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SUNDAY AM UPDATE: I'm out of town so I'll keep this short. What a strange and depressing opening weekend for movies. Tyler Perry does another of his trademark melodramas for Lionsgate, I Can Do Bad All By Himself. But the opening weekend total of $24M was only his 3rd best despite the widest release in his history (2,255 theaters) and the presense of his stereoptical alter ego Madea (his Madea Goes To Jail made $41M its debut weekend). Tim Burton produced the animated sci-fi 9, which opened solidly on Wednesday for Focus Features and continued through the weekend. Joel Silver's Dark Castle has another disappointment in Whiteout starring Kate Beckinsale and distributed by Warner Bros. And Summit Entertainment should be ashamed to release a "horrific" film like Sorority Row. Not much more to say. Here are the numbers, pretty much as expected, except for the continuing strength of the holdovers:
1. I Can Do Bad (Lgate) NEW [2,255] $8.5M Fri, $10.2M Sat, Wkd $24M
2. 9 (Focus) NEW [1,661] $3.3M Fri, $4.8M Sat, Wkd $10.8M, Cume $15.2M
3. Basterds (Wein/Uni) Wk 4 [3,215] $1.8M Fri, $3M Sat, Wkd $6.5M, Cume $104.3M
4. Steve (Fox) Wk 2 [2,265] $1.8M Fri, $2.7M Sat, Wkd $5.8M, Cume $21.8M
5. Final Dest (WB) Wk 3 [2,732] $1.7M Fri, $2.6M Sat, Wkd $5.5M, Cume $58.2M
6. Sorority Row (Summit) NEW [2,665] $1.9M Fri, $2M Sat, Wkd $5.2M
7. Whiteout (WB) NEW [2,745] $1.7M Fri, #2M Sat, Wkd $5.1M
8. District 9 (Sony) Wk 5 [2,560] $1M Fri, #1.8Sat, Wkd $3.6M, Cume $108.5M
9. Julie/Julia (Sony) Wk 6 [2,342] $.9M Fri, $1.7M Sat, Wkd $3.3M, Cume $85.3M
10. Gamer (Lgate) Wk 2 [2,502] $1M Fri, $1.4M Sat, Wkd $3.1M, Cume $16.1M
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Nikki,
All About Steve bears the honor of having the worst ROTTON TOMATOES score all year with 6%. How does Sandra Bullock hold her head up? What a bad choice for a middle aged actress.
Strolling into the Arclight for a 5:20 showing of the uber-hot sisters of Sorority Row, I counted nine people in there.
After the house lights came up I heard nine ‘WTF was that’ in unison. Summit should be ashamed of that debacle. Hiring old men to write young and hip. If this is any indication of their skill, I cannot wait to see what these two douchebags conjure up for their next; Piranha 3D. I’m hoping they give the razor sharp teeth fish dialogue.
The film is a laughable sort. Unintentionally funny. Not even tongue in cheek funny. Did Summit even read the script written in crayon?
After Twilight, I’m afraid that the studio will end up like Artisan. Remember Artisan? The house that the Blair Witch built…
And Summit does it again. First with SEX DRIVE, then with PUSH, then with HURT LOCKER, then with BANDSLAM, and now with SORORITY ROW. They can’t sell their movies. The bad ones, the good ones, the important ones, and now even the campy ones. They just keep missing the audience they seek.
But Sorority Row? Shouldn’t that have been a no brainer? High camp. Sex. And yet, it craps out. How do you miss with salacious ads and a title like Sorority Row? Lionsgate wouldn’t have missed. Harvey wouldn’t have missed. And yet, Summit flops. Again.
To be fair – Summit does make decent films. I liked KNOWING, sort of. And, HURT LOCKER was one of my favorite films all year. And BANDSLAM should have been the teen film for a new generation, had the new generation not been so turned off to the ads. Heck, I only saw it because there was so much talk about it on these boards. Eric Feig deserves credit, HURT LOCKER, and BANDSLAM are both great films, with the wrong distributors. But SORORITY ROW? I’m assuming Eric that you made that for one reason and one reason only. So when that reason craps out, do you begin to wonder, what’s going on with my marketing department? Granted, anyone who casts Rumer Willis should have their head examined, but still that’s a terrible result.
All I can say is, Thank God for Vampires because you all need something to work, or you’ll be out of work.
Basterds still in the top 3!? Where are all you haters, now? So glad a great flick is doing great.
To Zatkowsky:
Ummm get your facts straight Z. Summit acquired HURT LOCKER, and BANDSLAM. Feig had nothing to do with making those films. He might have had something to do with KNOWING, but that sucked. I wouldn’t put it in a category with either one of those other films. I know for a fact that the other two films came to Feig as movies in the can. As far as TWILIGHT goes, I think it’s LOST BOYS part deux.
Excuse me for not even addressing SORORITY ROW.
Mish
I’m surprised “9″ is doing this well. Although I’m a big animation-head and I liked it, I thought it would tank (PG-13 and R animation almost always does). It’ll actually end up being break-even to profitable, I think. It’s nice to see some more original movies doing well this summer.
I saw GAMER, even though it was a little gory for my taste, I liked it. To bad it’s not doing well. It was actually a good movie.
Why does Kate Beckinsale keep getting hired? And seriously Taraji Tyler Perry? I used to like Taraji until the Oscar nom went to her head.
Ewww…how can anyone compare Twilight to the awesomeness of The Lost Boys?
Isn’t “9″ really a pretty big success? Not to repeat Fawkes — but edgy, low budget, PG-13 animation opens on 1600 screens and does $15m with the highest per-screen of any movie….seems like a lot more than most speciality companies are opening films to these days. After this and Coraline ($75m, I think), Focus seems to have really found an additional and really good business for themselves.
Sorority Row was just a campy slasher that was a throwback to the 90’s slashers that came after “Scream”. It wasn’t bad. It wasn’t excellent. But it was a fun silly movie that will do well on DVD.
But Summit marketed the hell out of this. Maybe they should have never moved it’s release date up and left it where it was originally.
Even though Inglorious Bastards is doing phenomenal the fact that Halloween II isn’t even in the top 10 anymore has to be disappointing for The Weinstein Company. Not only did they fully own that movie, but they also could have made Halloween into the low-budget high-grossing horror franchise that Saw has become. Now they also have the problem of their next movie being titled Nine only a couple of months after 9 comes out, which should only make marketing a hard to market movie even harder.
Is that Tyler Perry poster a “Straw Dogs” homage?
And if so … ?!
Wait a sec, Nikki. You’re placing the failure of Whiteout on Joel Silver? How about the fact that Kate Beckinsdale is not a star and clearly cannot open a movie without the name Underworld. Yes, she has a new agency, but it won’t change the fact that America doesn’t care about her. You call out plenty of other “stars” here. She should get the same treatment from you Nikki.
Quentin is still chugging away. I guess some of you were wrong
Sorority Row never had a chance and watch for Jennifer’s Body to tank for the same reasons. There is no audience for “camp” horror movies.
The tracking for Jennifer’s Body with the main horror audience, i.e. young women aged 16 to 34, is horrible because it chosses “camp” and sex over horror and fright.
You see the young women who make up the mainstream horror audience like to be scared. They don’t mind a little humor but only when mixed with lots and lots of scary moments. And they sure as heck aren’t looking for “boobage” which is pretty much all Sorority Row was selling.
The trick to making successful movies is knowing the audience and giving them what they want. The guys at Summit don’t seem to understand the audiences they are trying to sell to and that’s why no one is buying.
I’m glad to see Inglourious Basterds doing so well. Tarantino is a great interviewee, and even though he is annoying most of the time, he is enthusiastic and his films are always entertaining.
One of the co-stars of Whiteout is Alex O’loughlin, and he starred in one CBS series, Moonlight-yes, it was about vampires, and CBS, professionals that they are supposed to be, apparently can’t recognize a trend if it bit them in the neck-and it about to star in another one. I understand that he filmed Whiteout before he was even tapped for his first series, so I don’t know why they took so long to release the film but at this point they are probably just trying to get some money from it.
“And Summit Entertainment should be ashamed to release a “horrific” film like Sorority Row. ”
Hey Nikki — to quote Freddy Krueger in NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3 — “Who gives a f*ck what you think?!”
I have no doubt SORORITY ROW sucks as a movie, but your continued rants against horror films is getting old. If it weren’t for horror films, this industry would have gone damn near bust perhaps a dozen times over its lifespan. It’s been horror that’s been keeping it afloat since THE RING and FREDDY VS JASON.
Whether you like these films or not, cive credit where credit is due.
It’s not ‘Tim Burton’s 9′. It was made by a director named Shane Acker; his first feature. Seriously, Nikki, give the man his due. Burton was a removed executive producer. Don’t insult a hard-working animation talent by discredint him like that!
It’s perplexing to see ‘Sorority Row’ as it’s not an awful movie. It’s an entertaining piece of pop-horror. Not a masterpiece but not awful either. I guess audiences just decided to take a break from horror after Rob Zombie’s truly awful ‘Halloween 2′.
‘Summit should be ashamed of releasing a ‘horrific’ film like ‘Sorority’. (shakes his head) No amount of harping against horror it’s going to stop these movies from being made, Nikki. They make money. Some of them even make large amounts of money. And there are hordes of horror movie fans in the USA and around. Just accept that the genre exists, and will continue to exist.
I’m really happy “9″ is doing so well and it’s showing there is a strong market for teenage/adult themed animation. The only disappointment with “9″ was the story past the 30 minute mark. Hopefully, the studios see that there is a market for these movies, especially if they’re done at a great pricepoint.
Tyler Perry doing it big!!!!!!!! thats my man right there!! It’s great to see a successful black man producing moives for all races to see that has awesome messages in them whether it’s to make you have a closer relationship with Jesus Christ, or loving your spouses the way they’re supposed to be loved, to even loving your children right!! This man covers all aspects of family life and how we’re supposed to treat each other but, at the same time he always have those funny ass characters like Daddy charles, and Madea(that mother figure who everyone in your neighborhood knows that would keep the families and the neighborhood laughing,crying,but safe at the same time!! God bless you Mr. Perry and I hope you will one day have OH SO TALENTED BEYONCE in one of your future films!!!