Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore were confirmed as quite the second date couple over the weekend, as their second attempt
to woo audiences together continued to be entertainingly strong. 50 First Dates' second lap was off only 12%, a
testament to not only its prime release date, but also that the starring couple's chemistry on screen is a legitimate draw.
Collecting another $2.57 million for the frame, 50 First Dates' total has climbed to a very sweet $6.41 million in
11 days, with only $0.92 million of that coming through mid-week. Now that the Easter-school holidays are set to be
introduced country-wide this weekend, mid-week sales will grow across the board, especially so for family films. As with
last weekend, 50 First Dates' screen average of $8,998 was second in the top 20 only to the Oscar winning
Monster.
Sandler's last film Anger Management bowed during the holiday period, and as such had a great first and second weekend, outside of that though, its running waned badly. Last weekend 50 First Dates bowed 8.8% weaker than the Jack Nicholson co-starrer's four-day frame, but came in 26.1% weaker than its five-day Easter Monday holiday weekend. Fairing better than Management's 29% second weekend fall, 50 First Dates has caught up somewhat and is now tracking a much better 13.2% behind in total. Sandler and Nicholson saw a 60% third weekend free-fall after the holidays ended, but since 50 First Dates has two weeks of solid holidays to go, we can bet on seeing a smart turnaround in favour of Drew and Adam. From here, 50 First Dates looks set to become Sandler's best film since the $14.71 million of 1999's Big Daddy - currently tracking 2.4% ahead after two weeks - but will have to work hard to reach The Wedding Singer's $17.12 million total.
Compared to the U.S. pace, 50 First Dates is now tracking just 11% behind* in Australia, down from the 27% lower* opening margin last weekend. The second weekend itself was 26% better* in Australia than what it collect through its second frame in the U.S. where it was down by 49% from its opening. The Hawaiian set film saw moderate holding from here on in the U.S., but don't be too surprised if the margin* has reverted to Australia's favour by next weekend. If so, it would be the first Sandler flick since The Wedding Singer to do better* in Australia than in the U.S.
The age old battle between cats and dogs was resolved this weekend, as the family audience gave The Cat In The Hat
the patronage it needed to out-class Scooby-Doo 2. The Mike Myers starring tale of a mischievous cat who shows up
to cause all sorts of trouble on a rainy day for two young children left home alone was the top choice for families going
into the school holidays. Opening with an ok $1.57 million, the launch for The Cat In The Hat was neither
exceptional or in any way disappointing, registering as a rather middle of the road bow. Opening on 294 screens, 34 less
than that of Doo 2, The Cat In The Hat averaged $5,324 per theatre.
It was a questionable equation either way as to which film had the most potential to rule the 2004 Easter break, and with the three main contenders having opened less than $300K apart from each other, it still is. The Cat In The Hat has won the first round, scoring the biggest debut of them all. Myers and Murphy have their star-power and Scooby has its brand. With the dollar spread around this weekend, none of the films did anything exceptional, so it will take until after this coming weekend when the entire country has its disposable school-holiday buying power available that we'll see any true definition between them. Provided that screen counts remain constant for each of them, it'll be a question of which poorly reviewed family film generates the least negative word of mouth.
The launch for The Cat In The Hat handily passes the $1.31 million opening for Jim Carrey's Dr. Seuss adaptation The Grinch, which went on to collect $8.14 million thanks to a very kind Christmas period. The Cat In The Hat by law shouldn't have any special potential to pass that final total, but with it currently leading the crop of family films it's been given the best chance. The opening counts as the fourth best for Myers after his two Austin Powers sequels and Shrek's $3.54 million launch. The Cat In The Hat will most likely end up seating itself between the $4.71 million of Wayne's World 2 and the $9.31 million final of Wayne's World. In percentage terms, The Cat In The Hat is currently tracking 20.7% ahead of The Grinch.
Compared to the U.S. pace, The Cat In The Hat opened a distant 59% behind* in Australia than what it managed through its pre-Thanksgiving frame in the U.S. last November. Although it retained the lead in its second weekend, it was already showing signs of a short life, falling by 36% through a holiday frame where sales have historically shown family films thrive through a second frame on Thanksgiving. The Grinch for example was off by only 5% in 2000. The Cat In The Hat will see big improvements in that current margin* in the weeks ahead, but probably won't end up passing it. Compared to my weekly forecast, I was able to show some accuracy with The Cat In The Hat at least, the opening coming in spot on with my $1.5 million prediction.
The disappointment of the weekend, at least as far as its distributor is concerned was Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters
Unleashed. Granted the most screens of any release with a huge 328 count, the film was obviously expected to do more,
although it seems people weren't as ready for a second helping of the animated hound as they were two years ago. With
the return of all the major cast including Prinze Jr, Gellar, Lillard, Cardellini and director Raja Gosnell, Scooby-Doo
2's opening of $1.38 million over the weekend seems rather muted. With the gang this time out to defend their good
word after a bungled museum opening of their costumes paints them as inept, Scooby-Doo 2's opening average of only
$4,226 would seem most concur.
When compared to the opening of 2002's Scooby-Doo, the launch of Scooby-Doo 2 finds that both the opening figure and average is about a third of that of the original. The original netted a huge $3.60 million while still completely outside of the holidays, signifying that its opening strength was going to provide the film with a great run once it actually entered the Winter school-holidays. This time around however, the launch for Scooby-Doo 2 was on the opening cusp of the current period, so it should have been able to use that to do something stronger. Opening three times weaker than the first film is not a good sign for Scooby-Doo 2, although that's not to say that the film has lost all hope to pick up steam and do something decent, but it's not a good start. Although it's been used against arch foe The Cat In The Hat, The Grinch is the best example for a future comparison of running strength with Doo 2, simply because very few family films ever debut in the $1.3 million range.
Compared to the U.S. pace, Scooby-Doo 2's Australian opening comes in a huge 53% lower* than what it opened with in the U.S. Although still on the same side of the table* as the first film, that huge negative opening margin of Scooby-Doo 2 is out from the 33% lower* of Scooby-Doo. Scooby-Doo was able to reverse its fortunes in the end however, thanks to the school-holiday period, to finish 19% ahead* of the U.S. pace. That precedent bodes well for Scooby-Doo 2, although so did Scooby-Doo's large opening and that didn't cross over for Doo 2. Regardless, Scooby-Doo 2 will improve on that current margin* by default, just as Cat will, deserved or not the school holidays will help out in the end. Scooby-Doo 2 saw a second weekend 50% drop in the U.S., that won't happen in Australia. Compared to my opening weekend forecast, Scooby-Doo 2's launch was less than half of my $3 million prediction.
Leading on with the theme of under-performance for the family film market was the Eddie Murphy flick The Haunted
Mansion. While the film opened last weekend in the hopes of avoiding a three-way crush this weekend, it appears that
the tactic wasn't as successful as hoped, falling 35% going into the first weekend of partial school holidays. The film
about a family who tag along to a haunted house for their father's job interview collected $0.79 million in its second
weekend, raising its 11 day total to $2.29 million. While its screen count was unchanged, its weekend average of $3,317
highlights its poor second weekend showing.
Last weekend The Haunted Mansion opened just 2.2% behind the opening of Murphy's 2003 action comedy flick I Spy. The Owen Wilson co-starrer also dipped by 35% in its second weekend, but due to The Haunted Mansion's lower mid-week sales than compared to I Spy's January setting, it now stands 17.4% behind. That's certainly bad news at this stage for Mansion, which would have been betting on a rise in that comparison this weekend in its quest to pass its $4.11 million final. While things look bad at this stage, The Haunted Mansion has a chance to jump ahead this coming weekend.
Compared to the U.S. pace, The Haunted Mansion's two week Australian rate now stands a still distant 50% behind*, up a few notches from last weekend's 64% weaker* launch. The Australian second weekend frame itself for The Haunted Mansion was just 15% behind* the U.S. second frame, which highlights just how bad both the Australian opening was in comparison, and more so how dreadful the second weekend fall was in the U.S.
Rounding out the top five in its sixth weekend was the Mel Gibson directed The Passion of the Christ. Falling two
spaces from last weekend, the Jim Caviezel film was off only 9% through the weekend, collecting $0.51 million and upping
its ever-growing cume to a very fine $12.10 million. This puts The Passion of the Christ on even ground with the
$12.23 million final of 1995's Braveheart, a total The Passion will have passed on the Monday just gone.
Still counting as the forth biggest film of the year so far, The Passion should also
pass The Last Samurai's $12.40 million final by the weekend's beginning to count as the third. The next target after
that will be the $12.80 million of 2002's Bend It Like Beckham to become Icon's biggest ever release in Australia.
Compared to the U.S. pace, The Passion of the Christ is now tracking 63% behind* in Australia, an improvement of just 1% from last weekend when it was 64% behind*. The sixth weekend in the U.S. counted as the 15th best of all time where it was off by a slim 16%. The Australian sixth frame was a hefty 52% weaker* than what it scored in the U.S. That was a little better than last weekend's 55% weaker fifth frame.
Elsewhere in the charts, Monster continued to do well in its second weekend, down one spot to sixth and off only 4% from last weekend's strong launch. Collecting $464K, the Charlize Theron Oscar winner now has a very fine running cume of $1.32 million. This of course proves I don't know what I'm talking about, as I mentioned last weekend it could have a front-loaded play. Opening 4.9% ahead of 21 Grams last weekend, Monster is now tracking 2.2% behind. With 21 Grams re-charting over the weekend in 18th place, Monster now has a renewed target of $3.6 million to reach. It's worth mentioning the extreme coincidence of the two films have both been nominated best actress, and performing also identically at the box office.
In seventh place was a strong showing by The Butterfly Effect in its fourth weekend. Off by just 16%, its a great turnaround from last weekend's 48% third weekend dip. Collecting $13K, the Ashton Kutcher film has upped its cume to a very fine $4.07 million. Last weekend Effect was 4.1% behind Phone Booth, this weekend it's standing 4.5% behind.
Eighth place was occupied by another soft showing of Paycheck, down 40% in its third weekend for just $199K. The Ben Affleck sci-fi flick has a weak cume of $1.65 million, and should be out of the top 10 this coming weekend and eventually equal the $1.97 million final total of his 2001 flick Bounce.
The new Australian flick Love's Brother starring Adam Garcia, Giovanni Ribisi and Amelia Warner managed to grab ninth place in its debut. The film about a guy that uses a photo of his more handsome brother to convince a girl to come out from Italy to marry him collected $189K in its first weekend. Opening on a regular Indie release capacity of 42 screens, it's average of $4,490 wasn't all that hot. Including previews, the Palace release has a total of $242K.
Rounding out the top ten was Girl With a Pearl Earring. Through its fourth weekend the British drama collected $180K, off 16% from last weekend. So far the Roadshow release has a great cume of $1.51 million.
The top 20 films collected $9.25 million, up 15.4% on last weekend. The weekend was up 11.6% on this weekend last year when Ned Kelly was tops again in its second weekend with an ok $1.47 million. Down 44%, it was in front of the $1.34 million, $1.15 million and $0.99 million launches of Bringing Down The House, Dreamcatcher and What A Girl Wants respectively. The weekend was down 10.4% on this weekend from two years ago when Ice Age was the winner for the third weekend straight with $2.51 million, down 19%, ahead of the $1.26 million launch of Queen of The Damned.
Weekend Coming 8th - 11th April 2004
Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson combine this week in their efforts to bring a little more new excitement to the charts than
last weekend's two new major releases managed. Starsky and Hutch, a big-screen re-make of the 1970's TV show of the
same name hopes to unseat two-week champ 50 First Dates. Directed by Todd Phillips (Old School, Road
Trip), the 2004 version follows the story of the two detectives, Dave Starsky and Ken Hutchinson, as they first meet and
become partners, a prequel of sorts to the TV show's events. This time around - with the help of the informationally
inclined Huggy Bear - their first major case involves nailing Reese Feldman, an old high school drug dealer turned
full-time crook.
The Warner Bros. film opened in the U.S. in early March with an very fine $US28.1 million, coming in second to the second frame of The Passion. Produced for a moderate $US60 million, Starsky and Hutch has displayed good holding power so far, with no decline through its five weeks coming in over the 50% mark. Totaling $US82 million, the film looks to round out with around $US90 million. The life of the film is very similar to Stiller's January flick Along Came Polly which opened with $US27.7 million. The Jennifer Aniston romantic comedy has gone on to collect $US88 million thus far. While this counts as two hits in a row for Stiller, it's a welcome change for Wilson, whose previous films including this year's disaster The Big Bounce have been less than flourishing, opening with $US3.3 million and closing with just $US6.4 million. Shanghai Knights and I Spy were moderate performers but still below expectations, opening with $US19.6 million, $US12.7 million and finishing with $US60.4 million and $US33.5 million respectively.
Since There's Something About Mary weaved its magic back in 1998, Stiller's films have been a mixed bunch, from doing great (Meet The Parent), to fine (Keeping The Faith) to just ok (Zoolander). Along Came Polly also opened in Australia in January with a fine $2.55 million, tracking much like its U.S. performance to stand 2% ahead*. As with Along Came Polly's launch, Starsky and Hutch's debut is also arriving during a holiday period, so chances of it matching Polly's pace are good. While Wilson features in some of the aforementioned Stiller films, his own recent films along the lines of Knights and I Spy opened with $1.03 and $1.24 respectively, and finished with $4.11 and $4.55 million. With the current crop of films either fading or geared towards the family market, Starsky and Hutch's only real competition is its fellow opener and the continued strong performance of 50 First Dates. Starsky and Hutch could find around $2.2 million this weekend.
Carrying on with Starsky and Hutch's lead, Secret Window makes it a double-header this weekend for
adaptations from other mediums. Adapted from the Steven King novel of the same name, Secret Window becomes the 34th
King such property to make it to the big-screen - separate from the countless TV mini-series that have developed over the
years. With the screenplay written by super-scribe David Koepp, Secret Window is only the fourth time he has also
stepped behind the camera to direct (Stir Of Echoes, The Trigger Effect). Co-starring Mario Bello and John
Turturro, Secret Window follows the story of writer Mort Rainey, who on one sleepy day receives a caller, John
Shooter, who tells Mort that he stole his story and that he wants justice done. From then on it becomes a battle for Mort
to prove Shooter wrong.
Secret Window opened in the U.S. just last month with a very respectable $US18.2 million, just a week after Starsky and Hutch's launch and also in second place due to The Passion's continued dominance. The modestly budgeted $US40 million film has seen reasonably large falls, totaling $US45 million in four weeks and will head on to around $US50 million. As far as King adaptations go, Secret Window's launch was the best to date, excelling the $US18.0 million of 1999's The Green Mile. It's total looks set to pass the $US44.0 million of 1980's The Shining, and will come close to the $US52.3 million of 1986's Stand By Me. For Depp, the launch was his fourth best after Pirates of The Caribbean, Sleepy Hollow and Once Upon A Time In Mexico, and should get up close to Blow's $US52.9 million final, his 8th best.
Much like Hidalgo in the U.S., Secret Window's advertising suggest that the potential for success seems rides mostly on its star. Although the Mortensen starrer did well in the U.S., it stumbled badly in Australia. Depp however, is a much more bankable name, so chances of it passing that $0.59 million opening are certain. Depp's last film, Once Upon A Time In Mexico came with a $1.45 million opening and $4.2 million final, while his turn as Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates netted a $5.16 million opened and $24.91 million final. Columbia will be hoping for something a little brighter than Mexico's performance, but aside from the picture launching in probably the best slot it could this side of Christmas, its appeal only goes so far. Secret Window would have a chance at third place if the family films weren't set to rise this weekend, but they are, so entering the top five at all is its goal. A launch this weekend of around $1.2 million could net it fifth place.
* Based on a US index of 10/1 with currency, ticket prices, population and cinema visits per head.
^ Based on a UK index of 2.1/1 with currency, ticket prices, population and cinema visits per head.