Box Office Archive for July, 2007

Stat O' The Day

For those of you wondering…
Ove the first 90 days of Summer, 2007 is once again the Best Summer Ever
2007 – $2.87b
2006

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Sunday Estimates by Klady – July 27

The Simpsons reminds us, yet again, at how silly it is for all of us/any of us to be throwing around OPT (Other People

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Friday Estimates by Klady… Simpsonize

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Box Office Hell – 7/27

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(Updated @ 2:19p to include late, post-east coast matinee, post-BO Hell posting entries by La Fnke.)

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Sunday Estimates by Klady

The most predictable number this weekend was Chuck & Larry. It

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Friday Estimates by Klady

Sorry this took so long to post today

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Box Office Hell – 7/20/07

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Late Night At The Movies

It felt like good news for Hairspray at the Arclight in Hollywood on Thursday night. The 12:01am show in The Dome had about 500 people, about 90% of whom appeared to be under 30. That is the core audience if Hairspray is to be a hit, with due respect to the much-smirked about gay musical loving crowd.
On the other hand, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry was only about 15% full.
Of course, Los Angeles tends to be a horrible indicator and it is likely that the Sandler film will be #1 for the weekend, ahead of Hairspray. But still

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Weekend Estimates by Klady

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Friday Estimates by Klady

The box office story of Summer

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Box Office Hell – Friday The 13th

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(Updated, Fri 1:50… to include EW’s #s)

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Klady's Sunday Estimates – 7/8/7

So Transformers made it to their $150 million six day, now the third biggest opening of the summer and the second best July 4 opening ever, after Spider-Man 2. $300 million domestic is now likely inevitable… as suggested by the same history that suggested that Transformers would have a hard time pulling off the 150/6.
Ratatouille is pulling up to Cars, now just $4m behind after starting $13 million behind. Could The Rat catch up and surpass the autos next weekend? Perhaps.
For a movie written off, $17 million in six for License To Wed is not so horrible. A lot of people would have assumed $30 million was out of range for this title.
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Friday Estimates by Klady – 7/7/7

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A Little Perspective To Chew On

Again… I don’t know what will happen in the next four days… and neither does anyone else.
Transformers has had a great start. Roughly a Top 20 all-time start so far.
But do keep in mind that the unique numbers have more than a little to do with the uniqueness of the opening schedule. Just last summer, The Omen had The Biggest Tuesday Opening Ever. What we will know on Saturday (and a bit when the Thursday numbers land) is whether Transformers has shot its wad or if it has more in the tank.
Theories about how this effects Harry Potter or vice versa are all well and good, but all theory. The closest thing to a real test of what might happen is Shrek 3 to Pirates 3. But even then, you are looking at huge 3-day vs huge 3-day. Here, Potter is a 5-day and Transformers first weekend a 6. I think we can safely assume now that the Autobots will not have a 55% or greater second weekend drop as so much of the intensity of the opening will have been siphoned off in the first three days. But the second week drop could be very, very high. Still, apples and oranges. It’s good for Paramount because they can spin every which way if it is not all as positive as it feels today. Azkaban had $116m in six with a straight Friday opening two summers ago, third best of the series. So with a Wed opening, could it be significantly bigger? We’ll see.
Here is a list of the top six-day openings, according to Box Office Mojo. I have added short night early openings (including 8p and 10p shows in various cases) so that we can be completely fair to Transformers. My sense is and has been that the answer is about the end of the first weekend, not the day count. $15 million on Thursday and $60 for the weekend would put the film at roughly $140 million and in the top ten of openings and still, fourth best this summer. Better than that is… well, duh… better than that. Spider-Man 2, which has been the best 4th of July opening is still $115 million away from Transformers‘ 6-day with 4 days to go. But if all four days are as good as Transformers best day to date, it can best the record.
1 Pirates of the Caribbean 2 $183,661,469 $423,315,812 F, 7/7/06
2 Star Wars: Episode III $182,710,218 $380,270,577 Th, 5/19/05
3 Spider-Man 2 $180,072,888 $373,585,825 W, 6/30/04
4 Spider-Man 3 $176,161,954 $333,969,352 F, 5/4/07
5 Pirates of the Caribbean 3 $167,236,619 $298,013,394 F, 5/25/07
6 The Matrix Reloaded $151,919,513 $281,576,461 Th, 5/15/03
7 Shrek the Third $144,478,827 $314,858,394 F, 5/18/07
8 Spider-Man $144,156,124 $403,706,375 F, 5/3/02
9 Shrek 2 $140,495,380 $441,226,247 W, 5/19/04
10 The Lord of the Rings 3 $137,663,742 $377,027,325 W, 12/17/03
11 X-Men 3 $135,955,809 $234,362,462 F, 5/26/06
12 The Passion of the Christ $135,317,847 $370,274,604 W, 2/25/04
13 Harry Potter 4 $133,873,907 $290,013,036 F, 11/18/05

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Transformer Weekend

Obviously, $36.3m in a day and a half is very strong… as always, we will have no idea what it all adds up to until it actually starts adding up. Could be War of the Worlds… could be Spider-Man 2… could, in theory, be the biggest July 4 movie ever.
20% of the films that opened bigger never got to $250m, including 300, X2, and The Da Vinci Code, none of which hit $220m domestic. If Transformers turned out to be 300, X2, or X3 worldwide, Paramount would be in a fight to make money with the film… a lot depending on how much they get from Hasbro’s sales.
On the other hand, if Don Murphy turned out to be right and the film becomes the 26th film in history to make $300 domestic in real dollars, it is likely to crack $650 million worldwide, as there are no examples in the last 20 years of a film not hitting that 650 after doing 300 at home.

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Quote Unquotesee all »

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