Comedy and adventure collided at the North American box office and delivered
a number one opening for Fool’s Gold
starring Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. Martin Lawrence’s new comedy Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins enjoyed a solid
second place finish, but the standup concert film Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show bombed in its opening finishing well outside the top ten.
Uncovering the most treasure, Fool’s Gold premiered in the top spot over the
weekend with an estimated $22M from 3,125 theaters for a strong $7,043 average.
The debut for the Warner Bros. release was a bit below the $23.8M opening that
the two actors generated for their romantic comedy How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days
which launched five years ago this weekend. That figure would be roughly $27M at
today’s ticket prices.
The $70M-budgeted Gold, which features the stars as an estranged couple
reuniting to hunt for sunken treasure, was panned by critics and received some
of the worst reviews of any film released in this new year. Andy Tennant (Hitch, Sweet Home Alabama) directed. In the half-decade since
10 Days came out,
Hudson
has been absent from the box office throne while McConaughey headlined two
number one openers – 2005’s adventure Sahara and 2006’s romantic comedy Failure
to Launch.
Debuting in second place with a nearly identical performance on a per-theater
basis was the Martin Lawrence-led comedy
Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins with an
estimated $17.1M from 2,386 locations for a solid $7,180 average. The Universal
release played in 739 fewer theaters than Fool’s Gold and posted an average that
was $137 higher. Directed by Malcolm D. Lee (The Best Man, Undercover Brother),
the PG-13 film tells of a famous talk show host who returns to his childhood
home for the 50th anniversary of his parents and reconnects with family and
friends. Cedric the Entertainer, James Earl Jones, Michael Clarke Duncan, Mike Epps, and Mo’Nique co-star.
Produced for $35M, Roscoe Jenkins generated an opening similar to last month’s
First Sunday which was another comedy led by an African American cast. That pic
which starred Ice Cube bowed to $17.7M from 2,213 theaters and
is headed for a finish of just under $40M. According to Fox research, Roscoe‘s
audience was 52% female and 52% over the age of 30.
Despite its A grade from CinemaScore, Disney’s Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert plunged 66% in its second weekend to an estimated $10.5M
ranking third for the frame. The G-rated concert film played in only 687
theaters and still averaged a sizzling $15,295 per location and boosted its
ten-day cume to a fantastic $53.4M. Hannah Montana was originally promoted as a
one-week-only event and racked up record pre-sales over the past two months so
it was expected to absorb most of the demand in the first seven days. The studio
announced last Sunday that it would extend the run. With a reported budget of
$7M, the 3D tween sensation could climb to an astounding $70-75M. Most theaters
are charging an extra-high $15 per ticket.
Jessica Alba‘s horror pic The Eye held up reasonably well in its second weekend
falling 47% to an estimated $6.6M. The $22M Lionsgate title has grossed $21.5M
in ten days and should see itself ending up in the neighborhood of $35M.
More female starpower followed as a pair of funny ladies from Fox tied for fifth
place with an estimated $5.7M each. Oscar contender Juno
slipped only 18% and
boosted its cume to an amazing $117.6M. The wise-cracking pregnant teen is the
eldest stateswoman in the top ten having just entered her tenth weekend. Eight
of those frames were spent in the top ten. Katherine Heigl‘s 27 Dresses
dropped
only 33% and pushed its sum to $65.4M.
Hot on the trail of those young ladies were a bunch of old geezers. 70-year-old
superstars Jack Nicholson
and Morgan Freeman
watched their hit film The Bucket List
collect an estimated $5.3M, off just 21%, for a cume of $75.1M for Warner
Bros. Not far behind was 61-year-old action star
Sylvester Stallone with Rambo
which fell 42% to an estimated $4.1M giving Lionsgate a tally of $36.5M.
The bottom three positions in the top ten delivered a very close race as two
other films reported estimates of $4.1M also. Fox’s spoof comedy Meet the Spartans
was off by 45% and reached a total of $33.9M. The
Daniel
Day-Lewis oil
saga
There Will Be
Blood expanded and saw its weekend milkshake dip by just 13%.
Paramount Vantage has taken in $26.8M to date with much more expected in the
weeks ahead as moviegoers catch up on high profile Academy Award contenders.
Opening miserably outside of the top ten was the standup comedy doc Vince Vaughn’s Wild West Comedy Show which debuted to an estimated $507,000 from 962
locations for an embarrassingly low $527 average. Scoring an opening weekend
average of just three digits is never a good thing. The R-rated Picturehouse
release follows the comic actor and his group of standup comedians on their tour
across several states.
Grossing a similar amount of money from just a tiny fraction of the theaters
was the
Colin Farrell hitman drama
In Bruges which bowed in just 28 locations to an
estimated $471,000 for a solid $16,829 average. Focus will expand the R-rated
film hoping to capitalize on the publicity it generated from its opening night
slot at Sundance. Reviews were mostly encouraging.
A pair of studio flicks fell from the top ten this weekend. Sony’s gory crime
thriller Untraceable
dipped 31% to an estimated $3.5M in its third session and
raised its total to $24.3M. Budgeted at over $30M, the
Diane Lane vehicle should
finish up with a decent $30-35M. The $25M camcorder-style thriller Cloverfield
dropped 45% in its fourth frame to an estimated $2.7M for Paramount. With $75.9M
banked to date, the disaster film looks to reach $80-83M by the end of its
domestic run giving the studio a nice moneymaker. Cloverfield remains the
top-grossing new release of 2008.
All five Oscar nominees for Best Picture enjoyed strong holds with declines of
26% for Atonement, 18% for
Juno, 13% for There Will Be Blood, and 10% for
Michael Clayton. Frontrunner
No Country For Old Men was the only one to not
drop, inching up 2%. All films are spending aggressively on advertising to take
advantage of their nods in the marketplace.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $85.3M which was off 2% from last year
when Norbit opened at number one with $34.2M; and down 13% from 2006 when
The
Pink Panther debuted in the top spot with $20.2M.
Author: Gitesh Pandya, www.BoxOfficeGuru.com
