Movie Box Review

Now that THE HELP has opened about as well as Dreamworks/Disney could have hoped, the next goal is a 2d weekend decline of around 40%.  That would match the hold of Julie & Julia, and would make a $100M gross for Help very realistic.  The film's only direct competition next weekend is the seemingly wan ONE DAY (which is only in around 1600 theatres, among other things).

The FINAL DESTINATION series would be over (or pre-reboot, as we might as well called discarded franchises these days) except that foreign results are more important than domestic here, and those numbers aren't in yet.

We'll see how the numbers play out, but right now, Sony is claiming the lowest Sunday decline for any movie in the Top 10, in what appears to be a desperately sad attempt to get 30 MINUTES OR LESS above a lousy $13M for its opening weekend.

The only notable new limited release was SENNA with a very nice $35K in each of 2 theatres, but there were a slew of expansions from slightly older films.  None of them seem hugely promising, but some did better than others (all numbers are per-theatre):  SARAH'S KEY $4600 in 101, THE GUARD $5900 in 47, THE DEVIL'S DOUBLE $2800 in 89, ANOTHER EARTH $1800 in 82, THE WHISTLEBLOWER $5100 in 22, and ATTACK THE BLOCK $2500 in 40.  Considering that even Final Destination 5 averaged $5800 in over 3000 theatres this weekend, there don't seem to be any potential breakout hits in this group.

Stay with SHOWBUZZDAILY for international numbers as soon as they're available later today, and Mitch Metcalf's report on this weekend's actual grosses tomorrow.

Well, there's something you don't see every day:  2 studios both content to forego bragging rights for the Sunday weekend estimates and wait for actual numbers on Monday, when public attention is lower. (Note:  The Hot Blog, which calculates its own numbers, has COWBOYS & ALIENS up by $100K.)  The important thing to remember is that this tie is only superficially equal:  it's wonderful news for Sony, which in THE SMURFS not only has a profit center but a likely new franchise, while it's terrible for Universal/DreamWorks, which will almost certainly show red ink on Cowboys. 

In a different sector of the boxoffice but nonethelsss gratifying is the overperformance of CRAZY STUPID LOVE, which had a healthy 7% increase on Saturday and beat last week's Friends With Benefits number with $19.3M.  Its main competition over the rest of the summer will be The Help and One Day.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (PART 2) hit both its milestones:  it's the highest-grossing Potter in the US, and the 9th movie in history to reach $1B worldwide.  With a global weekend gross of about $80M this week, it's in good shape to become the #3 all-time moneymaker, behind only Avatar and Titanic.  (Transformers 3 is at $985M worldwide and will also reach $1B, but with less potential to get much higher.)

3 quirky international action movies provided the highlights of the limited debuts this weekend:  THE GUARD, THE DEVIL'S DOUBLE and ATTACK THE BLOCK all averaged $16-19K in 4-8 theatres, and all have potential to expand with some success.  SARAH'S KEY handled its first expansion well, with an average of $11K in 33 houses, but ANOTHER EARTH is showing little strrength, with a $5350 average in 20.