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SUNDAY AM: The No. 1 movie was Warner Bros’ mediocre laffer Get Smart, which opened in 3,911 theaters to a better-than-expected $39.1 million weekend. 
(The studio had been projecting $35M.) Exit polling showed the audience was split evenly male-female and skewed older, with 60% aged 25 or older — no doubt because of the original Mel Brooks-Buck Henry TV series. Many in Hollywood had made a fuss over the fact that this retread starring Steve Carell as Maxwell Smart and Anne Hathaway as Agent 99 was competing head to head for North American box office gross against another even worse comedy, Paramount’s moronic The Love Guru, because the two studios felt they couldn’t find another open date all summer. But it wasn’t a fair fight. The vehicle for Mike Myers’ return to the Big Screen after a long absence was filled with toilet humor, dick jokes and midget gags. It bombed badly, debuting at just No. 4 in 3,012 venues for an embarrassingly low $14 million weekend. (As one studio insider described the situation succinctly, “Ugh.”) But there’s a big difference in the two pics’ negative costs: $100M vs $60M, respectively. I’m also told that Warner Bros vastly outspent Paramount on marketing their comedy, $50M to $35M, which as Get Smart‘s release neared began to be advertised on the back of The Rock’s popularity in order to draw non-Caucasians — a strategy that seems to have worked. As for The Love Guru, it was aiming for a much younger audience aged 12 to 17 — but even they could smell a stinker. On Friday, Get Smart beat The Love Guru by $13.3M compared to $5.3M. And on Saturday, early numbers widened the gulf from $14.3M to $4.7M.
Meanwhile, newcomer Kit Kittredge, the Picturehouse American Girl movie, outperformed. Though platforming in just 5 theaters, it scored an incredible per-screen average of $19,731 Friday. Theaters in cities that American Girl stores were charging $20 a movie ticket to include a promotional lunch, souvenir and gift. But on Saturday, The Grove still did over $20,000 with normally priced tickets, I’m told. (So why didn’t the pic open wide this weekend instead of July 2nd to get out of WALL-E‘s way?) Warner Bros is already plotting out its newest franchise (usurped from Picturehouse, which is shuttering). No surprise, given the massive Warner Bros DVD sales of the three prior American Girl made-for-TV movies. Kit Kittredge the movie cost only $9 million and will be in profit at just $27 million including P&A. So, given the DVD projections, this could be a cash cow. (See my previous, Who’s Adopted This Orphaned Cash Cow?)
The No. 2 movie for the weekend was DreamWorks Animation / Paramount’s Kung Fu Panda which in 4,053 plays finished with a $21.7M weekend and new cume of $155.5M after Sunday thanks to the Saturday kiddie matinee bump. (It made $6.2M Friday and $8.5M Saturday. Holdover The Incredible Hulk self-financed by Marvel and distributed by Universal was No. 3 with a 21.5M weekend from 3,508 runs (-61% from its opening a week ago) and a new $96.4M cume after Sunday. (It made $6.6M Friday and $8.4M Saturday.)
The rest of the Top 10 were holdovers. Fox’s holdover horrow flick The Happening from M Night Shyamalan was No. 5 earning a 10M weekend from 2,986 theaters (-67% from its debut a week ago) and new $50.2M cume after Sunday. The Spielberg/Lucas fourquel Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull for Paramount came in No. 6 with an $8.4M weekend and $290.8M cume. At No. 7, Sony’s Adam Sandler/Judd Apatow comedy You Don’t Mess With The Zohan had a $7.2M weekend and new cume of $84M. HBO Films / New Line / Warner Bros’ Sex And The City hung in for No. 8 with a $6M weekend a new cume of $132M. No. 9 was Marvel/ Paramount’s Iron Man with a $4M weekend a new cume of $304.7M. And Rogue Pictures/Universal’s The Strangers finished No. 10 with a $1.9M weekend and $49.5M new cume.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Full disclosure, I’m a big fan of your colum nikki. Love the comment section. Have never posted, but felt I needed to now. My wife and daughter wanted my son and I to go with them last night to American Girl, Kit Kittredge. Frankly, I wanted to stay home and do…well, anything else. But, she wanted us all to be together, so I loggeed on to ROTTONTOMATOES.COM and clicked “top critics” across the county – and damn if 100% weren’t raves. I’m talking the WALL STREET JOURNAL, the CHICAGO SUN TIMES, NY TIMES! My boy, Harry and I sucked it up and went. And it wasn’t just good, it was GREAT! Really, you could have blown me over – I teared up at the end. And the audience, APPLAUDED. I don’t know weather to be embarrassed or not – but I figured I’d share it with all the other reluctant dads out there. It’s a substantial well made film. Check out the Wall Street Journal. This afternoon Harry and I are going to Get Smart. Hopefully, we’ll like that as much!
Go Koechner!
Saw GET SMART – I laughed
Seeing American Girl next weekend with my two nephews, and one neice. (You convinced me, Charlie). But, I had to pre- buy just now, as the only opened shows were either too early or too late tomorrow. Jeez, when are they opening wide? Hasn’t it been out like forever?
Totally bypassing LOVE GURU. Sorry Mike Myers but you can only coast on Austin Poers for so long…
Kitt Kittredge is apparently great, but Charlie isn’t a real person. That’s someone from their marketing guys.
Unsurprised to see the numbers for INCREDIBLE HULK. Anyone expecting an IRON MAN-like performance clearly doesn’t understand the crossover appeal of that movie. Word of mouth isn’t going to carry a movie that is basically “Hulk SMASH” the way that, say, Robert Downey Jr.’s performance in IRON MAN did. That movie was fun for *everyone*, not just people who like action movies.
While INCREDIBLE HULK isn’t quite as empty as the Fantastic Four movies (not that that’s much of a standard), it’s still just a standard, disposable, CGI-driven action movie that’s easily forgotten five seconds after you walk out of the theater.
I adored IRON MAN, and that’s coming from a comic book fan who doesn’t like Marvel comics. I could care less about IRON MAN the comic book character, but I’ve seen the movie twice. After seeing INCREDIBLE HULK, I still have zero interest in the character and probably won’t even buy the DVD. Maybe it was more fun for Hulk fans, but these movies need to appeal to more than just that niche audience.
LOVE GURU ROCKED, and I will not see GET SMART. It looks horrible. BTW, I don’t care how good the reviews are for AMERICAN GIRL, , I’m more a WHITE CHICKS than young chicks kind of guy.
Why are people blaming LOVE GURU’S horrible performance on JT? It rests solely on Mike Myers and the embarrassing marketing blitz that Paramount made us all suffer through. It was PAINFUL seeing those ads. Inundating us with crap on every network. What a waste of money. At least GET SMART is clever and entertaining, and the American Girl kids movie looks decent enough -
The studio behind GURU is just getting their karma for all the bad things they did to so many regimes under them. Sorry Mike that you have to bear the brunt, but the town doesn’t have much love for your home studio.
TO WRITER: Sorry to disappoint but I don’t work in marketing, and have nothing to do with any movies out this weekend. My son and I just got back from “Get Smart”, and he enjoyed it more than I did. But I didn’t not enjoy it. The theatre was 1/2 full, and it seemed to be doing pretty robust business, when we left. I think it would have definitely benefited from not going head to head with “Love Guru.”
As to your comment about my bias or connection with American Girl. You are wrong. I have nothing to do with that movie or franchise. Just telling the truth, it was by far the best in terms of substance, story, acting, The whole deal. Looking forward to “Wanted”.
I saw a screening of Get Smart earlier in the week. It was so bad, so unfunny, it was actually making me feel angry and depressed. I started crying like a 4 year old “I wannaaa leeaaave”. What a horrid piece of garbage….with bad editing to boot. Seriously. There’s a part where their base gets blown up….a few scenes later, it’s in mint condition, everything as it was before the attack…then – a few scenes later, it’s in shambles, being repaired. HUH!?!?!?
This is what passes for comedy these days? Office-guy blurting out perv and poop ‘jokes’ while bumping into stuff….Princess-Diary-chick bickering with him? That friggin’ crooked-mouthed guy from all those Will Farrell movies!?! Why is he in every movie now!? The annoying fat guy from the David Spade credit card commercials!?!?! C’mon!!!!
Awful, I walked out. Maybe the last 45 minutes were pure comic brilliance….but I doubt it.
Were American Girl tickets $20 everywhere. Here in Chicago, tickets were $20 for the one theatre that was playing it. The price included a free “gift” but I don’t know what that entails. Anyway, the higher price could attribute to that amazing per screen average.
You write that “Love Guru” is “Mike Myers’ return to the Big Screen after a long absence.”
Didn’t “Shrek the Third” just come out last year? It might not have been as good as the first two but it was still a bit hit and Mike Myers was its star.
“Love Guru” looks terrible but the guy has been working pretty regularly and doing better than most.
>”I thought the “Love Guru” rocked. Granted it’s not for everyone. I think the humor went over most people’s heads. You have to be smart to get the jokes, and let’s face it — most people are dumb as cats.”
Are you kidding me?! It’s humor for twelve year olds. Nothing clever or smart about any of it.
I wonder if either Smart ($150m) or Guru ($95m) will make their money back theatrically, even with world wide grosses factored in. Pretty much everyone is going to get their buts handed to them next weekend by Wall E, and then there’s Hancock and Dark Knight. I expect Guru will plummet ala The Happening, and will be curious to see if Smart can avoid the same fate.
To the person who compared Myers to Peter Sellers: that has to be the most uniformed comparison I’ve heard in a long time! Peter was genius performer who worked w/ the best directors. Could you picture Myers working today w/ a Stanley Kubrick and having him play three different parts?
And where do you think Myers gets his ideas? Hes’ a one-trick pony,who’s waited entirely too long to make a live action film. Perhaps it’s b/c his wife took off w/ half the money and he came to the conclusion that he couldn’t hide anymore doing cartoons. God he’s been in some bad movies. i.e Cat in the hat? Awful. Wayne’s World is terribly outdated. Try to watch it now and see how you feel about it.
The only time Myers has attempted something different was when he played Steve Rubel in 54. That’s the only time or would you throw in there So I married an Ex murderer?
I wouldn’t even compare Rodney Dangerfield to Myers. Let alone Peter Sellers.
It is not surprising that LOVE GURU tanked. It was a project that Brad Weston brought in and oversaw the production. His last few movies include DRILLBIT TAYLOR, STOP-LOSS and HOT ROD and the next home grown Paramount proper project shepherded by Weston is CASE 39. Anyone care to guess how that will turn out? So without the outside help of Dreamworks, Marvel, JJ, etc., Paramount would be a total joke. That what you get when you get someone of Brad’s caliber supposedly running production. How much longer should Lesher keep him around for him to take the blame? I suppose Weston will ride out his releases but not given any more authority to make his own movies.
“Holdover The Incredible Hulk self-financed by Marvel and distributed by Universal was No. 3 with a 21.5M weekend from 3,508 runs (-61% from its opening a week ago) and a new $96.4M cume after Sunday.”
This is better than I expected. Lee’s film was $100.6M at this point with a 69% decline on weekend two. The difference between -61% and -69% is the same as a couple of dogs pooping on your front lawn and a herd of cows doing it.
I agree, Mike Myers is a one trick pony, but it depends on the trick he is trying to pull. Granted that trick was as Austin Powers, but there are some actors and actresses from Canada that are much better than him. I would even include the fictional Terrance and Philip for good measure because their acting is above par with the schlick that Myers pulls.
Now compare that with Steve Carell and Steve clearly studies his parts as evidenced in the Get Smart trailer. And this is in addition to all the parts he has already received. I mean it, just look at 2003′s Bruce Almighty and that scene where Bruce fools around with Even’s prompter. Also, be sure to check out http://www.dailyshow.com (I’ll have it in my name as a link) and do a search for “Beat the Heat.” Let’s just say that it is Steve at his finest.
Now match the two together in seperate movies opening on the same weekend and it is clear who will win.
for CPS–
Overall the Top 10 films took in $134.4 million this weekend, according to Screenline. That is about 10 percent higher than the $122 million in ticket sales for the top 10 films during the equivalent weekend last year.
Jessy I’m not sure why you’re trying to slam Mike Myers versus Steve Carell. The two of them are probably friends (they are both Second City alums and Carell got one of his first breaks on Dana Carvey’s TV show).
Yes I admit that I slammed Mike Myers, but I do understand what you are saying. Still Second City is where the similarities end. Also, his break on Dana Carvey’s TV show was the result of Dana Carvey and his casting agent, not a pick by Mike Myers.
In fact, both Carell and Stephen Colbert were cast in that show and were later reunited on “The Daily Show” as “correspondents.”
In addition, Carell auditioned for SNL but was cut. However, that might have been a good thing since he really didn’t have to experience the hectic nature of SNL’s weekly schedule vs the more laid back Daily show schedule where the hardest parts are the filmed segements such as a correspondent’s “investigation” into something or Carell’s Beat the Heat segement.
In contrast, Mike Myers is stuck in an SNL mentality that leads him to create new characters. While this isn’t all that bad, what is missing is character development which means that most actors stick with one character in a movie or TV show. Myers makes it hard on himself by doing more than one character in a movie. Sometimes that might be unavoidable such as in the case of Austin Powers which I did say was his one-trick pony though that one trick pony did have some character development where the title character was trying to live his 1969 life in a 1990′s world.
Now I am not knocking SNL itself, but Mike Myers is in a rut where he is making bad movie decisions while living off the residues from the Shrek franchise. There is a major reason why “The Love Guru” finished fourth in the lineup this weekend and that is because it sounds more like an SNL skit than a feature movie. Here you would have a cheezy theme song that would be followed by Mike Myers, a few other cast members, and the host doing a short sketch and we are done. With his stature, Love Guru would have been a one shot sketch that would have likely bombed.
I don’t like attacking anybody like this, but Mike Myers is a good actor. He just needs to choose better roles and make them more believable for us.
Glad to hear that The Love Guru crashed and burned. I’m not one to hold a grudge, but The Cat in the Hat forever destroyed Mike Meyers in my eyes. Get Smart doesn’t look great but it seems a much more likable film than The Love Guru. I’d take Anne Hathaway over Jessica Alba like THAT! (The conversations would be better).
How about a film version of Seinfeld starring, Carell as “Seinfeld”, Meyers as “George”, Adam Sandler as “Kramer”, Will Farrell as Newman, and Tina Fey as “Elaine”?
I am sure that it will be a laff riot, and much superior to the TV show.
We have the reputation to be the only country in the world to like Jerry Lewis and here Adam Sandler has not the notoriety he has in the US. So what will follow will not surprise you and please forgive me in advance: Myers made me cry laughing with the first and the third AP (yep, it was a long time ago… the first one remain my favorite).
Perhaps Wayne’s world is dated now but I had the right age at the right time to enjoy it. And I will not pretend that I hate The cat in the hat as my review is available on a website and my blog in French. Perhaps the movie would have won to lose a bit of Mike Myers’routine but it was a pleasure and not even a guilty one.
And he was great in 54. To be honest the trailer of The love guru gave me a pretty good idea of the reasons I will not watch this movie but, this humbly said, I will always be interested to see what Mike Myers wants to offer.
Thierry, you will be waiting a long time if you find something produced by Mike Myers interesting. Let’s just say that Paris will get another shot at hosting the Olympics (2020) before Mike Myers produces a solid, if not speculator, movie.
Dear Jessy S.
Thank you for your words about my microscopic comment. Personally, I don’t care about Paris hosting the Olympics or any world-wide event (or a transportation strike record semi-final, maybe…) and was delighted for London.
Please pardon me, I’m from the country of La vie en rose (didn’t even watch this one) and Les Cahiers du cinema have been created so long ago. Now you can tell France is the only country in the world who likes Mr Myers’work.