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11 PM UPDATE: Friday’s Sex And The City opened with great foreplay for the biggest romantic comedy debut. Really early box office numbers could be as high as $26 million to $28 million and for the weekend $65 million to $75 million. That’s stunning the Hollywood pros. “It could reach or exceed the high end if the final West Coast numbers match the East Coast’s. Those totals could be higher. Huge,” one rival studio exec exclaimed to me. ”It’s a true sensation. People thought it would do well. But nothing like this. The top end expected was $40M.” Still, some experts wonder if this is a front-loaded phenomenon and the numbers won’t hold on Saturday. But Sex And The City will certainly beat last weekend’s No. 1 blockbuster, Paramount’s Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, which made $12M today and should finish by Sunday around $37M-$39M: that’s -60%, but last Friday began Memorial Weekend. See my story, IS ‘SEX’ THE ULTIMATE CHICK FLICK?
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Sex sells.
I think it shows a cruel side to fate when New Line finally has a hit after the company’s been snuffed out.
Comfort Food. Movies that bring out more than just the normal movie viewer because they see on screen something that makes them feel good inside. Doesn’t matter if the movie is good as long as the same themes and characters are present. Can Friends be far behind? The only one doing anything is Aniston and she is basically in the same boat as Sarah Jessica Parker.
I’m not surprised in the slightest. But it will be interesting to see if this movie has any legs beyond this weekend.
As for this film being a hit for New Line, was anyone really shocked? It’ll be just like Mark Canton slate’s when he was eventually fired from Sony. The brass in Japan got shot of him and that summer he sat at home in sweat pants while Air Force One, Men In Black and My Best Friend’s Wedding made big money at the BO.
I wouldn’t be all that surprised if WB’s releases this year (apart from Dark Knight) all underperform this year and it’s New Line’s 2008 films are what keep Horn and Co. in the black.
What is so surprising?
The Hollywood Studios have LEFT half their audiences behind by narrowing their focus to kid films and males for decades.
Most movies are written for males by males and the few female movies made go straight to cable or are dreary dramas written with a male preception on what women are like.
It’s very telling on how crappy Hollywood treat women artists.
Look… I’m a woman of a certain age and I’m just desperate for some entertainment that’s for my demographic. I’ve essentially stopped going to the movieplex because most movies are for teens and men and don’t appeal to me.
The men who greenlight movies (and the few women who are trying to please their male bosses) need to realize there are alot of us women out here who like to to go the movies and we often go together or drag our date. So we’re good for two tickets if you can catch our interest. Make something for us and see, we show up!
It’s not rocket science.
I just wonder why the studio heads are so lame about providing us decent entertainment. I mean really, declaring no movies can’t be carried by women because Jodie Foster’s bombed was ridiculously lame. Women don’t want to see Jodie Foster in some vengence movie… frankly, we don’t really want to see anybody in a vengence movie.
Use your head Hollywood men and you can make money on movies for women. It’s all about a good script made for a fair price. It’s what Apatow is doing now and he’s a genius. Really? it takes a genius in this town to figure out how to make money on smaller films?
Hilarious that studios are surprised.
Women are the most powerful economic force, especially women over 30 with disposable income, and yet the studio chiefs would rather cling to their misogyny and weakening bottom line than service this profitable demographic.
Women want female driven movies – not just SATC, or the occasional saccharin drivel.
We stopped going to movies ages ago because it’s the same male driven crap, always gratuitous female nudity [yet never male nudity,]or a 20-something female creepily paired with an old fart male. And no one was standing in the lobby handing us quarters while our boyfriends/husbands dragged us along.
Women, make your voice heard. Demand intelligent, interesting movies for women. Stop seeing the crap they keep handing out just to go along with your bf.
As I said yesterday in response to an earlier Nikki post: Love it or hate it…this kind of box office performance is great news for film fans, actors, writers and producers.
Why? Not least of which, it shows how out of touch studio execs are and how ruled they are by the slavish and self-defeating pursuit of a young male demographic above all else.
NOW, these same execs are shocked, just shocked to find: Oh my freakin’ God there are people over 30 out there, with lots of disposable income who *will* go to see a movie if it’s not about a magic car or a maniac killer.
Popcorn movies are fine and they can make a great deal of money (even when they’re a lousy film) but the industry will continue to cannabalize itself if it adheres to that mentality alone.
The depressing thing is that even when SATC breaks $300 million worldwide, like George Bush, rather than learn from their mistakes these same movie execs will call it an aberration and go on to greenlight “Mission: Impossible IV.”
When the strip-mining of pop culture for films has reached the level of Michael’s Bay’s upcoming film based on the “Ouija” board game, is it too much to dream that a nadir has been reached and we might be in for a new era of great middle budget films in the vein of “The Graduate,” “Driving Miss Daisy” or “Local Hero”?
I went with a couple of girlfriends yesterday and all the showings were sold out and we just managed to get tickets for late showing tonight. I have never seen that many women clad in their Manolo Blainihks in a movie theater. Each time slot was showing on two screens at the same time and yet it sold out.
This might help the suits in Hollywood to recognize that mature women will go spend their money too if it is movie they can relate. It might not be the best movie, but I am happy to support it.
I like female vengeance movies, and I like Jodi Foster. It’s just that particular movie didn’t come together just as most male-starring movies don’t.
But my friends, family, etc have also essentially stopped going to movies. Who wants to go on a date, or with your family, and there’s always the topless scene, or the strip club scene.
It’s stupid and uncomfortable and the male CEO’s know this – that’s why they never make male nudity films. It makes them and males uncomfortable.
Women don’t like it either and our wallets are telling you so.
While it appears to be a very successful first weekend, I doubt that it will have a blockbuster run. It is a R rated picture, leaving out children or parents who are bringing their children to a movie. It offers very little for heterosexual males. Or non-white women. Instead of a story starting from scratch, it is picking up where the series left off (similar to the X-files picture), meaning that only dedicated fans of the series would be interested. Once the dedicated fans have seen it, the audience will drop dramatically. If it was an original story, the sky would be the limit.
Several comments have been made about Hollywood making male-driven movies. Most of these movies do attempt to reach out to a female audience. Yes, it mostly appeals to males, but there is an attempt to reach out and satisfy the female audience. Why do you think there are so many tacked on love stories in major motion pictures? “Chick flicks” never make an attempt to reach out to a male audience. Men are seen as antagonists because they refuse to do exactly what the women of the movie want them to do. So why would men want to go to a “Chick flick”. Men are not going to go to a film that is boring, insulting to their gender and makes them look gay. Why would kids want to go a movie that has a lot of talking and little action.
As far the nudity comments go, they are ridiculous. If women would go to the convience store once and a while and buy a magazine filled with naked men, there would be a market. Men certainly pay for pictures of naked women, so movie producers put them in the movies. Men and women buy magazines with pictures of pretty women on the front cover (Maxim, Cosmopolitan, etc.), so why would someone not include attractive women in their film. I don’t purchase female-oriented products, but anytime I walk around a drugstore, I see the huge arrays of female flesh displayed on products for women. Bought exclusively by women. Plus, men don’t want to see naked men. Breasts sell, men’s gentials don’t.
I’ve gone to many male-driven movies, where I’ve seen groups of women in the theater. Not with boyfriends or husbands. Movies are not like television, you have to travel to the theatre and pay money to see it. It’s not like the episode of Baywatch that you sit through because nothing else is on. If men and women will go out of their way to watch one of these films, why would movie producers stop making them. For example, I saw a lot of women when I went to the Bourne Ultimatum.
Comedy sells. There’s been a lot of romantic movies put out there “for women”, mostly tired hash of 80′s & 90′s romantic blockbusters, but women haven’t always gone.
I haven’t seen SEX (’cause I’m a 13 year old boy trapped in a woman’s body), but am I crazy in suggesting it’s the good-hearted levity within SEX and WEDDING CRASHERS and KNOCKED UP and 40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN that seems to get women on board. Obviously the Apatow movies leave a lot to be desired re: the female perspective, but they’re humane movies with gut laughs and often a little depth.
Make comedies with depth for women. Not gassy “with this ring I thee…” romantic flicks. Innovative comedies with depth.
SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE was about the fears of starting over. WHEN HARRY MET SALLY was about the possibilities of friendship between men and women and how friendship is necessary to marriage.
Adult themes. Not oops-I-dropped-my-cell-phone plots. Themes that really resonate with grown-ass people in relationships.
Truthfully, I was shocked that people didn’t think it was going to do this well — all analysts seem to have it making 30 or 35 million for the whole weekend — whereas I totally expected this to make near double that.
Guess it’s better to underestimate than overestimate — but given that it is one of the most buzzed about shows at the time and that it has been 4 years (actually superb that kim cattrall didn’t want to do it right away — because it helped). I’m just surprised that it has sent shockwaves throughout hollywood — because to me, it’s a given.
The “shocking” lesson here won’t be “let’s serve older, female audiences with intelligent movies” but that what drives women into theaters isn’t a movie at all, but a television show.
Don’t expect mid-budget comedies with depth like “Local Hero” or “The Graduate” to come out of this. Expect DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, UGLY BETTY and THE CLOSER to be looking toward two-hour theatricals. That’s about it.
What a successful opening, even if visions of a $ 75 million opening weekend turned out to be far tyoo ambitions.
It’s probably all downhill from here.