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

June 18, 2006 Weekend Estimates Worldwide Grosses Domestic Market Share High Gear .. with Salsa Cars maintained the lead in weekend movie going with an estimated $31.5 million but it definitely had competition. Freshman entries Nacho Libre with Jack Black and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift rang up impressive numbers of $27.5 million and $23.9 million respectively. Other new entries ranked high in the pecking order with good results for the eerily romantic The Lake House in fourth spot with $13.8 million and Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties disappointing with $7.2 million. Overall box office approached $150 million for a nice bump of 8% from 2005 when Batman Begins bowed to $48.7 million. However, revenues declined by 5% from the prior weekend. Cars saw its gross decline by 48% in its second weekend but still raced past $100 million after nine days in theaters. Disney announced that it was the company's 50th film to reach that milestone in its 50th anniversary. However, the boast isn't quite true as it only covers box office since 1982 and doesn't include such films as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs or 101 Dalmatians. Nacho Libre lived up to expectations it would be the top grossing new film in the marketplace but fell slightly short of an anticipated $30 million weekend. The oddball Jack Black comedy drew heavily on a young male crowd as did the third entry in The Fast and the Furious that exceeded tracking expectations. Both films also had strong appeal among minority audiences and both experienced box office declines on Saturday from opening day. Industry spit balling is rationalizing the drops to an audience motivated to see films on opening day. However, it's also possible we're seeing a slight effect from World Cup fever. Though Football mania in America is tame alongside the frenzy in Europe and Latin territories, both Nacho and Drift had more than 30% of their audiences composed of Hispanics according to opening day exit polling. The Lake House, adapted from a Japanese hit movie, effectively tapped a distaff crowd. The combination of marquee value and content could translate into the sort of summer performance level experience two years ago by The Notebook. The frame's head scratcher was the Garfield sequel. The appeal of the original indicated a considerably better commercial performance than occurred. It nonetheless had considerable competition from Cars and it's a curious decision that it was released just one week after the Pixar entry. Among continuing releases, The Break-Up continues to surprise expectations of considerably steeper weekend box office declines. It's poised to exceed $100 million next weekend. The session also featured a good hold for A Prairie Home Companion and steady business for An Inconvenient Truth though industry pundits wonder how much more the latter film can be expanded beyond its current compliment of 404 theaters. Incoming niche entries were once again few and largely undistinguished. The exception was Wordplay, the non-fiction paean to crossword addicts that grossed about $35,000 from three venues. - by Leonard Klady Weekend Estimates - June 16-18, 2006 Title Distributor Gross (average) % change Theaters Cume Cars BV 31.5 (7,900) -48% 3988 114.8 Nacho Libre Par 27.5 (8,950) - 3070 27.5 Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drifr Uni 23.9 (7,890) - 3027 23.9 The Lake House WB 13.8 (5,230) - 2645 13.8 The Break-Up Uni 9.6 (3,060) -53% 3146 92 Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties Fox 7.2 (2,440) - 2946 7.2 X-Men: The Last Stand Fox 7.0 (2,500) -56% 2812 215.4 The Omen Fox 5.2 (1,910) -67% 2723 46.8 The Da Vinci Code Sony 5.0 (2,090) -52% 2413 198.5 Over the Hedge Par 4.0 (1,550) -61% 2606 138.7 A Prairie Home Companion Picturehouse 2.5 (3,250) -45% 767 8.7 An Inconvenient Truth Par Classics 1.7 (4,310) 16% 404 6.4 Mission: Impossible III Par 1.2 (1,180) -61% 1002 130 Poseidon WB .58 (790) -68% 730 56.5 RV Sony .52 (780) -73% 668 66.4 Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) $147.87 - -- - % Change (Last Year) - 8% - - - % Change (Last Week) - -5% - - - Also debuting/expanding Wordplay IFC 35,300 (11,760) - 3 0.04 Loverboy Thinkfilm 13,100 (3,270) - 4 0.01 Only Human Magnolia 8,050 (4,025) - 2 0.01 Lower City Palm 7,820 (7,820) - 1 0.01 A/K/A Tommy Chong Blue Chief 1,120 (1,120) - 1 0.01 Worldwide Grosses: January 1 - June 15, 2006 X-Men: The Last Stand Fox 208,398,600 Ice Age: The Meltdown Fox 192,470,228 The Da Vinci Code Sony 193,501,251 Over the Hedge Par 134,708,468 Mission: Impossible III Par 128,819,850 Scary Movie 4 Weinstein Co. 89,129,412 Failure to Launch Par 88,579,458 Inside Man Uni 88,231,285 Cars BV 83,323,649 The Pink Panther Sony 83,137,123 The Break-Up Uni 82,429,015 The Chronicles of Narnia * BV 82,270,870 Eight Below BV 81,612,565 Brokeback Mountain * Focus 70,615,735 V for Vendetta WB 70,417,840 Big Momma's House 2 Fox 70,165,972 RV Sony 65,908,796 Medea's Family Reunion Lions Gate 63,445,832 Underworld: Evolution Sony 62,615,442 King Kong * Uni 59,422,439 * does not include 2005 box office   Domestic Market Share: January 1 - June 15, 2006 Fox (14) 737.1 18.70% Sony (16) 686.1 17.40% Buena Vista (16) 474.1 12.00% Paramount (8) 429.5 10.90% Universal (11) 427.6 10.90% Warner Bros. (11) 298.8 7.60% Weinstein Co. (9) 190.7 4.80% Lions Gate (10) 165.8 4.20% New Line (7) 118.9 3.00% Focus (7) 101.4 2.60% Fox Searchlight (7) 95.3 2.40% Sony Classics (13) 47.1 1.20% DreamWorks (3) 24.7 0.60% MGM (1) 22.4 0.60% Other * (144) 123.3 3.10% * none greater than 0.5% 3942.8 100.00%