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Leonard Klady

By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com

Posted Sunday, April 29th, 2012 - Comments Off on The Weekend Report
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The Weekend Report

Booty Call … Yoo Hoo Noo

The urban comedy Think Like a Man held onto the top spot in its sophomore session with an estimated $17.8 million in a session that featured a quartet of new national releases. The Newcomers that were bunched in the top five included the stop motion animation of The Pirates! Band of Misfits and the rom-com The Five Year Engagement that opened respectively to $11.4 million and $11.1 million.

A little bit further down the list were the testosterone thriller Safe that grossed $7.6 million and the nevermore whodunit The Raven with $7.2 million. Indian imports provided solid returns for Tamil Dammu of $243,000 and indifferent response for Hindi Tezz of $148,000. In Quebec Derapage provided a listless $142,000 box office at 58 locations.

Exclusive bows were largely fungible with the exception of the Jack Black vehicle Bernie that tallied $88,200 at three venues and the Norwegian thriller Headhunters that racked up $41,100 from four engagements.

Cusp of summer box office experienced a lull with weekend revenues of roughly $115 million that amounted to a 17% decline from the prior frame. It was a steeper 30% downturn from 2011 when the bow of Fast Five blew away the competition with an $86.1 million launch.

The weekend’s big noise was happening overseas with The Avengers getting a jump start on domestic with a 39 territory debut estimated at close to $180 million. Also heaping up advance gelt internationally is Battleship with $150 million to date prior to its North American bow on 5/18.

The Pirates! Band of Misfits entered its fifth weekend internationally with $70 million and performed pretty much to tracking pegged at between $11 million and $14 million. To no great surprise exit demos identified the audience as 76% family. It also tilted slightly female with 54%.

The Five Year Engagement arrived below expectations of $15 million to $18 million. Again exit demos were as expected with 57% of viewers aged 30 years and older and a female tilt of 64%. As with Wanderlust two months back this stripe of yucks and kisses seems to be a formula that’s rapidly losing its appeal.

Holdover titles generally experienced 50% drops and apart from The Hunger Games look to be swept out by the incoming summer tentpoles. Yet to be determined is the fate of alternative adult fare that’s been strengthening during the hot months as Midnight in Paris proved in extremis with a $55 million domestic tally.

Weekend Estimates:  April 27-29 2012

Title Distributor Gross (avg) Change Theaters Cume
Think Like a Man Sony 17.8 (8,850) -47% 2015 60.7
The Lucky One WB 11.4 (3,600) -49% 3175 40
Pirates! Band of Misfits Sony 11.4 (3,390) NEW 3358 11.4
The Five Year Engagement Uni 11.1 (3,790) NEW 2936 11.1
The Hunger Games Lions Gate 11.1 (3,110) -24% 3572 372.3
Safe Lions Gate 7.6 (3,370) NEW 2266 7.6
The Raven Relativity 7.2 (3,290) NEW 2203 7.2
Chimpanzee BV 5.4 (3,460) -49% 1567 19.1
The Three Stooges Fox 5.4 (1,750) -44% 3105 37.2
Cabin in the Woods Lions Gate 4.6 (1,730) -43% 2639 34.7
21 Jump Street Sony 3.1 (1,690) -34% 1820 132
American Reunion Uni 3.0 (1,380) -46% 2154 53.4
Mirror Mirror Relativity 2.2 (1,100) -49% 2017 58.9
Wrath of the Titans WB 2.0 (1,250) -50% 1572 80.5
Titanic 3D (reissue) Par 1.9 (1,340) -62% 1409 56.3
Lockout Open Rd/Alliance .96 (760) -70% 1259 13.3
Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax Uni .87 (980) -54% 883 208.5
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island WB .52 (1,300) -15% 401 101.9
Salmon Fishing in the Yemen CBS .43 (1,290) -37% 335 7.8
Bully Weinstein Co. .33 (1,250) -36% 263 2.1
Intouchables Alliance .29 (6,650) -4% 42 1.4
To the Arctic WB .24 (4,740) -12% 50 0.67
Monsieur Lazhar Music Box .24 (3,650) 58% 66 0.61
Dammu Ficus .24 (5,060) NEW 48 0.24
Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) 107.55
% Change (Last Year) -30%
% Change (Last Week) -17%
Also debuting/expanding
Footnote Sony Classics .16 (1,560) -16% 101 1.6
Tezz Eros .15 (1,540 96 0.15
Derapage Alliance .14 (2,450) 58 0.14
The Raid: Redemption Sony Class/Alliance .14 (1,110) -68% 126 3.9
Damsels in Distress Sony Classics 89,500 (1,570) -22% 57 0.44
Bernie Millennium 88,200 (29,400) 3 0.09
The Deep Blue Sea Music Box 73,600 (1,440) -12% 51 0.87
Darling Companion Sony Classics 69,500 (4,090) 74% 17 0.12
Warriors of the Rainbow Well Go 57,300 (4,780) 12 0.06
Headhunters Magnolia 41,400 (10,350) 4 0.04
Sound of My Voice Searchlight 39,200 (7,840) 5 0.04
Elles Lorber 26,100 (4,350) 6 0.03
Restless City AAFF 9,800 (3,270) 3 0.01
The Highest Pass Cinema Libre 8,700 (4,350) 2 0.01
Broken Tower Focus 7,400 (7,400) 1 0.01
Mamitas Screen Media 5,800 (1,160) 5 0.01
96 Minutes Arc 5,600 (1,400) 4 0.01
Case depart K Films 4,400 (1,470) 3 0.01
Whore’s Glory Lorber 4,100 (2,050) 2 0.01
Inventing Our Life First Run 2,900 (2,900) 1 0.01
Booker’s Place TriBe Ca 2,600 (2,600) 2 0.01

Domestic Market Share:  Jan 1 – April 26, 2012

Distributor (releases) Gross Market Share
Universal (7) 490 15.30%
Sony (11) 468.6 14.60%
Lions Gate (5) 458.5 14.30%
Warner Bros. (18) 407.2 12.70%
20th Century Fox (9) 332.5 10.30%
Paramount (11) 285.7 8.90%
Buena Vista (8) 200.9 6.30%
Relativity (4) 146 4.50%
Weinstein Co. (7) 78.9 2.50%
Open Road (3) 70.3 2.20%
CBS (2) 61.6 1.90%
Summit (4) 47.1 1.50%
Fox Searchlight (3) 46.1 1.40%
Focus (3) 22 0.70%
Sony Classics (11) 18.7 0.60%
Other * (109) 75.2 2.30%
3209.3 100.00%
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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