SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM: Rentrak is having system issues so box office will be a bit late today. But Paramount was so worried about its No Strings Attached being a stinker that the studio didn’t even bother to give me a pre-release briefing. I don’t necessarily blame them: any movie starring Ashton Kutcher is probably a bomb since his last one — PG-13 Killers with Katherine Heigl — opened to only 15ドル.8M for Lionsgate. And rom-coms, especially sexy R-rated ones (Ed Zwick’s Love And Other Drugs which opened to only 9ドル.7M for Fox with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal) have been stillborn at the North American box office with this caliber of star. But No Strings Attached surprised at the box office, not only coming in No. 1 but with a decent 20ドル.3M. Exit polls showed 70% of the audience was female, meaning it should be the least affected by football on Sunday. As for CinemaScore, 40% of those aged under 25 gave the film an “A-” while 60% over 25 scored it a “B”.
This 25ドル million-cost movie started out as a Black List script titled Fuckbuddies and written by Elizabeth Merriwether. Natalie Portman came on board as a producer and star for Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock’s The Montecito Picture Company, which co-financed in partnership with Coldspring and Paramount’s usual partner Spyglass Entertainment.
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Natalie is hot after her Oscar-worthy transformative performance in Black Swan and now finds herself with 2 movies in this weekend’s Top 6. And perhaps risking overexposure because of her new pics opening in January, February, April, and May. Anyway, the pic took advantage of being the only wide opening this weekend and may hang on for 20ドルM. (Remember, it took Ron Howard’s Dilemma starring Vince Vaughn and Kevin James 4 days to even make that over the MLK long holiday.) The film had been tracking strong with 20-year-old females whom Paramount pursued aggresively not with traditional newspaper ads but instead with a big Facebook push of a sexy Red Band trailer. Meanwhile, Sony’s The Green Hornet 3D and Universal’s aforementioned Dilemma look to drop more than -35% each this weekend. Here’s the Top 10:
1. No Strings Attached (Paramount) NEW [3,018 Theaters]
Friday 7ドル.3M, Saturday 8ドル.2M, Weekend 20ドル.3M
2. The Green Hornet 3D (Sony) Week 2 [3,584 Theaters]
Friday 5ドル.1M, Saturday 8ドル.7M, Weekend 18ドル.1M (-31%), Cume 63ドル.4M
3. The Dilemma (Universal) Week 2 [2,943 Theaters]
Friday 3ドルM, Saturday 4ドル.5M, Weekend 9ドル.9M (-33%), Cume 33ドル.5M
4. The King’s Speech (Weinstein Co) Week 9 [1,680 Theaters]
Friday 2ドル.1M, Saturday 3ドル.9M, Weekend 9ドル.1M, Cume 58ドル.6M
5. True Grit (Paramount) Week 5 [3,464 Theaters]
Friday 2ドル.1M, Saturday 3ドル.8M, Weekend 7ドル.9M, Cume 138ドル.5M
6. Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Week 8 [2,407 Theaters]
Friday 1ドル.7M, Saturday 2ドル.7M, Weekend 6ドル.2M, Cume 83ドル.5M
7. Little Fockers (Universal) Week 5 [2,979 Theaters]
Friday 1ドル.2M, Saturday 2ドル.2M, Weekend 4ドル.7M, Cume 141ドル.4M
8. The Fighter (Relativity/Paramount) Week 6 [2,275 Theaters]
Friday 1ドル.2M, Saturday 2ドル.1M, Weekend 4ドル.6M, Cume 73ドル.1M
9. Yogi Bear 3D (Warner Bros) Week 6 [2,510 Theaters]
Friday 740ドルK, Saturday 2ドルM, Weekend 3ドル.8M, Cume 88ドル.6M
9. Tron: The Legacy 3D (Disney) Week 7 [2,018 Theaters]
Friday 930ドルK, Saturday 1ドル.8M, Weekend 3ドル.7M, Cume 163ドル.3M
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Hahahahahahahaha!!!
Green Hornet had big legs and will be a hit after all of you bagged it for being number One.
Looks like your guys get less and Seth Rogan Owns YOU!
Amazing how a romantic comedy can do well when it is based on a tightly written script that’s actually funny and cast with actual movie stars who can act, instead of a bunch of over-aged high school burnouts spewing out long chains of fart jokes and toilet humor like Ben Stiller, Zach Galifianakis, Paul Rudd, Zach Braff, Jason Segel, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogan, all their leading ladies and anyone who’s ever brushed up next to a ‘Little Fockers’ movie. Katherine Heigl, for example, is a brilliant comic actress but she keeps getting tied down by these idiots. Natalie Portman did it right by signing up with Ashton Kutcher.
Thanks Keith Urban
Before I forget, someone in this forum a few weeks ago claimed the latest HP movie was not living up to expectations, that the BO fell off too fast and simply wasn’t there because they cut the film into to parts.
Well that little move basically doubled the final books potential box office take. HOATDH just moved into the number 10 spot of all time with 938ドル million.
I would have to say that was a brilliant move by the studio don’t you think?
Paramount’s going to try and spin these numbers for the positive, but the fact that the movie did 6,700ドル per screen proves it’s NOT A HIT AT ALL. The studio’s going to claim loads of P&A and this movie will never show a profit on the books. The above the line talent that took lower upfront fees in exchange for a back end position will never see a penny. This movie probably tricked some people on opening weekend into seeing it, but it will drop hard and fast very soon. The takeaway here is that Ashton Kutcher is NOT a movie star. I’m a fan of Natalie Portman, but she’s NOT a movie star. The agents will continue to try and use smoke and mirrors to get their clients tons of cash on movies, but when are the studios going to just say no? You can swap in ANY talent for this type of movie and the box office will be the same. Lame concept and a lame time for filmmaking in general. Let’s wake up people and stop rewarding this crap. Let’s get back to the basics when quality mattered!