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

July 17, 2005 Weekend Finals Market Share Worldwide Grossers Chocolate Souffle It was definitely a Time-Warner weekend as both Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The Wedding Crashers opened with impressive power that provided the weekend with record returns. Charlie led the frame with an estimated $54.8 million and the raunchy comedy ranked second with $31.6 million. The double whammy was just enough to boost business for the frame 2% ahead of 2004. While Tim Burton's spin on Roald Dahl's children classic received mixed critical response, there were few signs that it deterred public interest. Just a pace behind last weekend's bow of Fantastic Four, the film had the largest PG bow ever and set records for its 65-screen Imax bow of $2.2 million. Saturday business declined from opening day by 8% which is unusual for a film with a decided kid appeal but that was in part due to Midnight screenings. There's also been some speculation that a chunk of the picture's core audience was consumed in reading the recently published latest adventure of Harry Potter. "The impact of the book is hard to calculate," says Warner distribution president Dan Fellman. "I can only think we benefit ultimately because those kids will see Charlie next weekend and our Harry Potter movie in the fall." On the other end of the spectrum, Wedding Crashers was being hailed as the funniest film of the year and excellent word-of-mouth translated into slightly less than a 20% box office boost on Saturday. The picture is also significant this season because it's the first film with $100 million plus potential that was unforeseen in an otherwise predictable if lethargic marketplace. Weekend business was approaching $160 million, exceeding the immediate prior span by 6%. And while admissions still lag behind 2004, box office was marginally better by 2%. Last year's weekend leader was the debuting I, Robot with $52.2 million. While last weekend's leader Fantastic Four took a hefty 60% hit from its debut, its sophomore performance was sufficient to push Fox's annual tally past $1 billion on Sunday. Remarkably, it's the first time the studio has ever recorded that amount in the domestic marketplace and the speed of reaching the milestone was just four days slower than that of Sony back in 2002. Holdover titles generally were showing signs of losing steam that hopefully will bode well for the last spurt of anticipated summer releases. The non-fiction March of the Penguins continued its slow expansion to great effect, adding a sterling $1.2 million on just 145 screens. New entries in the niches were limited with freshmen titles displaying no better than fair response. Fest favorite Happy Endings bowed at 52 sites to OK results of $210,000 while the lauded British import The Bandit had a disappointing debut of slightly better than $13,000 at four locations. Single screen launches of several films including Memories of Murder and The Reception failed to fire up more than limited interest. - by Leonard Klady

Weekend Estimates - July 15-17, 2005

Title	Distributor	Gross (average)	% change	Theaters	Cume
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory	WB	54.8 (14,530)	-	3770	54.8
Wedding Crashers	New Line	31.6 (10,820)	-	2925	31.6
Fantastic Four	Fox	22.2 (6,140)	-60%	3619	99.6
War of the Worlds	Par	14.6 (3,910)	-52%	3724	191.7
Batman Begins	WB	5.5 (1,950)	-45%	2810	182.6
Mr. & Mrs. Smith	Fox	4.9 (2,080)	-37%	2370	168
Dark Water	BV	4.4 (1,640)	-56%	2657	18.6
Herbie: Fully Loaded	BV	3.3 (1,340)	-45%	2481	55.7
Bewitched	Sony	2.4 (1,060)	-56%	2290	56.9
Madagascar	DmWks	1.9 (1,080)	-52%	1779	183.7
Star Wars: Epi. III - Revenge of the Sith	Fox	1.7 (1,690)	-36%	988	373.9
March of the Penguins	WIP/Christal	1.2 (8,410)	17%	145	4.2
Rebound	Fox	1.0 (1,010)	-66%	1033	14.3
Cinderella Man	Uni	.91 (1,210)	-50%	750	58.8
The Longest Yard	Par	.86 (850)	-58%	1012	154.3
Aurore	Alliance	.53 (4,530)	-37%	117	0.63
Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films)		$144.33	-	-	-
% Change (Last Year)	-	2%	-	-	-
% Change (Last Week)	-	6%	-	-	-
Also Debuting/Expanding
Happy Endings	Lions Gate	.21 (4,060)	-	52	0.21
The Warrior	Miramax	13,300 (3,460)	-	4	0.01
Memories of Murder	Palm	4,200 (4,200)	-	1	0.01
The Reception	Strand	4,100 (4,100)	-	1	0.01
Searching for Wrong-Eyed Jesus	Shadow	3,950 (3,950)	-	1	0.01

Top Worldwide Grosses: To July 14, 2005

Star Wars: Epi III - Revenge of the Sith	Fox	691,349,084
War of the Worlds	Par/UIP	405,686,296
Meet the Fockers	Uni	372,629,414
Hitch	Sony	367,058,993
Batman Begins	WB	313,500,223
Mr. & Mrs. Smith	Fox/Regency	298,256,004
Madagascar	DmWks	296,354,513
Robots	Fox	240,928,456
Constantine	WB	229,699,697
Million Dollar Baby	WB	214,851,838
Kingdom of Heaven	Fox/Pathe	207,933,490
The Pacifier	BV	195,080,406
The Aviator	Miramax/Initial	190,313,237
Ocean's Twelve	WB	176,333,457
The Ring Two	DmWks	160,457,460
The Longest Yard	Par/CTSI	164,321,830
The Incredibles	BV	154,937,633
The Interpreter	Uni	151,230,586
National Treasure	BV	139,705,902
Hide and Seek	Fox	122,048,669
* does not include 2004 box office

Domestic Market Share: To July 14, 2005

Company (releases)	Box Office	Percentage
Fox (13)	979.9	20.70%
Warner Bros. (16)	617.1	13.10%
Sony (14)	518.7	11.00%
Paramount (9)	517.2	10.90%
Universal (13)	496.2	10.50%
Buena Vista (15)	354.6	7.50%
Miramax (14)	287.2	6.10%
DreamWorks (3)	259.7	5.50%
MGM (8)	182.5	3.90%
New Line (11)	132.5	2.80%
Lions Gate (10)	121.2	2.50%
Fox Searchlight (6)	65.3	1.40%
Focus (5)	46.9	1.00%
Sony Classics (16)	42.1	0.90%
Other * (145)	105.3	2.20%
* none greater than 0.5%	4726.4	100.00%