Josh, Paul, Engorge and … Rango

The mind expanding thriller Limitless debuted at the top of weekend movie charts with an estimated $19 million. The session also saw two other new national entries bow to middling results. The alien comedy Paul ranked fourth with $13.1 million and the legal wrangling of The Lincoln Lawyer was a peg behind at $12.7 million.

A locked week of dance spec Lord of the Dance … in 3D! failed to find post St. Pat’s furor as it hobbled to $318,000 at 536 tap posts and Chinese import The Butcher, the Chef and the Swordsman served up a thin slice with a $23,100 gross from 37 venues.

Limited and exclusive debuts had a couple of bright spots including the wry Win Win that wrestled $148,000 in just five pins and doc Bill Cunningham, New York on famed photographer that wrested $32,500 in its solo at Manhattan’s Film Forum.

The frame added up to just shy of $115 million and a decline of 11% from last weekend. It was a marginally less severe 10% behind 2010 when the third weekend of Alice in Wonderland added $34.2 million to its larder and debuts of Diary of a Wimpy Kid and The Bounty Hunter followed respectively with $22.1 million and $20.7 million.

Pundits and trackers generally undervalued the marketplace newcomers with predictions that pegged holdovers Battle: Los Angeles and Rango in the top positions. Limitless was considered the most potent of the freshmen with expectations in the range of $13 million to $17 million. Paul and Lincoln Lawyer both had high end predictions of $12 million.

Tracking clairvoyance has been generally dismal since January and that can be credited in large part to the disappearance of avid, younger movie goers. One suspects that group is providing information of one sort and subsequently reacting to all manner of buzz. The fact that movie going is unquestionably an impulse buy has long plagued predicting the box office.

The erosion of the under 25 crowd continued this week with only Paul registering a 50/50 split for that line in the sand according to exit polling. Limitless was 56% attended by plus 25s and The Lincoln Lawyer had a staggering 85% older audience – 49% of which was 40 years old or greater.

The gender divide also continued to skew female with Lincoln attracting 63% of the fairer sex and Limitless 52%. Paul’s comic antics conversely had 56% male ticket sales.

The radical drop in theatrical movie going both in North America and especially overseas in 2011 has the industry shifting into panic mode. There’s a case to be made that “it’s the product” but movies have hardly been in a renaissance in the past decade.

Distributors are frantically trying to figure out where their core audience has migrated and whether it’s possible to move their movies to that location. Exhibitors are feeling the heat of competition with the CinemaCon (formally ShoWest) annual confab prepped to begin in a week. They’ve already adapted with everything from cup holders and stadium seating to digital everything to stereoscopic gimmickry and frantic enough to bring back dish night if that will plug up the holes in the dikes.

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Weekend Estimates – March 18-20, 2010

Domestic Market Share (Jan. 1 – Mar. 17, 2011)

Top Global Grossers (Jan. 1 – Mar. 17, 2011)

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