..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

Shootout at the OK Bijou While the outcome of the match up between Kill Bill Vol. 2 and The Punisher was never in doubt, the fact that both films fared better than anticipated only fuels the pressing question of the weekend: Why were these two films going head to head? The finale of the Quentin Tarantino revenge saga topped the frame with close to $25 million with second spot clinched by the vengeful Marvel comic hero with roughly $14 million. It's already been well reported that The Punisher had locked down its release date six months ago and only recently found itself in competition with Kill Bill 2 - initially scheduled for February. While the precise reasons for the latter move by Miramax remains fuzzy, Lions Gate's decision to maintain the 4/16 launch wasn't simply stubbornness. The company didn't have a lot of wiggle room with its next release Godsend just two weeks away and with the number of national releases running more than 20% ahead of 2003 there really aren't a lot of 'good" dates for any distributor and especially an independent. The consensus entering the frame was that Kill Bill 2 would gross around $20 million and The Punisher would trail with $10 million. Both films clearly had their sights on males under the age of 25 and that's exactly the group that bought tickets for both films. And while exit polls indicate that The Punisher remained competitive with KB2 among black and Hispanic audiences, the edge for the latter came from white and Asian men. The toe-to-toe stand literally cost each film millions and that's a particularly tough pill for LGF to swallow. Overall weekend business of close to $105 million was flat with last weekend's Easter celebration and off 10% from 2003. Last year's comparable calendar date fell on Easter weekend when the second weekend of Anger Management led the field. The current span also saw the national debut of Connie and Carla bow to a disappointing $3.4 million and rank 13th overall. There was considerably more interest from the press than the public as to whether star and writer Nia Vardolos would have a second big fat commercial helping and despite grudgingly positive reviews the answer was a big fat "no." The other surprise was that the anticipated drop in business for The Passion of The Christ was even more severe than expected. While pundits foresaw its box office tumbling in half, the controversy of 2004 sank by more than 70% and now appears to be out of range of a $400 million domestic gross. Less surprising was the 55% hit experienced by The Alamo. The film has already entered the lore of movie catastrophes and spawned countless jokes including one that has a Disney relaunch capitalizing on favorable reviews for actor Billy Bob Thornton and the new title: Bad Santa Anna. In the specialized arena, Sony Classic's had no appreciable resistance to its NC-17 rated Young Adam that grossed a respectable $51,000 from nine venues. Also opening to OK results were Prime Media's thriller Close Call with about $12,000 from four screens and a single screen return of $5,600 for Small Planet's Gypsy 83. Holdover titles generally had post-Easter blues that translated into declines between one-third and one-half of holiday sales. The brighter end of the spectrum was repped by Johnson Family Vacation, Home on the Range and Ella Enchanted while second weekends of both The Whole Ten Yards and The Girl Next Door were harder hit. - by Leonard Klady