..Gary
Dretzka
..Leonard
Klady
..Emanuel
Levy
..David
Poland
..Doug
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
Weekend Estimates
Hollywood and Bust
It was the weekend that saw the air go out of the box office balloon.
The audience dropped by a quarter, none of a trio of new movies worked commercially and there were no second act rallies for holdover titles. Still, it's not quite time to pass around the collection plate for the studios.
Disney/Pixar's Finding Nemo returned to the top of the charts with an estimated $29.5 million and last weekend's champ, 2 Fast 2 Furious, down shifted 62% to rank second with $18.9 million. There was also an excellent hold for Bruce Almighty and it and Nemo will both exceed a $200 million gross around Wednesday or Thursday.
And then there were the debuting movies in positions four, five and six.
Suffice it to say that categorizing any of the openings as best is mere window dressing. All three had lackluster theater averages and not one displayed any positive signs of a better tomorrow. Both Rugrats Go Wild and Dumb and Dumberer traded down on popular forbearers and experienced box office drops from Friday to Saturday. That was particularly chilling news for Rugrats which logically speaking should have rebounded with Saturday children's matinees.
Curiously, Finding Nemo didn't appear to benefit from Rugrats Go Wild's stumble. What seems to be evolving is a sort of summer transitioning that occurs as more teens and tweens segue from school to vacation. Traditionally, films playing to that crowd experience less potent weekend figures as the audience opts to see movies during mid-week. The shift tends to go from a 66%/34% weekend/weekday split to a 55%/45% breakdown.
The good news for Sony's Hollywood Homicide was that the film's box office had a slight 14% bump Saturday from opening day. The bad news was that the Harrison Ford-Josh Hartnett offbeat buddy cop movie failed to attract the core movie going crowd. It could well wind up with the dubious distinction of being tagged the season's biggest misfire.
Overall weekend business should clock in at roughly $125 million, a drop of 24% from last weekend and 27% less potent than for the same period in 2002. A year ago, the top three movies in the marketplace were all freshmen entries - Scooby Doo ($54.1 million), The Bourne Identity ($27.1 million) and Windtalkers ($13.5 million) - with two eventually grossing more than $100 million and the third earning a position of commercial ignominy.
The next three weekends will pretty much cement the fate of summer 2003 with each frame grounded in a highly anticipated title. They are respectively, The Hulk, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle and T3: The Rise of the Machines.
In the specialized arena, there was also good news/bad news. On the plus side, there are quite a number of titles that are playing well in the niches as they broaden into secondary markets including the non-fiction Capturing the Friedmans and the audience pleaser Whale Rider from New Zealand.
However, more than a half dozen new entries came up short of the sort of initial business that can galvanize subsequent box office. Chalte Chalte, a remake of a popular 1976 Bollywood movie, had a very good $160,000 opening for new distributor Dreamz. However, the Hindi circuit is taking a beating as a result of rampant piracy and another new company, Media Partners, has already closed shop following just two releases including the relatively successful Kaante.
Also in limited debut, Film Movement's festival winner Manito struggled to about $22,000 from six screens, Miramax's classy French import Jet Lag grossed $20,000 from two venues and Russia's Tycoon mustered $13,000 also at two locations. Mexico's controversial/critical success Herod's Law did not follow in the footsteps of Y tu Mama Tambien or Padre Amaro with its opening salvo of $5,500 from a single screen.
Weekend Finals - June 13-15, 2003
Title Finding Nemo -37% 3425 192.6 2 Fast 2 Furious -62% 3418 83.8 Bruce Almighty -39% 3477 193.3 Rugrats Go Wild - 3041 12.8 Hollywood Homicide - 2840 11.6 Dumb and Dumberer - 2609 11.1 The Italian Job -25% 2697 55.7 The Matrix Reloaded -38% 2350 257.4 Daddy Day Care -54% 1982 92.3 X2: X-Men United -47% 1311 207.2 Wrong Turn -46% 1073 12.5 Bend It Like Beckham -16% 387 21.7 The In-Laws -64% 921 19.4 - Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) % Change (Last Year) % Change (Last Week) - Also Debuting/Expanding Mambo Italiano -22% 88 0.88 Spellbound -14% 65 1.55 Capturing the Friedmans 228% 38 0.44 Whale Rider 23% 11 0.36 Chalte Chalte - 33 0.16 Manito - 6 0.02 Jet Lag - 2 0.02 The Heart of Me - 5 0.02 Tycoon - 2 0.01 The Hard Word - 1 0.01 Herod's Law - 1 0.01
Top Limited Release Grosses** - January 1- June 12, 2003
Title Bend It Like Beckham 20,945,183 The Quiet American * 12,197,135 The Lion King * (Large Format) 11,777,577 Ghosts of the Abyss 11,127,334 Space Station * 9,147,967 Talk to Her * 7,521,024 Chasing Papi 6,130,049 Bowling for Columbine * 5,787,225 Far from Heaven * 5,603,506 Frida * 5,301,191 Rabbit-Proof Fence * 5,046,467 Nowhere in Africa 5,035,513 City of God 4,304,785 Better Luck Tomorrow 3,774,530 Laurel Canyon 3,532,870 Les Invasions barbares 3,483,492 The Good Thief 3,334,313 The Guru 3,038,606 Seraphin * 2,533,364 Russian Ark * 2,350,690 * does not include 2002 box office ** Fewer than 600 playdates
Domestic Market Share - January 1- June 12, 2003
Distributor (releases) Market Share Buena Vista (19) 16.70% Warner Bros. (13) 14.80% Sony (14) 12.10% Fox (10) 12.10% Paramount (10) 7.60% Miramax (18) 7.10% Universal (7) 7.10% New Line (7) 7.00% DreamWorks (6) 6.20% MGM (14) 3.20% Focus (4) 1.30% Fox Searchlight (6) 1.20% Lions Gate (12) 0.70% Other * (127) 2.80% - 99.90% * none greater than .5% ** rounding does not equal 100%
Home | Movie City News | The Hot Button | Contact Us
Report broken links and other web problems to Webmaster
©2005. Movie City News, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Movie City Geek, Movie City Indie and MCG are trademarks of Movie City News.
.