Okay, so this is more like what I expected…me being wrong.
On Friday, I went with the supposedly smart money and prognosticated that the star-driven, retro-sports romcom, “Leatherheads” would win the weekend. Sadly, like the good people at Variety, I underestimated the appeal of pretty people gambling and perhaps overestimated the power of over-40 stars to draw young audiences. And so, as per this weekend’s studio estimate, it turns out that “21” has managed to hang on to the top spot with a less than spectacular $15.1 million return.
For the #2 spot, it turns out we have a photo finish. As per the estimates linked to above, “Leatherheads” managed $13,485,000 while, in a somewhat surprising turn, the apparently pretty lame family picture “Nim’s Island” grossed $13,300,000. So close are the two films’ grosses, in fact, the big V’s Pamela Mcclintock warns us that we may have a reversal in store and the queen of schadenfreude, the one they call Nikki Finke, using different numbers, promises as much, reporting that Hollywood insiders are “aghast” that George Clooney can no longer “open” a film. I presume, therefore George is subject to immediate banishment to the island of misfit toys. (She also chooses to make the reviews for the film sound even more disappointing than they were by using the Rotten Tomatoes “Cream of the Crop” rating, which selects only reviews by “Top Critics” — a designation that includes only the best known critics from the largest outlets.) To me, all this portends is that, these days, getting people over thirty or forty into a movie theater has a higher bar. Multiplexes have become increasingly hostile surroundings for non-teens, and there’s no doubt that Clooney’s films skew to an older audience. I mean, isn’t he like 75 or something now? At least Ms. Finke and I seem to agree that reviews actually do matter for some films.
Meanwhile, “Horton Hears a Who” is hanging on quite nicely in the fourth spot. As the first Dr. Seuss-based feature to not cause parents and some children to run screaming into the night, I guess that’s no more a surprise than the “soft” $7,840,00 for the unreviewed horror flick, “The Ruins“.
In other news, “Superhero Movie” isn’t doing great, but at the #6 spot, it’s doing better than it probably deserves. Also, “Under the Same Moon” may not quite be “My Big Fat Undocumented Tearjerker” after all. It made the #12 spot, but its grosses have finally begun a modest decline even after expanding into 47 more theaters.
And there may be more disappointing news for fans of quality movies with perhaps more appeal to the middle-aged set. “Shine a Light” opened on 273 screens, many of them IMAX, extracting about $1.5 million from Rolling Stones fans. It’s per screen average of $5,474 sounds okay — it’s just a couple hundred shy of the per-screen of “21” — but IMAX theaters typically charge about five dollars more per ticket and may often have more seats available than other screens. I know I’m new at this, and I may be missing something, but it looks like the film might not be hitting expectations. On the other hand, this kind of release pattern allows time for word of mouth to have an impact, so there’s still hope.
AND IN INDIEWOOD…. There’s hope here as well, as two crossover films by arty Asians did strong business in very limited release, netting by far the highest per-screen averages of any films this week. Hou Hsiao-hsien’s remake/expansion of a French children’s classic, “The Flight of the Red Balloon” grabbed a paltry sounding $37,000 — but did it on two screens only. Wong Kar-Wai’s Norah Jones’s starring “My Blueberry Nights” had a per-screen average of over $12,000 on six screens, more than double that of “21.”
And, finally, totally ignoring a very sound Bullz-Eye review, according to the Hollywood Reporter some people are seeing the John Lennon assassination drama “Chapter 27” anyway. It has managed to eke out an acceptable per screen average in nine theaters, and has netted $34,377. Hey, folks, it’s your money.
