$2.3M giving
Jodie Foster and her gun $34.3M to date.
Mr. Woodcock claimed the
ten spot for New Line with an estimated $2M, down 31%, and a new total of
$22.3M.
 

The weekend’s most notable fireworks came in limited release as the increasingly
crowded arthouse scene saw some red hot numbers from awards hopefuls.

George Clooney led the way with his legal thriller



Michael Clayton which bowed
in only 15 theaters but grossed an estimated $704,000 for an astounding
$46,933 average. Powered by strong reviews and starpower from the Oscar-winning
actor, the R-rated film is hoping to keep the momentum going when it
expands nationally on Friday into more than 2,400 theaters.

A pair of acclaimed filmmakers enjoyed encouraging sophomore expansions with
their latest efforts and delivered the next best averages.
Wes Anderson‘s comedy
The Darjeeling
Limited widened from two New York houses to 19 locations in seven
markets and grossed an estimated $553,000 for a powerful $29,099
average. Fox Searchlight will continue to open in more cities over the next two
weekends before going nationwide into more than 800 playdates at the end of the

month. Ang Lee‘s NC-17 romantic thriller
Lust, Caution also held up very well as
it entered new cities. The Focus release went from a solo Manhattan house to
17 venues and collected an estimated $369,000 for a potent $21,696 average.
Totals stand at $$477,000 for Lust and $781,000 for Darjeeling.

 

Also expanding and still generating good averages in their third frames were
Sean Penn‘s
Into the Wild and
Brad Pitt‘s

The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Paramount Vantage widened
Wild from 33 to 135 houses and
grossed an estimated $1.3M for an impressive $9,593 average. Warner
Bros. made a leap from five to 61 locations with Jesse and made off with an
estimated $408,000 for a respectable $6,689 average. Cumes are $2.5M and
$746,000 respectively and each film will continue to add more cities and
theaters in the weeks ahead.
 

Not faring well in its national expansion was the drama The
Jane Austen Book Club which grossed an estimated $1.5M from 1,232 sites for a weak $1,247
average. Last weekend, the Sony Classics release averaged $4,700 from only 41
venues. Total sits at $2M.

Three films fell out of the top ten over the weekend. The Focus mob thriller
Eastern Promises
dipped 33% to an estimated $2M giving the
David Cronenberg
David
Cronenberg pic

$14.3M overall. A decent $20M final seems likely which would put it about
one-third below the $31.5M of the director’s last film
A History of Violence
which
also starred
Viggo Mortensen.

Sony’s Beatles-themed musical feature
Across the
Universe continued to have
great legs easing a mere 8% in its fourth outing to an estimated $1.9M. With $8M

in the bank from limited release, the Julie Taymor-directed pic goes wide on
Friday into more than 700 sites. Universe joins the music-themed films

Hairspray and
Once as movies with some of the best legs at the box office over the last
several months. But it was a sad tune for Universal’s teen comedy
Sydney White

which tumbled 49% to an estimated $1.3M for a weak total of just $10.2M. Look
for a poor $13M finish.
 

The top ten films grossed a disappointing estimate of $61.9M which was down a
substantial 37% from last year when
The
Departed debuted in first place with $26.9M; and off 23% from 2005 when


Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit opened in the top spot with
$16M.

Author: Gitesh Pandya, www.BoxOfficeGuru.com

This week at the movies, we’ve got honeymooners (The
Heartbreak Kid, starring
Ben Stiller
and
Michelle Monaghan), teenage heroes (The
Seeker, starring

Alexander Ludwig), bookworms in love (The
Jane Austen Book Club, starring
Maria Bello
and Emily
Blunt), and fledgling rappers (Feel
the Noise, starring

Zulay Henao). What do the critics have to say?

For Rhode Islanders, the work of
Bobby and
Peter Farrelly has long been a source
of regional pride; their best work (There’s Something About Mary,
Dumb
and Dumber) deftly combined taboo-busting, gross-out yucks with an
undeniable sweetness. So it breaks the heart of this Ocean State native to
report that their latest,
The Heartbreak Kid, isn’t generating all that
much warmth with the critics. Based upon
Elaine May‘s 1972 semi-classic, Kid
stars Ben Stiller as a recently-married guy who quickly learns his new bride has
much more baggage than he bargained for; on his honeymoon, he meets Miranda
(Michelle Monhagan), who just might be the right gal for him. The pundits say
that while the film does contain a smattering of raunchy laughs, they seemed
shoehorned into the film, undercutting character development and any kind of
message. At 48 percent on the Tomatometer, this Kid isn’t alright. It’s
certainly a cut below the original (at 89 percent).

The Village People recruits its seventh member.

They seek him here, they seek him there, his clothes are loud but
never square.

"Okay, so you take a left after Northanger Abbey, and a right at Mansfield Park…"

Also opening this week in limited release:
Lake of Fire,
Tony Kaye‘s
expressionist, evenhanded documentary about the abortion debate, is at 100
percent; Desert Bayou, a doc about the plight of African-American
Hurricane Katrina refugees in Utah, is at 100 percent;
My Kid Could Paint
That, a portrait of an artist who’s a very young girl (and may not be solely
responsible for her highly-valued canvases), is at 100 percent;
For the Bible
Tells Me So, a doc that explores the Good Book’s teachings on homosexuality,
is at 89 percent;
Kurt Cobain: About a Son, an impressionistic look at
the life of the Nirvana frontman, is at 82 percent;
Michael Clayton,
starring George Clooney as a corporate whistleblower, is at 81 percent (check
out our review from the Toronto Film Fest
here);
Finishing the Game, a
mockumentary about an attempt to complete
Bruce Lee‘s
Game of Death after
his untimely demise, is at 50 percent; and
The Good Night, starring
Gwyneth Paltrow in the tale of a romance that takes place in a man’s dreams, is
at 46 percent.

Trivia question: which of these men has been around the world, from London
to the Bay?

Recent Ben Stiller Movies:
——————————–
44% — Night at the Museum (2006)
52% —
Tenacious D In: The Pick of Destiny (2006)
25% — School for Scoundrels (2006)
55% — Madagascar (2005)
69% —
Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story
(2004)

Following a six-week streak of R-rated films topping the charts, The Rock‘s family comedy The Game Plan led the box office last weekend. Now, adult fare comes back to claim the crown with the new Ben Stiller comedy The Heartbreak Kid which is aiming for an easy number one debut. Also opening nationally are the fantasy adventure The Seeker: The Dark is Rising and the music-filled drama Feel the Noise. With the Columbus Day holiday falling on Monday, some students will have extra time off making for a solid start for the month of October.

Almost a decade after There’s Something About Mary became a sleeper smash, directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly reunite with Stiller for another raunchy relationship comedy with The Heartbreak Kid. A remake of the 1972 film written by Neil Simon, the Paramount release stands as another number one hit inherited from the DreamWorks factory. The pic tells the story of a man who marries too early and then falls for another woman during his honeymoon. In the past year, the R-rated envelope-pushing comedies Borat, Knocked Up, and Superbad grossed nearly $400M in combined domestic box office proving that there is gold to be mined in this genre when films are made well and deliver the laughs that audiences want.

Plus star-driven comedies with major Hollywood faces routinely lure moviegoers away from the home and into the multiplexes. Heartbreak will probably not reach the $30.7M opening weekend figure of Knocked Up which had more buzz plus opened in June when most college students were out of school. But reviews so far have been quite good for this type of film so adults will certainly give it a try. And with so many dark and serious films about outlaws, vigilantes, and terrorists out there, audiences definitely want something light and funny right now. Opening in over 3,000 theaters, The Heartbreak Kid may debut with about $27M this weekend.

Ben Stiller and Malin Aklerman in The Heartbreak Kid

The Seeker

Feel the Noise

George Clooney in Michael Clayton

The Middle East drama The Kingdom has been ranking number one during the week since kids are busy with school and less able to see Game Plan. Universal should see a 45% drop to about $9.5M which would put the Jamie Foxx actioner at $32M after ten days. Look for Resident Evil: Extinction to slide 50% to roughly $4M leaving Sony with $43M to date.

LAST YEAR: October kicked off with a bang with the top spot debut of Martin Scorsese‘s The Departed with $26.9M. Warner Bros. went on to gross $132.4M domestically and $288M worldwide plus scored four Oscars including the coveted Best Picture statue. Opening in second place with $18.5M was Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning which was the first of three horror sequels that month. New Line found its way to $39.5M. Sony’s toon hit Open Season dropped to third with $15.6M in its sophomore frame. The Lionsgate comedy Employee of the Month bowed in fourth with $11.4M on its way to $28.4M. The Guardian rounded out the top five with $9.6M in its second weekend.

Author: Gitesh Pandya, www.BoxOfficeGuru.com

After toning down the crude and turning up the cute (even
giving Jimmy
Fallon a chance in
Fever Pitch!) for
the last six years, the Farrelly brothers return to R-rated raunch territory
with The
Heartbreak Kid,
opening this Friday. It’s a remake of the 1972
Neil Simon
film of the same name and this week we’ll journey through the New York
playwright’s presence throughout cinematic history.

Unlike most playwrights, financial success greeted
Simon on his
first play, a Tony nomination for the second, and from them on his reputation as
one of contemporary America’s finest writers — capable of light comedy,
absurdist humor, and drama, often within one pen stroke — was cemented. Like
Woody Allen,
Reggie Jackson,
The Ramones, and
most other artists indelibly associated with New York, the height of Simon’s
powers and fame existed within the 1970s.  This was the decade of the American
New Wave, celebrating the urban landscape in all of its profane glory.  Pauline
Kael and Andrew Sarris
were turning film criticism into an art. The New York auteur became an accepted,
well-recognized beast. And Broadway plays were being adapted into film with
surprising regularity (and not just those funny musical ones).

Four of Simon’s plays had been adapted to the screen by the
time he contributed his first original screenplay,
The Out of
Towners (60 percent), starring
Jack Lemmon
and Sandy Dennis. 
Afterwards, original works and adapted screenplays started coming out of the
Simon woodwork at a steady clip. You know of (and probably have already seen)
The Odd Couples,
Biloxi Blues (76
percent), and
The Goodbye Girl (75 percent). Here’s some of the lesser-known cinematic
works of Neil Simon.

Imagine some of the most iconic detectives — Charlie Chan,
Nick and Nora Charles, Hercule Poirot, Sam Spade, and Miss Marple — as
re-envisioned by an immature writer.  A really smart, immature writer. In 1976’s
Murder by Death
(73 percent), written for the screen by Simon, an ensemble of detectives
are invited out to the countryside for a night of food, entertainment, and, of
course, murder. Simon sublimely spoofs the murder mystery with Murder by Death,
and stuffs in more penis, poop, and tongue-in-cheek jokes you’d though possible
coming from the mouths of such a reputable cast.  Highlights include
Peter
Sellers as Sydney Wang, the Chan rip-off who spouts lame profundities in
broken English, and
Alec Guinness
as the blind butler who definitely maybe commits a few murders.

When
Truman Capote
enjoyed that mid-decade renaissance with two movies (Capote,
Infamous) and
publication of his long-lost first novel, Summer Crossing, it was surprising Murder by Death didn’t surge in
popularity. Capote makes a late game appearance in the film as a cranky,
eccentric millionaire ("Say your ******* pronouns!" Capote yells to the
syntax-challenged Wang) who has a lengthy meta spiel about the lameness of
murder mysteries.

Sometimes you write a piece that’s too good to throw away,
but way too short to turn into a play.  What do you do then?  If you’re Neil
Simon, you cobble them all together, centering the vignettes around a single
location.  1978’s
California Suite
(50 percent) is the middle of this loose trilogy, including
Plaza Suite (40
percent) and London
Suite. 
Four completely
unrelated groups converge on a Beverly Hills hotel, among them Walter Matthau
as a man who, after a night of poor, drunken judgment, must hide the unconscious
girl in his bed from his wife (Elaine May). Matthau brilliantly juggles
slapstick and simpering pathos — another notch for someone who’s never given a
lousy performance.

From Alvy Singer to John McClane, the “New Yorkers trapped in
Southern California” trope has been a limitless wellspring for comedy.  Simon once
famously proclaimed there’s only 72 interesting people in Los Angeles (as
opposed to the six million in New York) and the City of Angels in California
Suite clearly comes from an East Coast perspective. Simon explicitly explores
this with the Alan
Alda–Jane
Fonda storyline. Alda plays a reformed New Yorker who now sports a tan and a
polyester wardrobe, while Fonda plays his verbosely cranky ex-wife on a forced
visit to LA. Simon is transfixed on the possibility that a New Yorker can
somehow turn into a West Coast creep. In one scene Alda and Fonda will be
arguing about this subject, and in the next they’re randomly coolin’ on some
beach.  California!

There’s only a few blemishes on
Steve Martin‘s
formidable portfolio of 1980s comedies.  And they’re not necessarily bad, just
relatively unknown.  One of them is 1984’s
The Lonely Guy
(50 percent), based on a book called The Lonely Guy’s Book of Life
and adapted by Neil Simon. Martin stars as Larry Hubbard, a aspiring novelist
who becomes a Lonely Guy (yes, it’s an oft-used term in the movie) after getting
dumped. He befriends
Charles Grodin,
another Lonely Guy, and they embark on a life possibly spent alone, together. 
They buy ferns, dogs, go out to dinners, and throw parties with cardboard
cut-outs of celebrities. Martin is reliably funny, but Grodin steals the show
with warm performance keeps the movie grounded, and a perfect contrast to
Martin’s manic movements. It makes Grodin current self-exile from movies all the
more painful.

The Lonely Guy‘s surreal tone and sappy romantic
story takes a very long time before they gel, but there’s more than a handful of
comedic nuggets to keep this movie compelling. In true New York fashion, random
bits of Martin and Grodin talking about nothing in particular are interspersed
throughout.  The highlight comes in a lengthy discussion about hair and how
bums, who don’t even need hair, seem so capable of keeping it together.  It’s
the best

Seinfeld segment never put on TV.

Having entered his 80th year this past July, it’s understandable why Simon has slowed down in recent years. His last film was a TV adaptation of The Goodbye Girl with Richard Dreyfuss, and his last play was in 2003. But New York artists are known for their longevity. With the New York auteur making a comeback, who’s next?

Watchmen has begun filming but Malin Akerman is still on the press rounds for The Heartbreak Kid. She provided a preview of her role as The Silk Spectre before she joins the rest of the cast on the set.

“This is a really cool role,” Akerman said. “She’s sort of the psychology of the film because she’s the only woman in the Watchmen aside from the previous Watchmen. She is a femme fatale. She is a kick ass fighter.”

The film should be action packed, but Akerman will get to inject the conflicts with some heart. “I think she sort of carries the emotion of the film because she is the only woman amongst all of these men. They’re going through sort of not being the Watchmen anymore and dealing with that as well as trying to figure out who is trying to kill them off.”

Unlike director Zack Snyder‘s previous 300, most of Watchmen will be practical location shooting. “There’s not that much green screen because it’s very real. We’re not superheroes or anything like that. We just fight. We fight crime. There’s only one scene on Mars that I think will be a green screen. I’m excited. I’m looking forward to trying new things.”