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Well, there’s something you don’t see every day: 2 studios both content to forego bragging rights for the Sunday weekend estimates and wait for actual numbers on Monday, when public attention is lower. (Note: The Hot Blog, which calculates its own numbers, has COWBOYS & ALIENS up by $100K.) The important thing to remember is that this tie is only superficially equal: it’s wonderful news for Sony, which in THE SMURFS not only has a profit center but a likely new franchise, while it’s terrible for Universal/DreamWorks, which will almost certainly show red ink on Cowboys.
In a different sector of the boxoffice but nonethelsss gratifying is the overperformance of CRAZY STUPID LOVE, which had a healthy 7% increase on Saturday and beat last week’s Friends With Benefits number with $19.3M. Its main competition over the rest of the summer will be The Help and One Day.
HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS (PART 2) hit both its milestones: it’s the highest-grossing Potter in the US, and the 9th movie in history to reach $1B worldwide. With a global weekend gross of about $80M this week, it’s in good shape to become the #3 all-time moneymaker, behind only Avatar and Titanic. (Transformers 3 is at $985M worldwide and will also reach $1B, but with less potential to get much higher.)
3 quirky international action movies provided the highlights of the limited debuts this weekend: THE GUARD, THE DEVIL’S DOUBLE and ATTACK THE BLOCK all averaged $16-19K in 4-8 theatres, and all have potential to expand with some success. SARAH’S KEY handled its first expansion well, with an average of $11K in 33 houses, but ANOTHER EARTH is showing little strrength, with a $5350 average in 20.
Next weekend’s big guns are Fox’s RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, and Universal’s THE CHANGE-UP, both of which have been blanketing the airwaves with promos. Although they’re in different genres, they’re aiming at the same young male audience, so it’ll be interesting to see how they affect one another.
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