..Gary
Dretzka
..Leonard
Klady
..Emanuel
Levy
..David
Poland
..Doug
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
Weekend Estimates
Not With a Bang …
Summer 2003 eased out with MGM's debut of Jeepers Creepers 2 leading into fall with an estimated $18.2 million for the four-day holiday finale. The sequel bowed with a roughly 15% higher gross than its predecessor and gave the long weekend a slight boost from Labor Day 2002.
The season traditionally winds down as fall semesters kick in and this year was no exception. Distributors are loathe to open anything other than a genre movie as occurred a year ago when the sole national release was Warner Bros.' feardotcom that squeezed into fifth position with $7.1 million. Jeepers 2 and a handful of regional and exclusive debuts should generate about $125 million in ticket sales to reflect a 6% hike from last year and a slight 1% drop from seven days earlier.
Overall business reflected a viewing status quo with the exception of a couple of niche titles that are expanding well, including Thirteen, American Splendor and, in the current upbeat non-fiction environment, Step Into Liquid. Otherwise, the chief talking point of the frame was that four summer titles crossed into the vaunted $100 million box office club - Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Seabiscuit, S.W.A.T. and The Italian Job which was specifically reissued to that end.
In the coming weeks, both American Wedding and Freaky Friday will also pass $100 million domestically for a tally of 17 seasonal titles including five that grossed more than $200 million. While the number of films performing at that level or better is a record, the box office itself hasn't markedly improved (final figures notwithstanding) from past years and that means admissions have actually declined.
Again, a final scrutiny may provide a better perspective but an initial scan suggests that while more films have become popular successes, summer 2003 appears to have also generated a record number of films that failed to spark public interest. The mainstream industry has evolved into a business of hits and misses and the prospect of building a film into a modest success doesn't fit into the equation. That scenario occurs almost never by design and in rare instances by happenstance.
Innovation, a company with a soft spot for family films, did a 63 screen break in Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix and Salt Lake on the New Zealand movie The Legend of Johnny Lingo and generated an OK $140,000 gross. Not nearly on the crowd pleasing level of Whale Rider, it will probably roll out to secondary markets prior to video release.The frame also saw the launch of the Sundance series with The Other Side of the Bed from Spain. The comedy generated an unimpressive $35,000 from nine locations and, as with the similarly conceived Shooting Gallery series, will likely rise and fall on the qualities of its initial four selections. Sony Classics' Once Upon a Time in the Midlands faired a bit better with an estimated $30,000 at six theaters and Lions Gate's social drama Civil Brand had a $120,000 box office at 35 sites.
Summer, in the film industry, is only partially tied to the calendar. While the potency of 2003 won't change markedly based upon where one puts the boundaries of the season, it's worth noting the current options.
The traditional summer (long since abandoned by those in the biz) used to begin on the Memorial Day weekend and run through to Labor Day. However, in the past decade, distributors have successfully jump started the season by getting an edge on the competition by bowing much anticipated fare a week early and then a week earlier than that to the point where many now consider the first weekend of May to be the start of the movie summer.
What has not transpired is an extension of the season and, if one applies the former logic, one has to conclude that the back end has retreated. In the real world, school terms have been realigned to the point that there are very few areas of the country that commence fall sessions post-Labor Day. There is an enduring psychological sense of a new season beginning in September but, for practical reasons and viewing trends, summer movie business comes to an end around the second weekend of August.
The coming days will bring an assault of summer box office wraps with wildly different numbers because each pundit has his own sense of the season. I've been wrestling with redefining it but frankly time ran out before I could give it the time to reassess and configure, so my summer will begin one week before Memorial Day and conclude with the past weekend.
The thorniest aspect of changing the time frame is finally that a true comparison with prior years cannot be done with a comparative calendar. The release trends of 2003 do not conform with those of 1997 and most certainly bear virtually no resemblance to 1989, the seminal summer that changed the movie going businesss.
Weekend Estimates - August 30- September 1, 2003
Title Jeepers Creepers 2 - 3124 18.2 Freaky Friday -4% 3067 88.8 S.W.A.T. -22% 2781 102.3 Open Range -15% 2244 41.9 Pirates of the Caribbean 10% 2227 272.2 Freddy vs. Jason -49% 2929 73.6 Seabiscuit 4% 2556 103.7 The Medallion -43% 2652 16.3 Uptown Girls -24% 2166 30.1 American Wedding -33% 1810 96.6 My Boss's Daughter -26% 2206 11.6 The Italian Job - 1964 100.7 Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over -13% 2385 107 Le Divorce 19% 701 6.2 Bad Boys II -24% 869 135.1 Finding Nemo 32% 1053 332.2 Dirty Pretty Things 56% 383 4.7 Whale Rider 62% 499 16.7 Lara Croft: The Cradle of Life -34% 1030 63.9 American Splendor 85% 88 1.9 Thirteen 443% 73 1.03 The Magdalene Sisters 77% 203 2.2 Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle -49% 334 100.4 Legally Blonde 2 -7% 817 89.7 Step Into Liquid 18% 76 1.7 Swimming Pool -9% 214 9 - Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) - % Change (Last Year) - - % Change (Last Week) - - Also Debuting/Expanding The Secret Lives of Dentists 8% 119 1.8 Camp 10% 116 1.3 The Legend of Johnny Lingo - 63 0.14 Battle of Shaker Heights 155% 12 0.21 Civil Brand - 35 0.12 The Other Side of the Bed - 9 0.03 Once Upon a Time in Midlands - 6 0.03
Top Domestic Grossers - January 1- August 28, 2003
Title Finding Nemo 330,385,344 The Matrix Reloaded 278,996,682 Pirates of the Caribbean 264,199,762 Bruce Almighty 240,517,790 X2: X-Men United 214,884,711 Chicago * 167,524,661 Terminator 3: Rise of Machines 148,692,353 Anger Management 135,645,823 Bad Boys II 133,113,739 Bringing Down the House 132,716,677 The Hulk 131,586,910 2 Fast 2 Furious 126,621,455 Lord of the Rings: Two Towers * 121,155,348 How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days 105,813,373 Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over 103,684,272 Daddy Day Care 102,791,856 Daredevil 102,543,518 Catch Me If You Can * 102,042,590 The Italian Job 99,822,081 Seabiscuit 96,944,604 * does not include 2002 box office
Domestic Market Share - January 1- August 28, 2003
Distributor (releases) Market Share Buena Vista (22) 19.30% Sony (20) 13.70% Warner Bros. (16) 12.40% Univeral (11) 12.00% Fox (12) 8.90% Paramount (13) 7.20% Miramax (23) 6.30% New Line (10) 6.00% DreamWorks (7) 4.30% MGM (16) 3.90% Fox Searchlight (10) 1.70% Focus (5) 1.00% Other * (183) 3.30% * none greater than .5% 100.00%
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