Box Office Archive for April, 2007
Friday Estimates by Klady
Is there really anything to say?
Friday Estimates by Klady
Not very interesting or surprising Friday.
The only real surprise is that Screen Gems’ Vacancy got box blocked by the non-Screen Gems Screen Gems film Disturbia thanks to very strong word of mouth for Paramount’ baby phenom. It’s no exactly cause for panic at Sony. What seemed to be an okay date suddenly became an overmatched date. On the other hand, I’m not sure Vacancy ever became clearly defined as anything but a thriller and I haven’t been seeing many stories on Beckinsale or Wilson in recent weeks.
Meet The Robinsons will likely do its Saturday jump thing to move up to the five or four spot.
In The Land Of Women is not really a surprise miss, but it will be a marketing example to be examined, as Warner Indie tried an innovative campaign, mixing a straight sell and, essentially, an EPK (Electronic Press Kit) pitch. The message was, “Adam Brody = HOT… Kristen Stewart = HOT” but the result was lukewarm, not unlike a junior version of Luke & Kate.
Order Up!
Here’s an early summer exercise for you…
These are some of the summer titles that I expect to live on the lower end of the wide release box office list.
What order would you put them in?
A Mighty Heart (ParV)
Bug (LG)
The Comebacks (FoxAtomic)
Death Sentence (Fox)
Georgia Rule (U)
Good Luck Chuck (LG)
Hot Rod (Par)
License To Wed (WB)
Lucky You (WB)
Mama’s Boy (WIP)
Martian Child (NL)
Mr Brooks (MGM)
Mr. Bean’s Holiday (U)
The Strangers (Rogue)
It's Not Just The Weinstein's Problem
Would it be a failure of the Weinsteins became another Imagine or, for arguments sake, year 2003 Miramax? I don’t think so. Building a distribution machine is very expensive and very difficult. It has become an institutional business. Anyone with the money and access to talented people can make a movie. But wide release distribution is not something you just walk into … even if you can luck into a success or two.
The rest…
Friday Estimates by Klady
That’s a really nice number for Disturbia. Gerry Rich and the Paramount team figured out how to a Screen Gems opening for what is basically, a Screen Gems movie. And that is not damning with faint praise.
The Ashley Judd genre is officially dead, as Halle Berry puts up her worst opening since Monster’s Ball.
Pathfinder dies the death it has been foretelling for a year now.
Redline does fairly well for an truly independently distributed movie… certainly compared to Pathfinder.
And all the talk about Grindhouse grinds it up even futher. It’s a good thing that the New York Times is there to sweep the mess under the rug for The Weinsteins.
The truth is, it is very similar to what happened to DreamWorks. TWC entered the marketplace at the worst possible time to build their dream and they have been caught with their financial pants around their ankles. And the NYT suckage and the arrival of Michael Moore with a $50 million grosser and even adding a west coast gossip to their east coast bee-otch, Mr. Friedman, ain’t going to change the inevitable shift of the next 6 months.
EDIT – Pulled “The family audience continues to show its muscles as Are We Done Yet? holds all too well. ” because the typo in the chart became apparent. Also, chart replaced with the correction of AWTY? to 55% off.
Indie Theater Plays Grindhouse 8 Blocks From The Clinton
This is how one ends up going down the toilet.
I didn
Friday Numbers by Klady
12:07p Update
Things look grim for The Grind.
The issue this weekend of being #1 is really a non-issue. If Blades of Glory does $25m for 3 days and Grindhouse did $24m, that would be disappointing
Box Office Hell – April 6
This is one of the more interesting weeks in a while. There is a wide disparity of opinion on Are We Done Yet?, which may or may not be caused by the fact that so many prognosticators got burned the last time out. Meanwhile, very early chants of “25” on Grindhouse seem to have stuck while no one is going out on the 300 limb, predicting a big surprise. These numbers are about a third of 300‘s opening. Sin City, 29 – Kill Bill v2, 25 – Hellboy, 23. The safe range of geek love combined with major magazine covers.
Also, I hadn’t realized that the shot of the car smashing through a drive-in billboard for Scary Movie 4 might have had a second meaning. The Dimension film has April’s second best opening ever with $42.2 million. Were QT/RR planning on smashing through that number as they made the film?
Finally, The Matrix opened Easter weekend, March 31, 1999, to $27.8m and went on to $171m and major importance in film history. Listen for that figure in analysis come Monday.