Box Office Archive for July, 2009

Box Office Hell Shaves Its Balls

By David Poland - Friday, July 10th, 2009

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Weekend Estimates by Klady – July 5

By David Poland - Sunday, July 5th, 2009

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So… July 4 wasn’t a big movie day. Not shocking.
The question now is what Sunday will look like and the truthful answer, even though estimates have been made, is that no one really knows. Monday is not a day on which schools and businesses close. So Sunday isn’t long-weekend special. As a result, estimates have Sunday up from Saturday’s estimated numbers and down significantly from Friday’s, which in the cases in which there was a day off was the day. (That was a mouthful.)
In this box office standoff being presented to the media, Paramount is estimating that Transformers: ROTFL will be $3.4m higher today and Fox is claiming that Ice Age Tres will go up just $3.1m. This would close the gap between the two films from a reported (by them) $600,000 on Saturday to $300,000 Sunday.
A 61% drop for Tr:ROTFL is about standard… nothing to crow about… nothing to cry about.
Our Len Klady had Tranformers winning the 3-day weekend by $100,000… but like I say… no one has any legitimate way of knowing. He had Transformers $100,000 further ahead than others on friday, and he also has both films estimated lower on Sunday. We’ll see.
I expect a bit of a stand-off to see who announces their “final” first. Logically, Ice Age will end up on top. But when you are talking about estimate variations that can change “the winner” based on less than 3% of the weekend total, there is plenty of room for play.

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Friday Estimates by Klady – Grand Old Flag

By David Poland - Saturday, July 4th, 2009

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Both top films had a slightly lesser Friday than I expected. But the last time we had a July 3 on a Friday was a decade ago (Wild Wild West), so it’s not exactly standard.
The question of whether Paramount, not known for playing the estimates, is “going for it” is an interesting question. On one side, you have a daily lowering of the amount off of the first weekend, from 80% to 60% to 50%. Will their Saturday estimate be off just 40%? If so, the film will win the weekend. If not, Ice Age 3 will, assuming it gets the normal family film bump.
The addition of Public Enemies to the mix means that yesterday was a new record for the start of the July 4 weekend, which will probably continue. Universal spent too much on the film, but this will be Johnny Depp’s 2nd or 3rd best non-Pirates opening. #1 is Charlie & The Chocolate Factory with $56.2m. Much closer is #2, Sleepy Hollow with $30.1m. But Sleepy had the opening number advantage of a 3-day weekend, so really, this will be Depp’s #2 non-Pirates opening, even it it doesn’t hit $30.1m. How much more could anyone have expected? Depp’s worst domestic multiple-of-opening is about 2.4x. He is pretty strong there. But overseas, where Universal will be looking for some make-up on money, is more of a mixed bag, Depp is not a clear overseas winner either. He’s had some films that have done 2/3 of their business there… some less than half. Will this film be Donnie Brasco or Blow?
Up clearly took a hit with the opening of Ice Age 3. The Hangover hits $200m today. Star Trek is out of the top 10, but will get close or pass $250m domestic today.

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Box Office Hell – Bay Wants YOU!

By David Poland - Friday, July 3rd, 2009

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The Box Office Weekend To Come

By David Poland - Friday, July 3rd, 2009

So… magically, Transformers 2 improves it’s hold just enough to beat Ice Age 3 for the day.
Remember last week, when Transformers 2 came up short of $200 million based on Sunday numbers and, just coincidentally, the Thursday and Friday estimates rose enough to hit that magical $200m mark?
After Tr2 dropped 78% – without the late night numbers – from its first Wednesday to its second, yesterday, the estimate is down to just a 60% drop. If it dropped 62%, it would have been behind IA3. Hmmmm… wonder if these estimates will be “adjusted” before Monday “finals.”
I actually think that Tr2 will legitimately win the race on Friday, with $21m – $22m to IA3’s $18.5m or $19.5m.
Saturday being the July 4 holiday is bad for Fox, who would normally get a big Saturday bump. On the other hand, if you look back at the holiday, whatever day of the week, and you see pretty normal numbers, sometimes a little higher than normal. So we’ll see.
Either way, I expect Ice Age 3 to win both Saturday and Sunday. The question will be how great the spread is.
Of course… I could end up being wrong about all of this. Tr2’s drop is not too much of a question mark. But where IA3 goes is more up in the air.

Ice Age Wins Opening Day

By David Poland - Thursday, July 2nd, 2009

Ice Age 3 won the opening day battle vs Day 8 of Transformers 2 and it wouldn’t be shocking if that continued through the weekend.
It was the best Wednesday ever for an animated film and, as follows, the best Wed opening ever for an animated film, though it is just #22 all-time and only 22% of what Transformers 3 opened to last Wednesday (which includes the late-Tuesday shows).
The biggest second weekend ever is The Dark Knight‘s $75.32 million. In the first set of non-opening weekdays, Tr2 is running about $6 million a day behind TDK. Wednesday was also 82% off of opening day. So the weekend numbers should be good, but further off of TDK and likely behind what seems to be at least a $60m weekend coming for IA3.

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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