Weekend Box Office: SCHMUCKS Sucks But #1

[AndyDursin]

I sat through the painful DINNER FOR SCHMUCKS mainly because some young friends staying with us from Chicago wanted to see it. Bad isn't the first word that comes to mind! But this summer, it's enough to land a #1 spot!

1. Dinner For Schmucks (Paramount) NEW [2,911 Dates]
Friday $8.3M, Estimated Weekend $24M

The behind-the-scenes maneuvering to turn this DreamWorks movie from a mediocre grosser to better-than-average makes for an interesting story. Back on June 9th, I reported that the buzz had been "it's not working" on this pic so Paramount, DreamWorks, and Spyglass delayed Dinner For Schmucks originally scheduled for release on July 23 to the younger-skewing weekend of July 30. Well, within minutes of my writing that, I was told no less than "129 people involved with the film lost their minds" as only Hollywood types can. I received panicky calls and emails admitting why the buzz was bad and explaining why it wasn't anymore. What happened is that the movie's first test screening last March in Thousand Oaks produced only average scores. Excellent was 35, the top two boxes were 70, and the definite recommend was 50. "Literally, right on the norm. But not where you expect for a high-profile movie directed by Jay Roach and starring Steve Carell," an insider told me. "Everyone felt a sense of disappointment."

So the studio, the producers, Carell, and Roach huddled. Roach worked to fix the tone "making sure the movie didn't play in mean-spirited fashion because the audience found that line had been crossed," the insider explained. The result was that, at the next screening a month later, the scores had improved: Excellent was 60, the top 2 boxes were 90, and the definite recommend was 75. "So you see how far the movie moved as Jay worked on it," said an insider, praising Roach for being so "malleable". (Is that a compliment for a film director?) The film this weekend now is exactly meeting Hollywood's mid-$20sM expectations. It had been tracking very well among young males and balanced across all age and gender ranges, with overall tracking similarly solid to Carell's last film Date Night which opened to $25M and went on to gross over $100M. But overall better than Paul Rudd's last two films that both opened in the high teens.

2. Inception (Warner Bros) Week 3 [3,545 Dates]
Friday $8.1M (-38%), Estimated Weekend $25M, Estimated Cume $190.3M

Chris Nolan's film just keeps going, and going, with great holds. It could, repeat could, even be No. 1 again if Schmucks loses steam.

3. Salt (Sony) Week 2 [3,612 dates]
Friday $5.9M (-53%), Estimated Weekend $17M, Estimated Cume $68.5M

Sony thinks this holdover starring Angelina Jolie has locked up $100M for sure, and probably at least $110M, And with great results overseas, this weekend puts the pic in the win column for sure.

4. Charlie St Cloud (Universal) NEW [2,720 Dates]
Friday $5.6M, Estimated Weekend $15M

Rival studios think Friday's result is just Zac Ephron's High School Musical fans. Meaning it's frontloaded. Weeks of tracking had indicated only a $13M weekend. Surely that's why Zac did everything publicity-wise including envelope openings to push it. I don't comprehend why the marketing stupidly gave away the whole plot in the ads.

5. Despicable Me (Universal) Week 4 [3,602 Dates]
Friday $4.6M, Estimated Weekend $15M, Estimated cume $189.8M

6. Cats & Dogs: Kitty Galore (Warner Bros) NEW [3,705 Dates]
Friday $4.2M, Estimated Weekend $13.3M

Big disappointment. For weeks now, the family tracking was not as strong as the studio hoped. And those cats looked scary even to me.

7. Toy Story (Disney) Week 7 [2,107 Dates]
Friday $1.4M, Estimated Weekend $5.2M, Estimated Cume $390M
8. Grown Ups (Sony) Week 6 [2,269 Dates]
Friday $1.3M, Estimated Weekend $4.0M, Estimated Cume $150.2
9. Sorcerer's Apprentice (Disney) Week 3 [2,524 dates]
Friday $1.3M, Estimated Weekend $4.0M, Estimated Cume $51.5M
10. Ramona and Beezus (Fox) Week 2 [2,719 Dates]
Friday $1.2M (-57%), Estimated Weekend $3.5M, Estimated Cume $16.1M