..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Kim Voynar
..Michael Wilmington

August 14 , 2005 Weekend Estimates Market Share Worldwide Releases Family Business Despite stronger than expected bows for a couple of national debuts, overall weekend business continued to decline. Four Brothers, an urban revenge saga, led the frame with an estimated $20.4 million with second spot unlocked by the chiller The Skeleton Key with $16.1 million. Several notches behind in fifth position was Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo with a flaccid $9.4 million bow. Other preems included moribund returns for the war drama The Great Raid; a solid bow for the Bollywood pageant Mangal Pandey and an exceptional limited bow for the non-fiction profile Grizzly Man. Leading up to the weekend, one could see a steady reversal of fortunes for Four Brothers and the Deuce Bigalow sequel with the former ascending as the bawdy comedy declined in tracking interest. Brothers - based on the 1964 western The Sons of Katie Elder - appeared to benefit from having a simple, graspable premise in a market littered by splashier fare. With a couple of notable exceptions, the summer's most cogent surprises have swung toward low-tech efforts with the show horses providing the industry with a feeling of heightened anxiety. Timing appeared to benefit The Skeleton Key with the sort of solid returns absent from recent horror potboilers. In the current environment, the genre has emerged as the mainstay of Hollywood with a profitable template based on comparatively modest investment. Lightning failed to strike twice for the transplanted Deuce Bigalow. His initial foray was a surprise success but familiarity was not its ally. Recent media that focused on its rating's struggle and Disney's decision to hand off the film to Sony also seemed to play against its appeal and prospects for a hopscotch to another continent will likely be curtailed. Overall weekend box office clocked in with approximately $116 million for a modest 3% bump from the prior weekend. However, the continuing saga of declining summer audiences droned on as reflected in a 14% erosion from business in 2004. Holdover titles experienced typical declines of 30% to 40% with a not unexpected sharper drop for last week's leader The Dukes of Hazzard that slipped into third place with $12.8 million. The new hot title crown has now been passed on from Wedding Crashers to March of the Penguins with the ethnographic epic adding about 200 theaters and $6.6 million to its ice chest. Last weekend's wide expansion suggested the movie had topped out but its 7% decline (11% on head-to-heads) flies in the face of that pronouncement and the din of interest across all ages and demographics suggested it still has considerable playability. Other notable expansions included Broken Flowers and The Aristocrats with the former adding roughly 90 engagements for an impressive $1.6 million box office and theater averages of more than $13,000. Aristocrats jumped from 9 to 72 playdates and continued to generate a $10,000 plus average. Still the chronicle of a dirty joke will have great difficulty finding acceptance outside of major urban centers and specialized venues. The oft-noted unceremonious release of Miramax inventory generated poor returns for The Great Raid of $3.2 million. The not inexpensive Second World War yarn that proved to be neither The Great Escape nor a good entertainment escape had been rumored to be headed direct-to-video. In niche play, Mangal Panday - The Rising arrived as one of the most anticipated Bollywood epics with its international version serving as the curtain raiser at the recent Locarno film fest. Its opening salvo of almost $350,000 was excellent but slightly short of the outstanding level that had been predicted. Werner Herzog's portrait of the self-proclaimed Grizzly Man Timothy Treadwell turned out to be the good news bears with the late conservationist-showman generating about $220,000 from just 25 screens. The frame also saw good initial returns for the indie movies Pretty Persuasion that grossed roughly $55,000 from eight venues and Asylum with a $38,500 box office at five sites. - by Leonard Klady