..Gary Dretzka
..Leonard Klady
..Emanuel Levy
..David Poland
..Doug Pratt
..Ray Pride

Three Day Estimates This Sporting Life While it would be gilding the lily to say that a spoofish comedy about sporting glory grounded one of the summer's most highly anticipated movies, there's no question that Dodgeball: A True Underdog's Story lived up to its title with an estimated $29.6 million debut that was the weekend's top attraction. At the same time the Steven Spielberg directed Tom Hanks' vehicle The Terminal got lost in transportation with a second place $18.8 million take off. Entering the weekend tracking reports had indicated a much tighter race between the two freshmen entries with both titles expected to gross in the mid-$20 million range. However, Friday figures saw Dodgeball nearly doubling The Terminal in admissions with the former tallying about $11.4 million. Saturday saw the margin narrow as the Spielberg film grew about 23% while the comedy declined by 9%. But the gap was too great to overcome and both films wound up with surprising results. The disappointing debut of The Terminal translated to a downturn in movie going and tremors throughout the industry. The weekend was headed toward an overall gross of roughly $133 million that was 13% behind last year's performance and trailed the prior weekend's tally by 18%. With primary appeal to an older demographic in a season with fewer than a handful of adult movies, the soft response to the film has all but set off alarm bells. Summer film going has been flat for close to a decade with one of the few prospects for growth coming from those older than 25 years of age. The popular success of Seabiscuit last summer was an encouraging sign but the majors remain cautious about releasing review driven movies in June and July. There's no question that next weekend's opening of The Notebook, also targeted to an older crowd, will receive very close scrutiny especially as it has strong tracking and had very good response from last weekend's sneak previews. The Terminal was far from the only sour note of the weekend. Disney bowed the family friendly Around the World in 80 Days to good reviews and grossed $6.7 million. The new version of Jules Verne's bygone adventure wasn't expected to be a huge opener but nonetheless expectations were double the actual returns. The overall view of summer 2004 has been downbeat as weekly attendance has zig-zagged from week to week and the majority of touted titles have experienced larger than anticipated commercial erosions. Last weekend's trio of new releases each fell by at least 50% and The Chronicles of Riddick had its world rocked by 66%. Next weekend four films - The Notebook, White Chicks, Two Brothers and Fahrenheit 9/11 - will compete for holiday business and considering the wide ranging subject matter of the quartet, anything less than record results will by less than welcome. The frame also saw Shrek 2 ascend to top spot for the year and the remaining summer slate only offers Spider-Man 2 as a possible usurper. In the specialized arena the Al Jazeera profile Control Room added screens and saw its box office expand 57% to $220,000. The well-reviewed documentary has done an excellent job of establishing a beachhead prior to the onslaught of Fahrenheit 9/11. Also expanding well was the upscale teen comedy Napoleon Dynamite with a box office of close to $200,000 from just 18 locations. Lakshya, the maiden release of Bollywoodcentric UTV, had OK results of $230,000 and the Clinton documentary The Hunting of the President was strong in two exclusives with $28,500. Other exclusives had fair but not outstanding returns including a $34,000 gross for the Italian drama Facing Windows from seven engagements; the Quebec light comedy Seducing Dr. Lewis doing $7,300 from a single Manhattan screen; and the British psychological thriller I'll Sleep When I'm Dead with a $13,200 tally from two playdates. - by Leonard Klady

Weekend Estimates - June 18-20, 2004

Title	Distributor	Gross (average)	% change	Theaters	Cume
Dodgeball: A True Underdog's Story	Fox	29.6 (10,980)	-	2694	29.6
The Terminal	DreamWorks	18.8 (6,680)	-	2811	18.8
Harry Potter & Prisoner of Azkaban	WB	17.5 (4,590)	-50%	3805	190.4
Shrek 2	DreamWorks	13.8 (4,170)	-41%	3306	378.5
Garfield	Fox	10.8 (3,420)	-50%	3150	41.8
The Stepford Wives	Par	9.3 (3,040)	-57%	3057	39.5
The Chronicles of Riddick	Uni	8.3 (3,000)	-66%	2757	41.3
The Day After Tomorrow	Fox	7.5 (2,820)	-48%	2667	166.7
Around the World in 80 Days	BV	6.7 (2,370)		2801	9.5
Troy	WB	1.9 (1,440)	-45%	1303	129.1
Raising Helen	BV	1.4 (1,110)	-62%	1261	34.7
Saved!	MGM	1.3 (2,160)	-50%	592	6.6
Super Size Me	IDP/Odeon	.62 (2,700)	-24%	230	8.7
Mean Girls	Par	.58 (940)	-61%	616	82.8
Van Helsing	Uni	.47 (900)	-61%	520	118
Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films)		$127.30	-
% Change (Last Year)	-	-13%	-
% Change (Last Week)	-	-18%	-
Also Debuting/Expanding
Lakshya	UTV	.23 (4,470)		52	0.23
Control Room	Magnolia	.22 (3,890)	57%	57	0.6
Napoleon Dynamite	Fox Searchlight	.19 (10,720)	66%	18	0.4
Facing Windows	Sony Classics	34,200 (4,890)	-	7	0.03
The Hunting of the President	Regent	28,500 (14,250)	-	2	0.03
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead	Par Classics	13,200 (6,600)	-	2	0.01
Seducing Dr. Lewis	Wellspring	7,340 (7,340)	-	1	0.01