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SUNDAY AM: I now have the weekend’s official numbers, and kudos to my box office gurus for getting them right once again. Moviegoers were in a kick-butt mood, so No. 1 was Lionsgate/The Weinstein Co’s The Forbidden Kingdom, pairing martial arts movie stars Jet Li and Jackie Chan for the first time: it had a $20.8 million weekend after opening to $7.7M Friday and $7.9M Saturday in 3,151 theaters. 
Indeed, ”the smart money” was on Forbidden Kingdom because of its PG-13 rating, one marketer told me. “Its target audience has been reliable in the past.” And it was again. But in a conversation with me this morning, TWC’s Harvey Weinstein, whose company shares domestic and foreign 50/50 with Lionsgate, credited the movie’s success to producer Casey Silver. ”First and foremost, no one has ever seen Jackie and Jet together but Casey Silver got them to do the movie. And then he brought in Rob Minkoff of The Lion King and Stuart Little to make a family movie that appealed to martial arts fans as well as to my daughters aged 5, 10 and 13 who loved it. It’s more fantasy and Narnia than it is a big martial arts movie.” Claiming the pic was made for only $55 million, TWC is quick to point out that Forbidden Kingdom is the first film released under its Asia Fund.
In the 2nd spot was Universal’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall starring and written by How I Met Your Mother TV star Jason Segel under the Judd Apatow banner. It opened with $17.3M after debuting with $6M Friday and $6.8M Saturday from 2,798 venues. ”This is an impressive number for a small R-rated comedy particularly given how tough the market has been lately and this weekend’s crowded field,” A Uni insider says. History shows that the multiple on Apatow films, and the genre in general, is about 4 times the opening weekend’s gross. The modest cost of the film ($30M) puts Universal in a nice place to recoup its investment quickly. Rival studios thought its portrayal of a ”wussy” guy with full-frontal male nudity might turn off Apatow’s strong male fan base. Then again, a watchable comedy has been AWOL from the cineplexes. And Uni’s clever teaser ad campaign — “Who Is Sarah Marshall?” – sparked a lot of Internet interest. Exits showed balance between male/female and young/old: 53% female/47% male, under 30 = 56% ; 30 and older = 44%. Hispanic moviegoers made up the next largest portion of the audience after Caucasians.
Sony’s PG-13 teen slasher pic Prom Night took 3rd its second weekend out, making $3.5M Friday and $3.7M Saturday from 2,700 plays (-56%) for what was a $9.1M weekend and new cume of $32.5M. The studio’s newcomer 88 Minutes starring Al Pacino in a poorly reviewed thriller that already debuted in Europe opened with $2.3M Friday and $2.7M Saturday domestic gross from 2,168 dates for what was a disappointing $6.8M weekend. The studio had hoped for $10M. “This was a North American acquisition for about $5 milllion so the upside with TV and home entertainment makes this a low exposure investment,” a Sony source told me Sunday.
The only other newcomer in the Top 10 was conservative commentator Ben Stein’s documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed which makes the intelligent design argument. Playing in 1,052 theaters, the pic distributed by Rocky Mountain Pictures fell over the weekend from 8th to 10th place after earning $1.2M Friday and $989K Saturday for a $2.9M weekend. But the per screen average for Friday was a low $1,145 and for Saturday $940 (and $2,830 for the entire weekend), showing there wasn’t much pent-up demand for the film despite an aggressive publicity campaign on right-wing media. So much for the conservative argument that people would flock to films not representing the ”agenda of liberal Hollywood”. (Just for comparison purposes: left-wing Michael Moore’s most recent Sicko did $4.4 mil its opening weekend from only 441 theaters, and his Fahrenheit 9/11 did $23.9M its opening weekend from 868 venues.)
No. 5 was Fox’s Nim’s Island ($1.5M for Friday, $2.5M for Saturday, $5.6M for the weekend and a new cume of $32.8M); No. 6 was Sony’s 21 ($1.8M for Friday, $2.3M for Saturday, $5.5M for the weekend and a new cume of $21.3M); No. 7 was Fox Searchlight’s Street Kings ($1.2M for Friday, $1.6M for Saturday, $4M for the weekend and a new cume of $19.8M); No. 8 was Fox’s Horton Hears A Who! ($930K for Friday, $$1.5M for Saturday, $3.5M for the weekend and a new cume of $144.4M); and No. 9 was Universal’s Leatherheads ($923K for Friday, $1.3M for Saturday, $3M for the weekend and a new cume of $26.5M).
(FYI: Comments on this website are monitored. If your comment didn’t post immediately, it’s likely I’m away from the computer. Be patient. Also, be original.)
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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I wish I had never seen Bowling for Columbine, it showed that people in Hollywood will screw over their own legends and make money off a national tragedy without blaming whomever did it. It really destroyed the movie-going experience for me.
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed should have made 3.5 million, who they f’ing kidding?? The fact the movie made over a million is a miracle in an of itself.
BS biased people are so lame,. its so old
“Expelled” was terrific. Everyone should see it! It was thought provoking and telling. I wish our school children could get such an honest presentation of scientific inquiry. And, the connection between Darwinism and Hitler’s motivation to exterminate “weaker” populations is frighteningly revealing. We should all be wary of that worldview. Also, the eugenics of Darwinism is rampant in the U.S., particularly among abortionists. Everyone should see this movie and take heed!
No comparison needed Nikki. I am amazed that it was able to break through the fascist liberal media. Quite happy it was released theatrically and I will be checking it out this weekend.
What the “Expelled” numbers tell me, is that people go to the movies to escape, not to be told what others think, or expect me to think.Hence the poor numbers of some of the recent propaganda movies.
The fact that this reporter has refused to make note of this, shows me that he has no clue. At some point he has forgotten that movies theaters are entertainment centers, not social reconstrutction centers.
I WILL watch Expelled, when it comes out on dvd, But I wont pay $8.00 bucks to see it.
We evil conservatives have those big 50″ flat screens, and surround sound, primarily so we dont have to go stand in line and tolerate you lower life working class people.
Or so I have been told,
once again, the conservatives have lost.
you Drudge clowns bombarded this website last time, laughing about George Clooney’s “failure.” And you all said that “if Hollywood would make conservative movies, we’d go out to see them.”
WRONG. YOU CONSERVATIVE CAVEMEN LOSE AGAIN.
And now, you’re reduced to complaining like little babies. Asking Nikke to compare slop like “Expelled” to Michael Moore’s first documentary!!! LOL
You guys have nothing. We liberals run Hollywood, Broadway, the music industry, all of the arts, Silicon Valley, and Wall Street. All the best ideas come from liberals – including the Internet.
We liberals have New York and California and Chicago and all the American cities that matter.
If the US had a civil war, and separated into Red states vs. Blue states, you clowns would HAVE A THIRD WORLD ECONOMY. YOU’D HAVE ALABAMA AND THE REST OF THE BACKWARD SOUTH.
What have you Cons accomplished in the last 8 years? What have you gained for this country? Name one thing, other than “tax cuts.”
You cons are too thick headed to realize that your “tax cut” is actually a tax hike because wages have been going DOWN since Clinton left office. Prices for everything are HIGHER, since you dolts believe in deficits and debt.
Fools. The stock market is exactly where it was when Bill Clinton left office.
Gas prices, oil prices, and food prices are at all time highs. The dollar is at historical lows. We are in two wars and we aren’t winning.
No matter what you say about evolution or global warming, OTHER COUNTRIES LIKE CHINA are already working on scientific projects that will expand green energy and create jobs. They also teach real science, like evolution, and they will gain knowledge on fighting disease by working with stem cells.
Once again, we liberals will drag you CONS, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century.
You fought us during the Enlightenment. You fought us during the Civil War. You fought against women’s rights. You fought against civil rights. You fought against worker’s rights. You fought Galileo. You fought MLK. And you fight us today.
There is a lot of proof out there for evolution. Where is the scientific proof for your side? (And btw, I believe in God.)
Humans began in Africa. Darwin predicted this. Where is your proof that they did not?
What have you CONS accomplished, ever? I will give $50 via Paypal to any CON who can name ONE GREAT CONSERVATIVE MAN OF THE PEOPLE. NAME ONE GREAT CONSERVATIVE ARTIST, OR LOVER, OR PHILOSOPHER. NAME JUST FIVE GREAT CONSERVATIVE PAINTERS OR PLAYWRIGHTS OR SCREENWRITERS OR DIRECTORS OR POETS.
Heck, name me one great CONSERVATIVE ACTOR! (John Wayne doesn’t count; I mean a critically acclaimed actor.)
All the greats of history were LIBERALS of their time – Amadeus, Michelangelo, daVinci, Pollack, Dali, Spielberg, MLK, JFK, RFK, Gandhi, Chaplin, Sir Thomas More.
The great villains of history – from Hitler to Mussolini to yes, Pol Pot and Stalin and Mao – were all social and cultural conservatives. They shut down the arts, shut down the vote, and shut down those “who were different.” They all saw things in black and white, like you CONS do. They all put fealty to the state as priority #1. Like you cons do. Hitler wrote in his book about how he “hated liberals.”
liberal gifts to the world: 8 hour work day, social security, medicaid, medicare, equal rights, no child labor, paid vacations, maternity leave, unleaded gas, stem cell research that will lead to cures, women’s rights, college loans, unemployment compensation, movies, rock and roll, jazz, impressionism, the idea of liberty, product and worker safety measures, the idea of regulation (something you cons hate) and on and on and on.
You cons live in a free and somewhat fair society because of us. You live in a culture that has some “Culture” because of us. If you don’t believe me, go to an art gallery in SoHo for a day. Then the next day, go visit Alabama or Mississippi for a day.
We are talking 2 different types of people here. And that is why you CONS lose, and will always be on the wrong side of history.
Goodbye.
I do not think you can compare Ben Stein’s film with Michael Moore’s. After all, All of Moore’s films are fiction.
I just saw “Expelled” in St. Louis and the theatre was packed at the 2:30 showing – I had to sit in the first few rows and the steady-cam footage was killing me…
Actually Expelled is very much like a Michael Moore documentary, although Ben Stein staged more events then even Michael Moore has. Using extras at a university and saying they were students? Not telling the truth about why certain people are no longer holding certain jobs but saying it was because they believe in ID. C’mon. Yeah he will probably fool people who are completely ignorant of evolution and science in general, but not everyone is that stupid Mr Stein.
Isn’t this where all you conservatives who have been complaining about celebrities needing to shut up and act should be saying the same thing about celebrity Ben Stein? Or are you a bunch of hypocrites?
40yearoldstitzer I agree with you 100%
I’ve been really cutting back and I’ll be doing the matinees
I consider myself fairly conservative. I saw the TV ads for Expelled and had no idea afterward that it was about the so-called “theory” of Intelligent Design. The reason it appears not to have done well is that most people didn’t get a clear idea of what it’s about, and even the vast majority of conservatives don’t buy into the Intelligent Design “theory” any more than they believe in the Global Warming hoax.
The idea of Ben Stein in shorts ain’t exactly a big box office draw either…
“Expelled” is not a documentary, it is a propaganda screed.
-jcr
Yeah, Ben Stein is half the man Michael Moore is…
Anyone know when the Ed movie will be out?
Ehan Edwards that was a great comment.
All I can do is, second it!
Hey, everyone! Let’s put words in Nikki’s mouth and then make fun of them! Then, we can posture the opposite of what she actually said as true! Fun!
—
So, just so we’re clear, we agree with her that Expelled is a miserably failure, but we really dislike that she claimed it was trying not to fail and failed at that. Good. That’s clear.
Thank God Ben’s no Michael Moore! He didn’t fabricate most of the content as Michael Moore does. You also have to take into account that it was released in a very limited number of theaters.
Hilarious how these conservative goons cannot spell.
Any film coming from Fox/Rupert Murdoch, Walden Media, etc. does not service the “liberal Hollywood agenda” as the simpletons call it.
Nikki, shouldn’t there be some kind of an award to Gerald for most metaphors packed into a comment on this article, and most male nudity metaphors packed into a comment, perhaps ever? I mean, if he’s packin’ all those just for your regular early weekend box office report, just think he could pull out for your report if, say, one of the major studios decided to blow-off the A-listers completely and pull their next movie stars straight from the porn industry?
Wow, that Bob has some pent up anger. I thought we were discussing movies here.
I am surprised how well Expelled is doing at the theaters considering…1) Very little advertising and near zero media coverage. 2) Its a documentary.
Bob…”you Drudge clowns bombarded this website last time, laughing about George Clooney’s “failure.” And you all said that “if Hollywood would make conservative movies, we’d go out to see them.”
WRONG. YOU CONSERVATIVE CAVEMEN LOSE AGAIN.”
Hey Bob, there’s a BIG difference between a blockbuster movie filled with Hollywood big names and a litte advertised documentary. How about “The Passion”? Now there’s a flocking…
Anyway, I saw the movie with my wife and I thought it was great. It was very thought provoking. This website got it wrong when it says its a movie that makes the intelligent design argument. All it does it say that the scientific community should be a place where ideas and theories are scrutinized, not expelled.
Someone asked about how much money Michael Moore’s first film made. “Roger & Me” grossed $80,000… on 4 screens. Ended up grossing 6 million in the U.S. and was never released to anymore than 265 screens. Now let’s count for inflation too… BOO YAH!
Nice way to name call, Bob (posted at 3:15 p.m., April 15). Would it be possible for you to have an argument that isn’t littered with wrath. Having little control over your emotions while dealing with rational debate shows a very small-minded, backwoods ignorance. Good luck in your life of mediocrity and herd mentality. And as an aside, please contemplate that Einstein, Newton, and a good portion of Enlightenment scientists believed in God. Even Thomas Jefferson wrote that we were endowed by our Creator with inalienable rights. So, conservatives shouldn’t be allowed the freedom of speech or inquiry because they disagree with you? Hmmm… sounds more like you think like Stalin than like John Locke. Or perhaps more like Hobbes than Adam Smith. Try keeping an open mind, someday an idea might actually reach through what appears to be a rather thick skull and your life might not continue to be nasty, poor, brutish and short (a reference to Hobbes in case you do not wish to look it up.)
link from drudge = army of knuckle-draggers at your doorstep.
Well let’s look at the scoreboard:
Rendition
Redacted
Lions for Lambs
Valley of Elah
Not exactly packing them in lately. Conservatives have got a lot of failing to do to match those bombs (but then conservative movies are rarer than unicorns). So I await Nikki’s prediction for the imminent demise of the noble liberal cause based on their REPEATED poor showing. You know, because she’s so intellectually honest and all.
And when you talk about the “agenda of liberal Hollywood” I think you can take off the quotes. It’s not like they hide it.
I am an ultra-conservative and wouldn’t walk across the street to watch a movie like that.
However, I will buy the Indoctinaion U movie.