..Gary
Dretzka
..Leonard
Klady
..David
Poland
..Doug
Pratt
..Ray
Pride
Summertime Red, Black and Blues
September 4 , 2005
Weekend Estimates
Summer 2005 ended on an ironic note with business for the Labor Day holiday frame up slightly from last year and a record opening bow for the span. But as the man says, it was too little to late for a season that the industry is eager to forget. Initial results translate into a 10% overall decline from the prior year's record revenues and several studios nursing crushing financial reversals.
The holiday frame was led by the debut of Transporter 2 with an estimated $20.3 million tally and last week's box office champ The 40 Year Old Virgin enjoying rich seconds of $16.6 million. Also potent was The Constant Gardener that jump started the weekend with a Wednesday national break. The other freshmen entries were commercially moribund with the "hip" undercover comedy Underclassman eking out $3.2 million and the adaptation of the Ray Bradbury story A Sound of Thunder limping to $1.1 million.
Overall box office slipped about 6% from seven days earlier with a gross of slightly more than $115 million. However, that figure exceeded last year's performance by 5% and marked only the second time during the current summer season that box office experienced an upturn.
Exceeding expectations, Transporter 2's $20 million plus bow emerged with the best ever opening for a new film during the Labor Day weekend. Historically a soft holiday weekend period, its best performers have been genre titles that tapped the zeitgeist for an instant such as the prior span record holder Jeepers Creepers 2. The new sequel's bow was also impressive in light of the original film's ultimate domestic theatrical cume of $25 million. Obviously subsequent DVD and pay-cable exposure sweetened the pot.
The second helping of Transporter capped an excellent summer for Fox that placed it at the top of the summer sweepstakes with a 22.1% market share. Second ranked Warner Bros. additionally saw its year to date box office push past $1 billion on the weekend prior to the close of summer.
Largely receiving Oscar buzz reviews, The Constant Gardener was third in the line up with $10.3 million. Adapted from the John Le Carre novel, Gardener's combo of politics, romance and scenery provided ample fodder for critics to digest and its early arrival on the award's scene translated into a potent bit of counter programming.
Other newcomers appeared to be slotted for convenient commercial dispatch. Underclassmen received a failing grade of $3.1 million as the latest divested Miramax release and still underperformed The Brothers Grimm that sank 55% in its second weekend to $8.3 million. A Sound of Thunder - the last film in defunct Franchise Films larder - scraped up a scant $1.1 million that fell short of the $1.2 million gross it registered last weekend when it debuted in Spain.
Once again March of the Penguins had a glacial box office shift that elevated its domestic cume to $65 million and could well trudge on to Thanksgiving.
Activity in the niches saw few new entries with both the American indie Keep Your Distance and the concert film Margaret Cho: The Assassin Tour recording a little than $20,000 from respectively four and nine locations.
Weekend Estimates - September 1-4, 2005
Title Transporter 2 The 40 Year Old Virgin The Constant Gardener Red Eye The Brothers Grimm Four Brothers March of the Penguins Wedding Crashers The Skeleton Key The Cave Underclassman Valiant Sky High Charlie and the Chocolate Factory The Dukes of Hazzard Broken Flowers A Sound of Thunder Must Love Dogs Deuce Bigalo: European Gigolo The Great Raid The Aristocrats Madagascar War of the Worlds Fantastic Four Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) % Change (Last Year) % Change (Last Week) Also Debuting/Expanding Grizzly Man Keep Your Distance Margaret Cho: Assassin Summer Market Share 2005
Company Fox Warner Bros. Paramount DreamWorks Universal
