The Will Ferrell-Adam McKay teaming still works gangbusters. Each film they’ve teamed up for has done at least $85 million, with $30-something-million openings a virtual guarantee at this point. McKay doesn’t seem to be a selling point, so there must be some sort of pedigree the audience recognizes in the “real” Ferrell movies he does with McKay as opposed to the other, lesser films he does in between. The opening weekend of his last starring role, last year’s “Land of the Lost,” was only half of what “The Other Guys” is expected to do after final estimates.
For McKay, this might get his name above the title of his next film, expected to be the darkly comic satire “The Boys.” For Ferrell, it’s an extension of the brand of a reliable comedian. With “Blades of Glory” is his only bonafide non-McKay hit after “Anchorman” (and he’ll always have “Elf” on his resume, still his top grosser), there’s still doubt over whether he can strike out without McKay; he’s been reluctant to leave his long-time collaborator – McKay served as a producer on “Land of the Lost” and an uncredited co-writer on “Bewitched.” This is the first McKay-Ferrell teaming that Ferrell didn’t co-write – is it possible for both to head in different directions after four straight successful team-ups? Or will Ferrell continue to dabble in subpar projects only to return to the “McKay well” when he needs a hit? And can we finally get “Anchorman 2” or do we have to suffer through another “Old School” for that?
“Inception” continues killin’ it. The legs can surely be attributed at this point to repeat viewings from people eager to solve the film’s many riddles, like, where does Tom Hardy get that fancy wardrobe, and why is Marion Cotillard such a bitch? A 32% drop in weekend four is just amazing, and, while still a longshot, a $300 domestic cume remains a possibility.
The dreamers were able to weather the dancers, with “Step Up 3D” registering the weakest opening of the series. Even with inflation and those higher 3D prices, “Step Up 3D” didn’t seem to distinguish itself from the others in the series (and really, how would you?) and it looks like this might be the end of the “Step Up” franchise for a while, though the films are cheap and probably turn a profit easily for Summit Entertainment. These are opening weekend pictures, and few films are more frontloaded than 3D offerings, indeed, 80% of this film’s ticket sales were from 3D venues. Maybe they should have cut a trailer as incredible as the one for the second film.
The action dollar remains more elastic than the comedy one this summer, as “Salt” has stood its ground against some of the big boys to become a capable summer programmer. It stuck around in the top five, and is currently on the precipice of $100 million domestic, with the savvy international women-jumping-on-trucks demographic sure to generate boffo business as well. It leap-frogged the dead-in-the-water “Dinner For Schmucks,” which appeared to be courting the “Other Guys” demo, only to secure one meager opening frame before Will Ferrell’s rampage. Paul Rudd and Steve Carell are solid leading men for that type of film, but it was clearly a b-product through and through for those guys and their audience.
The performers are performing, and the bombs are falling by the wayside almost on schedule, as “Despicable Me” crossed $200 million this weekend, standing at #6 after five solid weekends. We don’t have a breakdown as to how theaters have allocated their 3D resources, but we’ll bet because of the small audience loss each week, “Despicable Me” has retained the lion’s share of its 3D screens. The kid-flick was able to weather sharp falls from “Cats And Dogs” and “Charlie St. Cloud,” both of which took large week #2 tumbles. “Dogs” is superficially keeping its head above water due to having the most screens of any movie in the nation, but many of those theaters are empty, empty, empty. “Cloud,” meanwhile, was Zac Efron’s “Remember Me” so not a huge surprise for all involved.
Right underneath “Toy Story 3” is the indie hit “The Kids Are All Right,” but with a mousey per-screen average in slightly under 1000 theaters, it looks like the studio has more faith in it than they should. Still, $20 million is in play, but the p&a was bigger than most expected for this type of film, and someone out there was banking on the $40 million this would have done in the Clinton era. At least it kicked “Grown Ups” out of the top ten, though that stands to cap out at $160 million, which, for those counting, is $145 million more than Lisa Cholodenko’s latest.
In other indie news, “Get Low” expanded to 26 locations and pulled in a solid $9k per-screen, right above the debut of Rob Reiner’s “Flipped.” We’re not sure about this one, but it seems odd a Rob Reiner ode-to-the-50’s film would be cheap enough to dump in arthouse cinemas like that – the business was brisk for a 45 screen debut, but we have no idea what Rob Reiner is owed budget-wise for his personal project. A Bronx jeer for Hannover House, the tiny indie distributor who have released four huge flops in their history, the latest being Joel Schumacher’s “Twelve.” The poorly-marketed indie opened on 231 screens for a per-screen average of $463. If you’re still doing the math, that’s appropriately twelve separate people.
A strong debut for “Lebanon” in the arthouse circuit allowed the foreign film to score $16.7k on two screens, underneath “The Wildest Dream,” a National Geographic doc playing on mostly IMAX screens that scored $64.6k at a dozen engagements. The weekend’s biggest indie success, however, was “Cairo Time” with Patricia Clarkson, which sounded the alarm for $62k at five locations, with a per-theater average of $12k, the best in release this weekend. Support your local arthouse, guys and gals.
1. The Other Guys – $35.6 million
2. Peoples’ Dreams Are Bond Movies – $18.6 million ($228 mil.)
3. Pull-Ups 3D – $15.5 million
4. Condiment Spy – $11.1 million ($92 mil.)
5. Dinner With TV Actors – $10.5 million ($47 mil.)
6. Despicable Me – $9.4 million ($209 mil.)
7. Cats And Dogs: Your Children Hate You – $6.9 million ($26 mil.)
8. To Nicolas Sparks, Re: Zac Efron Audition Tape – $4.7 million ($24 mil.)
9. Toy Story 3 – $3 million ($396 mil.)
10. The Kids Are All Right, Thanks To Lesbians! – $2.6 million ($14 mil.)