..Gary Dretzka
..Noah Forrest
..Leonard Klady
..R.J. Matson
..David Poland
..Douglas Pratt
..Ray Pride
..Michael Wilmington

April 15, 2007 Weekend Finals Domestic Market Share Be Disturbed .. Be Very, Very Disturbed! The offbeat teen thriller Disturbia took top honors in weekend movie going with an estimated $22.8 gross. Five other films bowed nationally to generally disappointing results as the industry appeared to be emulating the August tradition of dumping product. However, in this instance new entries were anticipating quick turnarounds as the May onslaught of tentpole titles will sweep them from the screen. Though some pundits were predicting that the Bruce Willis-Halle Berry thriller Perfect Stranger would be competitive with Disturbia it finished below expectations and ranked fourth with $11.4 million. The rest of the newbies turned in bland returns. Vikings were less than Greek in Pathfinder's $4.7 million box office; Redline circled the track with $3.9 million; the Aqua Teen Hunger Team (ATHT) grossed $2.9 million; and there was a very Slow Burn of the appropriately titled film of $740,000. New entries in niche and specialized arenas were equally vigorous with the best initial response going to Mike White's droll comic Year of the Dog with a screen average of $14,800 from seven venues. Volume once again trumped strength with frame ticket sales topping roughly $115 million for a 6% downturn from the prior weekend. Business was down by 2% from 2006 when it corresponded with Easter and top honors went to the $40.2 million bow of Scary Movie 4. The presumed dust up between Disturbia and Perfect Stranger turned out to be no contest. Though the former received unexpectedly good reviews and the latter was largely dismissed with derision, demographics told the tale. Disturbia's core male under 25 crowds proved considerably more rabid than the other film's appeal to 25 plus females and that produced a stark contrast when pitted head to head. The frame's other distinctive twist was the appearance of a pair of launches by a new company and one that rarely steps out with a national release. The auto speed yarn Redline was hardly the marketplace pace car and though its producer Chicago Pictures has at least one other film in the pipeline its initial experience may steer it away from future theatrical ventures. First Look's new management has announced a move away from specialized fare and into the mainstream but its first foray with the animated TV series Aqua Teen Hunger Team was an inauspicious start for the policy. It simply couldn't hold its own against Meet the Robinsons, Firehouse Dog and the lingering TMNT. Some long running titles continued to be commercially potent including 300 that saw its domestic cume surpass $200 million. Among last weekend's freshmen Are We Done Yet? appears to have found its niche while the graphic genre entries The Reaping and Grindhouse both took hard hits. While hipper and younger, Mike White could well follow in the footsteps of Albert Brooks and Christopher Guest as an alternative comic voice. Initial response to his Year of the Dog was excellent though he's not quite crossed over to the box office response for Best in Show. The other limited bows ranged from disappointing to passable including the Dahliaesque Lonely Hearts that eked out roughly $73,000 from 23 investigations and the French import Moliere with $78,000 in 28 Quebec locations. Exclusive runs from Brit fest fave Red Road, the doc Dreaming Lhasa and Alain Resnais' Private Fears in Public Places (aka Couers) all had good engagements in one to three situations with averages in the $6,000 to $8,000 range. - Leonard Klady Weekend Estimates - April 13-15, 2007 Title Distributor Gross (average) % change Theaters Cume Disturbia Par 22.8 (7,800) - 2925 22.8 Blades of Glory Par 14.2 (4,090) -37% 3467 90.3 Meet the Robinsons BV 12.0 (3,700) -28% 3238 71.9 Perfect Stranger Sony 11.4 (4,300) - 2661 11.4 Are We Done Yet? Sony 9.0 (3,780) -37% 2877 32.8 Pathfinder Fox 4.7 (2,720) - 1720 4.7 Wild Hogs BV 4.6 (1,630) -31% 2825 152.2 The Reaping WB 4.5 (1,740) -55% 2603 19.7 300 WB 4.4 (1,640) -48% 2674 200.9 Grindhouse Weinstein Co. 4.1 (1,570) -64% 2629 19.6 Redline Chicago Pics 3.9 (2,440) - 1607 3.9 Shooter Par 3.1 (1,630) -47% 1907 42.1 Aqua Teen Hunger Team First Look 2.9 (3,330) - 877 2.9 Firehouse Dog Fox 2.8 (960) -28% 2881 9.9 TMNT WB 2.1 (1,140) -56% 1855 50.7 The Hoax Miramax 1.5 (3,560) 1% 413 3.4 The Namesake Fox Searchlight 1.3 (3,840) -26% 331 8.7 Premonition Sony 1.2 (1,180) -62% 992 46.9 Reign Over Me Sony .86 (870) -65% 990 19.1 Slow Burn Lions Gate .74 (640) - 1163 0.74 Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) $112.10 - - - % Change (Last Year) - -2% - - - % Change (Last Week) - -6% - - - Also debuting/expanding Black Book Sony Classics .22 (7,960) 97% 28 0.4 Year of the Dog Par Vantage .10 (14,770) - 7 0.1 Moliere Christal 78,500 (2,800) - 28 0.08 Lonely Hearts IDP 73,400 (3,190) - 23 0.07 Red Road Tartan 17,700 (5,900) - 3 0.02 Private Fears in Public Places (Coeurs) IFC 14,600 (7,300) - 2 0.01 Dreaming Lhasa First Run 7,820 (7,820) - 1 0.01 Everything's Gone Green First Independent 4,100 (4,100) - 1 0.01   Domestc Grosses - Jan 1 - April 12, 2007 300 WB 196,510,780 Wild Hogs BV 147,604,087 Night at the Museum * Fox 132,981,429 Ghost Rider Sony 114,997,558 Norbit Par 94,815,036 Bridge to Terabithia BV 80,838,355 Blades of Glory Par 76,130,018 Dreamgirls * Par 66,191,223 The Pursuit of Happyness * Sony 65,741,400 Stomp the Yard Sony 61,574,317 Meet the Robinsons BV 59,900,752 Music and Lyrics WB 49,980,441 TMNT WB 48,559,763 Premonition Sony 45,717,189 Because I Said So Uni/Seville 42,727,767 Epic Movie Fox 39,706,932 Shooter Par   38,996,701 Pan's Labyrinth * Picturehouse 36,645,970 Freedom Writers Par 36,643,426 The Messengers Sony 35,815,687 * does not include 2006 box office   Domestic Market Share: Jan 1 - April 12, 2007 Distributor (releases) Gross Mrkt Share Warner Bros. (15) 415.5 17.10% Sony (12) 411.4 16.90% Paramount (10) 381.3 15.70% Buena Vista (11) 312.6 12.80% Fox (11) 242 9.90% Universal (8) 201.8 8.30% MGM (9) 77.8 3.20% New Line (5) 67.8 2.80% Lions Gate (5) 55.1 2.30% Fox Searchlight (6) 51.7 2.10% Miramax (4) 37.5 1.50% Picturehouse (2) 36.9 1.50% Par Vantage (2) 23.8 1.00% Sony Classics (6) 21.4 0.90% IDP (3) 20.1 0.80% Weinstein Co. (5) 16.8 0.70% Focus (1) 16.5 0.70% Other * (77) 45 1.80% * none greater than .045% 2435 100.00%