mind that one of the DWAers is one of town’s top Nikki Handlers. The early Friday numbers surely came from her.
    And funny, Mut… I didn’t see the later Friday updates… both entries are GONE now.

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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