The Weekend Report: July 5, 2009

It was a box office photo-finish for Independence weekend with sequels to Transformers and Ice Age going toe-to-toe and estimates giving the former a slight edge of $42.4 million to the latter’s $42.1 million. The session’s other major release was vintage gangster opus Public Enemies, which was next in the lineup with $26.1 million.

Other newcomers included the Bollywood-goes-Hollywood Kambakkht Ishq with a $560,000 tally from 100 Hindi-circuit screens. Limited and exclusive bows saw an okay $84,900 gross for French import The Girl from Monaco at 23 venues and a dynamic $18,700 for the non-fiction The Beaches of Agnes at a solo L.A. launch. Nia Vardalos’s directing debut I Hate Valentine’s Day sputtered out with $4,700 at three exposures.

The weekend portion of the holiday frame experienced a significant box office ebb from the immediate prior session and was ever so marginally improved from last year’s performance level.

Expectations going into the July 4 celebration favored Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs to lead in ticket sales with prognosticators crystal balling a $75 million salvo for its five-day opening. It was also anticipated that Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen would see a precipitous drop of around 70% from its mammoth bow. But a few percentage points in both directions turned the frame into a horse race with the strong prospect that Sunday actuals could reverse weekend bragging rights around noon Monday.

The much-ballyhooed Public Enemies with Johnny Depp taking on the role of John Dillinger raised industry anxiety levels in light of recent under-performing adult tilted movies. However when the dust cleared its roughly $41 million gross was in line with high-end hopes and now fingers are crossed that the picture can hold its own against more youthfully targeted movies.

The session generated just shy of $165 million in sales and that translated into a 20% recession from seven days earlier. It was no more than a flicker (0.08%) better than Independence weekend ’08 when Hancock was the sole newcomer with a $62.6 million gross for the three-day segment.

The summer box office advanced to $2.16 billion, which rates 12% better than where it stood last year at the half-way seasonal point.

Bollywood is trying to make up for lost time with Kambakkht Ishq. Superstar Akshay Kumar limbs a Hollywood stuntman with the likes of Sylvester Stallone showing up as himself.

- Leonard Klady