50/50 chances are, if you’re reading this, you were an enabler this weekend. Either you saw “A Nightmare On Elm Street,” or you let a friend see it, putting money in the creatively bankrupt pockets of Platinum Dunes producers Andrew Form and Brad Fuller, maybe the least imaginative moneymakers in Hollywood. There are several negative ways to spin this, as “Nightmare”‘s $32 million take is well below last year’s $40 mil. take for “Friday the 13th.” Also, according to those who make a living pettily disputing studio expenditures (it’s not our living, so HAH), the “Nightmare” budget ballooned out of control after intense reshoots. And there’s the matter of this “Nightmare” opening smaller than 2003’s “Freddy Vs. Jason,” suggesting that in a shallow weekend without competition, “Nightmare” should’ve done better.
These numbers may not be terribly impressive, and while this weekend won’t win Platinum Dunes any awards, it does tell them that, to some extent, people are still willing to travel in packs to see the least imaginative drivel Hollywood is dreaming up. The Platinum Dunes remakes are the worst kinds of films – pallid xeroxes of movies from a particular cultural point in time, removing all the ideas, politics and sensibilities. We’re entering an age where seemingly all 80s films have become viable remake options, and if a mainstream American film from that era doesn’t set a bar you find easy to surpass, you really shouldn’t be in filmmaking. Of course, the PD fellas are in filmmaking to make a buck, so they don’t really care what you think about their artistry. At this point in their existence, however, each coming remake they produce is yet another sign of contempt for their audience. The publicity of the sexy opening weekend feeds them superfically, but fortunately “Iron Man 2” comes out next weekend, meaning “Nightmare” should probably do $5 million or so and then fade away, at least until the 3D sequel no one really wants.
In spite of “Nightmare,” a lot of films held on in there during the last weekend before the summer rush: spring holdovers looking to get their last licks in before the big boys come out to play. “How To Train Your Dragon” and “Date Night” kept steady ground, with “Dragon” taking its total to $192 million, and “Date Night” posting the lowest audience drop in the top ten, which is good in that it potentially sets up Tina Fey as a viable female lead for studio pictures. We like the idea of Fey and Tilda Swinton as buddy cops. We may be stoned.
“The Back-Up Plan” slipped to #4, but the film looks to be on its way to a respectable domestic take, which should keep the lights on at CBS Films long enough for Dwayne Johnson’s “Faster” later in the fall. At #5 was the weak debut for “Furry Vengeance,” a hot-potato comedy project that Brendan Fraser picked up from Steve Carrell and Jeremy Piven. “Vengeance” got a surprisingly big opening for a film that never looked like a moneymaker (promoting it with a poster where your lead actors is being raped by a bear didn’t help), but in the realm of recent Fraser bombs, this lagged behind even “Inkheart.” This is happening days after Fraser turned down the sequel to “Journey To The Center Of The Earth,” so maybe the jocular big guy is going back to that sensitive low-budget supporting actor phase of 2002-2005.
“The Losers” hangs around at #6, while “Clash of the Titans” continues to lose a huge number of IMAX screens and still do really impressive business. The idea that people liked this isn’t confounding, per se, but will anyone be discussing this film amongst the other blockbusters at year’s end? We get the feeling the damn thing will be a footnote even to Sam Worthington, and that guy’s a walking footnote. Would-be blockbuster “Kick-Ass” continued its fall-off, while “Death At A Funeral” and seasonal Disney release “Oceans” round out their brief runs.
The biggest indie debut was overheated geezer vigilante film “Harry Brown,” which bagged $180k of “Gran Torino” fans’ money with a $9k per-screen average. In only five screens, Nicole Holofcener’s “Please Give” was a tad more muscular, collecting $128k with a $25k per-screen average. Meanwhile, “Touching Home,” an indie film with Ed Harris, opened on three screens in California and scored a solid $47k, with a further expansion coming next week to the East Coast. Other indie hits include “City Island,” which has taken advantage of its national ad presence as a low-rent “Little Miss Sunshine” to pull in $756k for a $2.1 million total, and Oscar winner “The Secret In Their Eyes,” which pulled in $365k in its third weekend with an $8k per-screen average.
The family hit “The Human Centipede: First Sequence” pulled in $13k on only one screen, though a coming expansion and the film’s VOD presence will no doubt tell a different story — not sure why they couldn’t market this as a potential dragon slayer against “A Nightmare On Elm Street,” because horror films never draw repeat business and only need that first weekend, which “Centipede” would benefit from due to the expected walkouts. If “Paranormal Activity,” a movie filmed on borderline home video, could topple the “Saw” franchise, why can’t the adventures of Dieter Laser and his beloved three-dog provide a viable alternative to those Platinum Dunes jerks?
1. Horror Remake Model X86FT90 – $32.2 million
2. How To Spank Your Dragon – $$10.8 million ($192 mil.)
3. NBC Comedy Thursdays – $7.6 million ($74 mil.)
4. The Back-Up Plan – $7.2 million ($23 mil.)
5. Bearrape – $6.5 million
6. The Losers – $6 million ($18 mil.)
7. Clash Of The Titans – $5.9 million ($154 mil.)
8. Kick-Ass – $4.5 million ($42 mil.)
9. Death At A Funeral – $4 million ($35 mil.)
10. Oceans – $2.6 million ($14 mil.)