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

May 10, 2009 Weekend Estimates Domestic Market Share Hi Trek! It was another weekend of "how big?" Short of a mass flu epidemic sweeping the nation, nothing was going to get in the way of the Star Trek juggernaut. Though tracking and trekking were buoyant along with advance sales, the gut instinct was that it would not open quite as vigorously as X-Men Origins: Wolverine. The guestimators were trotting out somewhere in the low to mid-$60 million range and those forecasts proved to be on the light side. Sunday's estimated weekend take (including a reported $7 million gross from Thursday midnight screenings) for Star Trek was $73.5 million. The only other national release was the action-comedy Next Day Air that charted sixth overall with a not terribly impressive $3.9 million. The session also featured a number of limited and exclusive premieres that ranged from fair to good but nothing remotely extraordinary. The hit Mexican film Rudo y Cursi bowed with an aggressive 70 theater break and passable $172,000 gross while the oddball historic drama Little Ashes had box office of close to $79,000 from 14 locations. Atom Egoyan's lastest, Adoration, was OK with $41,400 in 10 venues. There's no escaping the Star Trek legacy on the small screen but its 28-year history at the multiplex has been less assured. Historically it's been in the Star Wars' shadow and struggled to build an audience as well as an identity. But it's tenacious and pliant and the latest incarnation appears to have strong initial traction as a more visceral, less contemplative version of its inspiration. Die hards may find this all a bit shocking but the avids only know the series from re-runs and spin offs. Weekend revenues pushed toward $150 million for a slight 6% fallback from the prior weekend. It was however 20% improved from 2008 when Iron Man's second weekend led with $51.2 million and the $20.2 million debut of What Happens in Vegas surpassed last year's first seasonal casualty Speed Racer's $18.6 million gross. - Leonard Klady Weekend Estimates - May 8-10, 2009 Title Distributor Gross (average) % change * Theaters Cume Star Trek Par 73.5 (19,090) - 3849 73.5 X-Men Origins: Wolverine Fox 27.1 (6,610) -68% 4102 129.7 Ghosts of Girlfriends Past WB 10.5 (3,300) -32% 3175 30.3 Obsessed Sony 6.7 (2,560) -45% 2602 56.3 17 Again WB 4.3 (1,470) -33% 2903 54 Next Day Air Summit 3.9 (3,430) - 1138 3.9 The Soloist Par 3.7 (1,760) -35% 2090 23.6 Monsters vs. Aliens Par 3.1 (1,410) -47% 2185 183.51 Earth BV 2.5 (1,400) -42% 1794 26.1 Hannah Montana: The Movie BV 2.4 (1,060) -42% 2301 74.1 Fighting Uni 2.1 (1,070) -48% 1933 20.1 State of Play Uni 2.0 (1,280) -47% 1541 34.1 Fast & Furious Uni 1.3 (900) -54% 1409 151.8 La Cenerentola Fathom .70 (2,310) - 303 0.7 I Love You Man Par .44 (1,080) -40% 407 70 Taken Fox .38 (990) -57% 385 144.1 Knowing Summit .29 (780) -49% 373 78.4 Is Anybody There? Story Island .27 (1,700) -8% 157 0.89 Sunshine Cleaning Overture .26 (810) -38% 328 10.9 The Haunting in Connecticut Lions Gate .21 (690) -50% 303 55.3 Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) $143.80 - - - % Change (Last Year) -- 20% -- -- -- % Change (Last Week) -- -6% -- -- -- Also debuting/expanding Rudo y Cursi Sony Classics .17 (2,460) -- 70 0.17 Little Ashes Regent 78,900 (5,640) -- 14 0.08 Limits of Control Focus 47,100 (4,280) -16% 11 0.13 Adoration Sony Class/E1 41,400 (4,140) -- 10 0.04 Outrage Magnolia 29,700 (5,940) -- 5 0.03 Love N'Dancing Screen Media 24,500 (700) -- 35 0.02 Julia Magnolia 11,600 (3,870) -- 3 0.01 Domestic Market Share - January 1 - April 30, 2009 Distributor (releases) Gross (millions) Mrkt Share Warner Bros. (17) 544.1 17.30% Paramount (8) 438.7 13.90% Sony (10) 346.2 11.00% Universal (10) 336.1 10.70% Fox (8) 317.7 10.10% Buena Vista (10) 280.1 8.90% Lions Gate (7) 233.9 7.40% Fox Searchlight (5) 185.7 5.90% Summit (4) 131.1 4.20% Focus (3) 93.8 3.00% Paramount Vantage (2) 51.3 1.60% MGM (3) 42.3 1.30% Miramax (4) 37.9 1.20% Weinstein Co. (6) 34.5 1.10% Overture (3) 25 0.80% Other * (108) 49.2 1.60% * none greater than 0.4% 3147.6 100.00%