Forecast
Moviegoers are either going to Meet the Parents or Remember the Titans this weekend as, with the Olympics ended, studios are finally stepping up to the plate with their more commercial fare after the dumping ground that was September.
"I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me?" retorts Robert DeNiro to Ben Stiller in Meet the Parents. Aside from that gem though, the ad campaign has been mixed. It seems to miss opportunities for laughs, like with the lie detector scenes. "Have you had pre-marital relations with my daughter?," asks DeNiro. After Ben Stiller mumbles no and the machine goes off, all DeNiro responds with is "Let's skip that question." The funniest parts deal with the cat and milking, like when DeNiro shouts "You milked him (the cat) you sick son-of-a-bitch! Didn't You!" Stiller's shenanigans with the cat hearken back to the dog scenes in There's Something About Mary. The picture also appeals in a similar persona clash vein as Analyze This did, the intimidating tough guy DeNiro opposite a neurotic, Billy Crystal then and now Stiller. Analyze gave DeNiro the best opening of his career with $18.4 million, though its concept was higher than Parents and it additionally played on the star's mobster persona.
No October release has opened to more than the $17.2 million posted by Antz in 1998. Get Shorty's $12.7 million is the best opening a comedy the month has seen. However, considering that few pictures opened last month, these first weeks of October could behave like the second half of September. Many strong openings have occurred at that time including for such comedies as The First Wive's Club and In and Out.
With a paucity of outright comedies lately and a relatable premise to the date crowd in its favor, Meet the Parents could milk around $18 million from 2,612 venues this weekend.
Remember the Titans proved again that a saturation release and ubiquitous ad campaign are not necessary to launch a picture into the stratosphere. Playing at 1,865 stadiums, it stormed the field with $20.9 million last weekend, averaging $11,210. Though it certainly benefited from pent-up demand for something worth seeing, it marks by far the biggest kick-off for a football flick ever, a genre heretofore not known for huge openings. That's also the best debut of Denzel Washington's career, displacing his previous Jerry Bruckheimer collaboration Crimson Tide's $18.6 million (though it's still his best in terms of ticket sales with an adjusted opening of around $23 million). Boding well for its longevity, Titans became the first picture of the year to garner an A+ from CinemaScore's audience polling. This weekend, Disney aggressively expands its release by 836 theaters to 2,701, though most of those are smaller markets. A modest decline could be in store putting it in the $17 million range and neck-and-neck with Meet the Parents for the top spot.
Sylvester Stallone lumbers back onto the screen after a three-year absence with Get Carter. The remake of the 1971 Michael Caine-starrer comes off as a humorless Payback, which was also a blue-filtered redo of a classic tough guy flick (Point Blank). Distributor Warner Bros. offered no press screenings, usually a bad sign. It's co-produced by the red ink spilling Franchise Pictures, a company now infamous for such fiascoes as Battlefield Earth and The Art of War. They cater to stars' whims even if they are fiscally or aesthetically irresponsible. They are also producing Stallone's car racing picture Driven, which he wrote and has been ballyhooing about for a while now. Back to Carter, the Dubya-B has had a modicum of success releasing Stallone pictures on this same weekend in the past. 1993's Demolition Man and 1994's The Specialist launched with $14.3 million each, while Assassins mustered a $9.4 million in 1995. Carter appears closer to the latter, slightly beefed up by those starving for pure action. Seeking revenge at 2,315 venues, an opening in the $9 million range could be in store.
What's the difference between Digimon and Pokemon? Is that kind of like Go-Bots vs. Transformers? Apparently, Digimon's less popular than the fading Pokemon, it doesn't have a catchy, virulent theme song like "Pokemon-mon-mon," nor does its title sound nearly as pornographic. The second Pokemon movie opened to $19.6 million last July. If Digimon has about a quarter of the audience, that puts it in the $5 million range from its 1,822-theater launch.
Almost Famous rolls into another 450 venues this weekend, for a total of 2,085, wider than the more popular and fellow DreamWorks' Oscar bait American Beauty ever reached. Last weekend, Famous had a similarly sized expansion, yet still dipped 19% to $5.6 million for a modest $3,407 average and a $17.8 million cume. Considering that its new markets will be smaller than the last and its lack of momentum, adding so many screens seems a waste of money on prints for a picture that still has an inexplicably high $60 million production budget to hurdle. An average decline to the $4 million range looks to be in the cards.
Over the same frame last year, Double Jeopardy's deal with the devil allotted it a third weekend in the top spot, down 20% to $13.5 million en route to $116.7 million total. Harrison Ford's Random Hearts barely got off the ground with $13 million from 2,697 runways, rapidly losing altitude after that to a total of $31.1 million. Three Kings retreated by 24% to $12 million for third in its campaign to $60.7 million. American Beauty finally blossomed to a wide release, 1,226 theaters, and enjoyed a 16% rise to $9.5 million and fourth place, on its Oscar-ridden route to $130.1 million. The annual Saturday-Night-Live-skit-turned-movie Superstar glimmered modestly in fifth with $8.9 million from 1,943 venues, topping out at $30.6 million.
