It was a good weekend for the power of the PG-13 rating and the eternal drawing power of the promise of belly laughs.
* As predicted correctly by me (and everyone else who dared) two days back, the Tina Fey/Amy Poehler opus “Baby Mama” won a relatively healthy box-office weekend with $18,271,000. In a weekend with three fairly strong comedies cramming the U.S.A.’s multiplexes, the obvious advantage here is the PG-13 rating — at the risk of stereotyping grossly, one imagines cool unmarried aunts (preferably with glasses) taking their young teen nieces in droves to this one, Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to follow. There was a time many decades ago when TV stars were considered questionable box-office material but, with the distinction between home and theatrical entertainment breaking down in just about every way possible, I think we can agree that that is well and truly dead now.
* Also, youngish male audiences, at least, for the most part don’t seem to mind a little very broad political satire mixed in with their sophomoric giggles, “Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay” scored a solid, if not quite boffo, $14,570.00. Considering that the film’s $12 million budget was less than half of the $30 million that “Baby Mama” cost, this film could well turn out to be the more profitable, at least for the time being. Anyone up for remake of the Marx Brothers’ anti-authoritarian classic, “Duck Soup“?
* A true photo-finish in third place between last week’s two top grosser, with the martial arts fantasy, “The Forbidden Kingdom” netting $11,230,00 and “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” netting $11,014,000. What makes it so close is that “Sarah Marshall” actually beat the wirefu/chop socky summit meeting in terms of per screen numbers, with an average of $3,934.00. Once again, a Judd Apatow comedy is showing some real staying power. Amazing what non-braindead laughs, and an attention to story and characterization, can do.
* The weekend’s other major opener, “Deception” did a predictably rotten $2,225,000. (According to entertainment news gadfly Nikki Finke, the film was only released in theatres as a favor to Hugh Jackman. She also has “Sarah Marshall” coming in at #3.) And the barely released 0% RT rater, “Deal” got a $31,000 in 50 theaters, with a per screen average of $620.00 in its first week.
Meanwhile in Indiewood….Errol Morris’s “war on terror” documentary, “Standard Operating Procedure,” which I discussed on Friday a bit, opened strongly in its two theaters with a per screen of $7,450 — beating out the per-screen of “Baby Mama” by $266. However, the real per-screen winner this week was a film I failed to mention. “Roman de Gare” is the latest from 71-year-old French hitmaker Claude Lelouch. For an internationally renowned French auteur, Lelouch’s slick style is not quite the catnip the film critics that some of his contemporaries can claim, but this one got mostly good-to-okay reviews and such is the appetite out there among older and more educated filmgoers for a decent, diverting thriller with actual characters and a story, that it’s spectacular $12,750 per screen should be no surprise at all.
