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SUNDAY AM: Twentieth Century Fox’s The Day The Earth Stood Still opened to an excellent $11.5M Friday and $11.8M Saturday (+2%) and an estimated $7.6M for Sunday for a solid $31M weekend. IMAX accounted for 12.5% of the opening weekend gross with $3.8M from 123 screens. Internationally, the day-and-date release opened in 90 markets (but only 11 of the top 16) and made $39M. So that’s a worldwide total after its first weekend of $70M. However, rival studios tell me that the pic’s Cinemascore was the hard-to-achieve “C-” (when it’s rare to see anything below a “B”), with moviegoers over age 25 giving it a “D”. No wonder the PG-13 pic has only 21% positive reviews by top critics on Rotten Tomatoes, despite starring Keanu Reeves, and Oscar winners Jennifer Connelly and Kathy Bates. Since the sci-fi film has this weekend all to itself (after Will Smith’s Seven Pounds vacated the date), it had a veritable guarantee of getting past $30M if not a total stinker. For weeks now, this reimagining (no one ever calls it a remake anymore) of the 1951 black-and-white sci-fi classic had been tracking well. Encouraging, since Fox was running only 35% of its TV ad money at the time. There was “very strong” wanna-see with older males followed by younger males, even registering a solid “first choice”. On the other hand, there was virtually no female appeal. But the studio then spent 65% of its TV ad money over the last 8 days, and interest among gals picked up going into Friday’s release. 
The studio had other reasons to be bullish: it had 120 Imax runs, and 12:01 AM Friday plays in about 500 locations of its overall 3,560 theaters, and a day-and-date release into 90 overseas markets this weekend. So the pic should break the studio’s losing streak that began at the start of the summer. “Fantastic opening, better than we were looking for. We’re in for a great run because its $80M negative cost means a very profitable pic,” one Fox exec gushed. But the concensus in Hollywood is that The Day The Earth Stood Still is unlikely to get to a $100M box office lifetime domestically with all the competition coming up — including Fox’s own Marley And Me which is tracking like a blockbuster.
But the real news of the weekend is the Warner Bros’ opening of Clint Eastwood’s Oscar-buzzed Gran Torino Friday night in 6 theaters (3 in NY, 3 in LA). The drama grossed $75K Friday and $112.5K Saturday for a total $269.6K with the best per screen average — $47,340 — of all the weekend films. That’s TWICE as much as his Best Picture-winning Million Dollar Baby made on December 17, 2004 in the same theaters ($37,208 total, per screen average $6,201.) “Clint is the man!” a top Warner Bros exec gushed to me this morning. Also, the Miramax Oscar-touted Doubt opened with $525K this weekend and a giant per screen average on 15 screens of $35,002. Box office was driven by strong reviews, the quality of the ensemble cast including Meryle Streep and Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and a great marketing campaign. The exit polls were “very strong”, I hear.
In fact, all the smaller Oscar-touted pics in release already are doing remarkably well. Focus Features’ Oscar-buzzed Milk widened into 328 runs for a $2.6M weekend — good enough for 9th place — and a $7.6M cume. It experienced another strong weekend with a sizeable 58% bump from Friday to Saturday revealing “sustained, positive word of mouth”, according to the studio. Core houses are contributing 50% of the gross to the weekend total with the expansion markets strongest in smart-house/art-house and college markets. Imagine/Universal’s Week #2 limited release of Frost/Nixon made $630K at 39 theaters with a per theater average of $16,160. Its cume to date is $878K. Friday to Saturday saw a 70% increase demonstrating the film’s strong word of mouth, the best jump of any other adult choice this weekend. The pic will expand on Christmas Day into the top 100 markets (about 350 theaters) with a full wide break in January. And Fox Searchlight’s Slumdog Millionaire took in $2.2M this weekend from 169 runs for a new cume of $8M.
Two other films were released this weekend. Overture Films’ Latino-flavored Nothing Like The Holidays, with its unlikely pairing of Debra Messing and John Leguizamo, opened No. 7 in 1,671 venues which don’t necessarily need another dysfunctional family laugher when Four Christmases is still in cineplexes. Formerly titled Humboldt Park, the PG-13 pic debuted with $3.5M for the weekend. And Fathom Studios’ children fantasy toon Delgo released by Freestyle into 2,160 dates missed the Top 10 entirely and opened to an abysmal $465K weekend.
As for the holdovers, 2nd place went to Warner Bros’ Four Christmases (3,540 theaters) which has good hold with a $13.2M weekend and new cume of $87.9M. Hanging on for No. 3 was Summit Entertainment’s Twilight (3,649) in week #4. It made $8M over the weekend playing in 3,649 theaters for a new cume of $150.1M. Disney’s Bolt (3,133) was #4 and added another $7.5 million this weekend — helped by an original Pixar short for Cars — for a new cume of $88.8M. No. 5 went to 20th Century Fox’s Australia (2,703) epic which earned $4.2M for a new cume of $37.8M. MGM/Sony’s latest Bond actioner Quantum Of Solace (2,635) took in $3.8M this weekend an 6th place for a fresh cume of $157.6M. in #8, DreamWorks’ sequel Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (2,768) made $3.2 million this weekend for a huge new cume of $170M. And, rounding out the Top 10, Lionsgate’s Transporter 3 (2,541) made $2.2M this weekend for a new cume of $29.2M.
For more estimates listed by title, see box office results here...Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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It will probably do better than $40M due to the fact that this country is largely made up of people without the skills to discern quality.
It looks too scary for me.
Roughly 50 % of the audience I saw a preview with were female. And no, they weren’t dragged into the theater by their bfs, they wanted to see Keanu.
Robert Knepper’s mini-cameo was a slap in the face (of the Prison Break crowd), Kathy Bates gets a few more minutes.
Too bad the boys were so in love with their CGI, it got a bit much and overpowers the well-written quiet scenes that don’t rely on expository dialogue to convey what’s happening. Perhaps that was a mistake, though, judging from the “event-movie” fanboy bloggers who expected a different kind of movie.
It reminds me on “The Happening” (as does the intro of Helen Benson in TDTESS), which was equally dissed by critics but managed to do quite well in the end, worldwide.
C’mon now people. Keanue is not like some other actors that is trying too hard and releasing movies based on their US Weekly infamy.
Cut the guy some slack. Sure he is not the best actor out there but he gave what I call ‘movientertainment’. Not like some actors whose chosen role is geared for the Oscars and forgot to entertain the audiences
Having said that, I am looking fwd to his new flick and here’s hoping for a big finising B.O this wknd. I give it above 40M this weekend with a sure shot of 100M when all said and done.
On a side note Nikki, when has the critics has ever got it 100% right with the audiences? The disconnect is so apparent that we pay no attention to them no more. I for one am glad they are no longer view as an asset and 1st to be let go by the media companies. RottenTomatoes is next inline..here’s hoping!
It’s going to bomb, FOX are so desperate the TV spots are touting that they have the X-Men Wolverine trailer in front of it, rather than saying anything about the movie itself.
& likewise the $80m negative cost must be b/s for an effects based movie, but let’s face it long gone are the days when the studios told the truth on budgets.
My prediction $32m this weekend, $14m next.
If these precious critics know how to make a movie that’s good, how come they’re not all Directors??
I hope Nothing Like the Holidays does well, or you’ll have studio execs refusing to make any films with Latino stars for years (they of course won’t see that it may not do well do to there being a wildly popular Christmas film arleady out there.)
Day the Earth also has man of the hour JON HAMM. While this is not his breakout role it clearly shows that when this guy is on screen he commands attention. I hear he’s being offered starring roles now for studio flicks and I see why. He should be the new Jack Ryan or an action star — the guy’s cool, and not just on Mad Men.
I’m seeing other sources with Delgo lower. Maybe as low as 100K for friday.
Is this the lowest opening for a wide release ever?
Who loses BIG cash with this holiday turkey?
I am in the older age group that gave “TDTEST” a D as a remake and probably a C+ if it was just promoted as a regular action flick. Judging from the original I wasn’t dissing the acting so much as I was the story and the missing elements that gave the original the interesting premise and the satisfying conclusion both missing in this remake or reinvention or whatever they want to call it nowadays. Meanwhile if the Academy doesn’t reward Eastwood “Changeling” or Jolie or the film itself as one of the top five I will be at the front door of the Kodak theater on OSCAR night crying and screaming ” FOUL”.
For a remake of the the 50s classic,I really enjoyed it. What made this one different wasn’t just the envorimental themes in it but the fact that Mr. Klaatu had a backstory which the original didn’t have. And the robot was larger than life in this one. Still the movie retained some of the original film’s elements. But it’s not scary but it’s fun to watch.
just watched Gran Torino – oldschool but awesome. judging by the audience it brought out the over 40′s (and plenty who were eastwood’s age) Carmel’s ex-mayor could be polishing a best actor oscar soon – it’s possibly his last on screen performance and the academy loves a story
I saw TDTESS today and there are two HORRIBLY OBVIOUS product placements, one for McDonalds and one for LG phones. As an audience member I felt angry and used. It was like the companies and the filmmakers were like, “Bitch, we got your money already, so we’re going to cram this down your throat and we don’t care!” The product placements took me completely out of the story.
As a member of SAG and an artist I felt sick to my stomach for filmmakers everywhere. The shots were so obvious that I could imagine representatives of the companies on set the day the shots were done insisting that they be done a certain way. I weep for the future if the AMPTP has its way with product placements unchecked.
Tacky and horrible.
Also, filmmakers, please get children who can act for instrumental roles. The script for this film is bad as well – dialog and scenes were too simple, without creativity or nuance. And FX were bad in a number of shots, although the orbs are pretty. I could have used more of John Cleese’s character – he added some much needed warmth. I think everyone else was acting too much to the spectacle of the movie – not the humanity of each character.
I actually feel dirty after seeing this film because it was so heavy handed, but mostly because of the ridiculous product placement shots.
Also, saw Gran Torino.
Sorry, next time get people who can act. I understand needing genuine Hmong (although bad delivery with long strings of dialog and unnatural phrasing was annoying). But where did that priest come from? He has credits, but I thought he was a local hire, for lack of a better explanation for his casting, also Clint’s family members. Terrible acting like he was just paid to stand there and say lines and blink a lot and try and look earnest. A couple of takes might work well with well trained professionals, but with people off the street or without the chops, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.
Clint was the only person whose acting was up to snuff.
Also there are two shots where the boom drops into the frame so obviously that I saw others in the theater mumbling to each other about it.
Too bad everyone is so up Clint’s ass whatever he does that no one will admit that there is something very student film about the script (“the old man…”), cast, and technical craftsmanship on the part of the crew. There is a reason people make films in Hollywood with professionals.
Lefty wrote…”It will probably do better than $40M due to the fact that this country is largely made up of people without the skills to discern quality.”
What a condescending a-hole you are, Lefty.
Going Green? It felt like they were promoting an enironmental story, but it was never clear. It reminded me a little bit like “Day After Tomorrow”. It was fun to watch, but ended with a dud. I bet they add extra minutes to the DVD and give it a better ending…
Opening this weekend: An Inconvenient Truth 2 starring Keanu Reeves.
Please Hollywood, enough with the preachy sci-fi!
“The Day the Earth Still” was not an Improvement over the original. The story was mutated in so many ways it lost the original flavor and mystic. It’s worth a watch to compare and enhance one appreciation for the original 50′s version…
See, I tried to tell you all but you wouldn’t listen. This movie is exactly what will happen because of global warming. And we can all thank Al Gore for the results as Mr. Gore is the one that invented global warming!@
Keanu Reeves is, honestly, the only actor who literally makes me cringe. I can’t believe any reputable director or actor would work with him.
Saw “The Day.” All of the actors were superb, the kid steals the movie, Jennifer Connelly and Kathy Bates both play intelligent women, two in one movie, a rare event. Keanu Reeves found a role that suits him once again, monosyllabic and void in emotion. John Cleese is cool. But the film’s glaring flaw is that it suffocates you with left wing-liberal ideology;you just go (oh no, not again, mankind is EVIL) and it finishes with blatant messianic overtones, a strange mix coming from HOLLYWOOD,(I don’t want give away to much). But still it has great special effects and is worth seeing.
I go to movies to be entertained, not to be indoctrinated by some liberal BS. I won’t be going.
How about a movie with some real entertainment value! Now that would be different.
This was the worst movie I have seen in years!The screenplay was obviously penned by another left wingnut college dropout who puts political correctness and spurius information to the forefront of every bad scene.Save your money! You have been warned……
Leave out the environmentalist wack jobs nonsense (a delusion designed to get the whole world in line) and I’d go see this “remake” of a classic,even with Keanu Reeves in it. Now I won’t even watch it when it comes to DVD.
About 650 of them(global scientists) from around the world have joined Stanley Goldenberg, an atmospheric scientist at NOAA, who wrote in a report to the IPCC: “It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.”
Being a long time Science Fiction afficianado, I was really looking forward to the retelling of TDTESS. Planned on going to the IMAX and all . . . then I found out about the environmental theme of the remake. Y’know I’d pay real money if Hollywood could get get away from the “Evil Humans Destroying the Environment” plot. Seems that just about every SF flick made in the last 10-20 years has that same old tired theme. Are there any original thinkers still left in Tinsle Town? Seems not, just politically correct, eviro-extremists. Or possibly just lazy, don’t rock the boat, stick-with-the-formula types.