By Vince Palomarez | Images property of respective holders.
Just Like Heaven takes the box office.
Hey folks! Here are the box office totals for the
weekend of September 18:
September 18 Box Office Overview
1. Just Like Heaven ($16.5 million, 1st
week of release): We’re in week 3 of the down period before Oscar
season starts and despite what studios make you think, both Just Like
Heaven and Lord of War are throwaway movies that are trying
to take advantage of a mediocre theater lineup. If either of these movies
were released earlier in the summer or later in the fall season they would
be a blip in the radar despite the A-List talent they have on board. The
reason why Just Like Heaven won the top spot over the heavily promoted Lord
of War is because audiences have shown over the past few months that
they’d rather see a romantic comedy over anything else. The successes
of Wedding Crashers
and The 40 Year-Old
Virgin show proof of this, but don’t expect Heaven
to match the totals of either of those films. This film was pretty much
slaughtered by critics and I guarantee you will drop pretty fast in the
charts over the next few weeks.
2. The Exorcism of
Emily Rose ($15.3 million, $52 million total): After last
week’s impressive $30 million opening, I was expecting a huge drop
the second week. While 49% is a pretty big drop it wasn’t as big as
I thought it would be and a $15 million total in its second week is nothing
to complain about. Screen Gems can look at this as the usual drop off that
befalls all horror films that aren’t named Scream. With a
$52 million total over 2 weeks the film has doubled its production cost
($19 million) and should take in a nice little profit. But if the film continues
dropping 50% or more each week they can kiss the top 10 good bye.
3. Lord of War
($9.2 million, 1st week of release): Like I mentioned earlier, it was a
two man race for the top spot between this and Just Like Heaven
and I wasn’t too surprised that Lord of War didn’t
finish on top. This just continues the trend (Transporter
2 excluded) of audience’s lack of enthusiasm for
action films unless they are based on a comic book character or star Tom
Cruise. Nicolas Cage is a big name and has a fan base that will see any
of his films, but from the looks of things that was about the only people
that showed up. Lack of advertising until the month of its release, poor
reviews, a film with a war theme during a time of war are all factors that
could explain why this film didn’t open with a $20 million plus opening,
but my guess would be that moviegoers are getting more educated on what
studios are trying to release and they know crap when they see it (Transporter
2 excluded…..had to sneak that one in).
Cry Wolf can't scare up an audience
4. The 40 Year-Old
Virgin ($5.8 million, $90.6 million total): 5th week of
release, drops only 24% and is $10 million away from the $100 million mark.
Steve Carell has just shot into superstar category. The guy was virtually
an unknown aside from his work on The Daily Show and the little
watched The Office. Now with a $100 million dollar film on his
resume he’s about to jump into the Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell comedy
level and we should start seeing many more films from Mr. Carell. This is
a huge success for all parties involved and should add some momentum for
writer/director Judd Apatow’s next project Fun
with Dick and Jane (starring Jim Carrey and Téa
Leoni) which he wrote the script for.
5. Cry Wolf
($4.5 million, 1st week of release): There was next to no advertising for
this film, it’s jumping in to an already crowded horror category that
hasn’t been too successful this year and it take in $4 million this
weekend? I wouldn’t be complaining if I was one of the execs at Rogue
Studios. You have to expect Emily Rose to suck up the majority
of the horror crowd due to all the advertising and word of mouth (good or
bad) that was built up for it prior to its release. Even though Cry
Wolf had a strong internet campaign I really didn’t have high
expectations for it. With no big names, a small budget and a small theater
run, $4.5 million is definitely a positive. Cry Wolf might have
one more week left in the top 10, but should hang around the lower part
of the top 20 for a month or so and make a small profit that will probably
warrant a direct to DVD sequel.
The Transporter 2 falling fast.
The rest of the pack:
6. Transporter 2 $4 million ($36 million total)
7. The Constant
Gardener $3.6 million ($24 million total)
8. Red Eye
$2.9 million ($55 million total)
9. March of the Penguins $2.5 million ($70 million total)
10. Wedding Crashers $2.5 million ($203 million total)
Nothing really much to add that I haven’t said a few times before.
Transporter 2 continues its downward spiral dropping another 45%
from last week. It managed to make its production budget back sometime last
week so now the folks at Fox can look to rake in the prophet during its
DVD run. Aside from March of the Penguins (which is now the second
highest grossing documentary of all time) dropping only 3%, The Constant
Gardner showed some staying strength as it gets ready to battle the
Oscar hopefuls next month. The film dropped only 21% even though it added
a few more theaters for a weekend total of $3.6 million. That’s about
on par with what it’s made during its three week run at the box office.
Lastly, I want to say good bye to an old friend that has been with us for
ten weeks now. Wedding Crashers made one last stand to stay in
the top 10 dropping 22% and taking in another $2.5 million. Ten weeks and
$203 million later the film is bowing out gracefully and I have to say it
has been fun watching its up and down journey to being one of the top grossing
films of the year .
Last weeks predictions:
1. Just Like Heaven $20 million
2. Lord of War $18 million
3. The Exorcism of Emily Rose $12 million
4. The 40 Year-old Virgin $6 million
5. Transporter 2 $5 million
6. Cry Wolf $5 million
7. Red Eye $4 million
8. The Man $3 million
9. Wedding Crashers $2 million
10. Thumbsucker
$2 million (My surprise pick of the week!)
I really won’t go too into detail on last weeks predictions other
than to say that I was fairly close (for once) with the top 5. I will say
this; someone needs to slap me upside the head for putting Thumbsucker
in the 10th spot. The film was only released in nine theaters from crying
out loud. Oh well…can’t win them all.
The Corpse Bride comes swinging.
Box Office predictions for next weekend:
Since this week's overview is a little short and I have shown that I am clueless when it comes to the bottom half of the top 10, I'm only going to predict the top 5:
1. Tim Burton's The
Corpse Bride $40 million
2. Flightplan
$28 million
3. Just Like Heaven $9 million
4. Lord of War $7 million
5. The Exorcism of Emily Rose $7 million
Let's try something new this week, I want to hear from you guys what you
think the totals are. Agree with me? Disagree? E-mail (vince@canmag.com)
me your totals and I'll post the person who comes closest to the actual
totals.
Just Like Heaven takes the box office.
Cry Wolf can't scare up an audience
The Transporter 2 falling fast.
The Corpse Bride comes swinging.
Add to Heffee!
