No, even I didn’t see this one coming. Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema are reporting ‘Sex and the City’ grossed $26.9 million yesterday (Friday). I’ve been very optimistic about Sex’ performance, but I never thought it would have a shot at $70 million for the weekend. Meanwhile, ‘Indiana Jones 4′ is doing a little less than expected, just like we saw in our weekly box office roundup. Spielberg’s oldie took in $12.2 million, meaning it would come in at a little over $40 million for the weekend. But when I said ‘Sex and the City’ could beat Indy, I didn’t think it would actually happen.

The other new release, ‘The Strangers,’ surprised as well. The cheap $10 million thriller made an impressive $7.5 million. Universal must have seen the potential hole it could fill between Sex and Indy. The Liv Tyler vehicle has a shot at $25 million for the weekend.

Lastly, the switch has finally happened. ‘Iron Man’ took $3.7 million, while ‘Prince Caspian’ came no further than $3.4 million. Sorry Disney, your $200 million pet is on its way out.

More numbers as they come in.

DVD sales fell 3.2% last year and Warner Bros. is scared they might go down even further. Brainstorming for new ideas, the studio thought of their new $100 million project ‘Watchmen’ — director Zack Snyder (’300′) originally wanted $150 million, but Warner asked him to pretty please keep the costs below $100 million. A side story to the comic book movie ‘Watchmen’ will be released on DVD, 5 days after ‘Watchmen’ hits the theaters. Kind of like a cross-promotion, since the DVD shelf space will sell tickets and the other way around.

It also gives Snyder the possibility to release three DVDs. The first will be the side story, called ‘Tales of the Black Freighter.’ The ‘Watchmen’ DVD will follow four months later. And lastly, he plans to make an ‘ultimate’ DVD, combining the two into one film. “The überfans of this property are going to go crazy for that,” Snyder said. He’s also scared he will lose some precious moments of ‘Watchmen’ before the final cut, which would create some extra material for the ‘ultimate edition.’ “The main picture is nearing three hours long and I know I have a fight on my hands just with that.“

‘Watchmen’ will be in theaters March 6, 2009.

Digital cinema is taking a big step in Europe. Yesterday we talked about how Sony Pictures’ new ‘Hot Ticket’ service will distribute digital content in the US, where about 5,000 screens are able to display the content. But in Europe, digital cinema equipment provider XDC has signed with four studios to deploy another 8,000 digital screens.

Earlier, the only choice for European theaters was to sign up with competitor Arts Alliance Media. But most theaters didn’t like the cost-sharing deal. This will give them a new choice. “The market needs some competition for exhibitors to see it as real. XDC has been around for a long time and now it has the credibility of studio product,” digital cinema analyst David Hancock said. But he noted how this step could also benefit Arts Alliance Media. “This is good news. [Arts Alliance] needed a competitor to make their offer more credible.“

XDC made the deal with Warner Bros, Twentieth Century Fox, Disney and Paramount, which will give them a lot more credibility. Yes, the digital revolution is everywhere. In ten years there will be no analog theaters left.

1. Iron Man: $64,650,994 ($186 million budget, second week)
2. What Happens in Vegas: $26,457,642 ($35 million budget)
3. Speed Racer: $22,166,614 ($100 million budget)

Continue reading This week’s box office roundup

Tom Cruise is going to star in ‘The 28th Amendment’ as none other than the President of the United States of America. Well, as long as he’s acting it’s fine by me. The big budget Warner Bros. thriller follows the story of president Ben Cahill, who finds out the government is actually run by a secret cabal.

Denzel Washington is the leader of the cabal and wants Tom Cruise dead. In the movie, that is. ‘Transformers’ and ‘Mission: Impossible III’ writer Alex Kutzman wrote the script, which might explain the connection to Cruise. I’m expecting something quite mediocre.

We’re back with the ‘post-weekend drop,’ where we look at the box office drop after the weekend and get an idea of what’s to come. This time we have some interesting differences, so let’s jump into the numbers right away!

1. What Happens in Vegas
Saturday and Sunday: $13,001,340 million
Monday and Tuesday: $3,348,193 million
Drop: 74%

Continue reading The post-weekend box office drop

I don’t want to keep kicking Warner Bros. when they’re down, but this is quite remarkable. It isn’t a secret ‘Speed Racer’ is turning out to be the biggest flop of the year. Warner tried to cover it up in the weekend by releasing numbers that were just a tiny bit higher than ‘What Happens in Vegas.’ And while it got them the second place in most news papers, the shame of the corrected numbers after the weekend must have stung pretty bad.

Now the news comes out about Germany totally lacking interest in the movie. You would ask yourself why they would care about Germany. Well, first of all, it’s one of the biggest markets in Europe. And secondly, the press was all over the movie in Germany, because it was shot in Studio Babelsberg near Berlin and partially financed by German film grants.

‘Speed Racer’ only managed to make a meager $154,745, with under 15,000 viewers, while ‘What Happens in Vegas’ topped the chart with $1,903,364. ‘Iron Man’ took the third place with $1,114,164. ‘Speed Racer’ only made it to the 9th place, merely beating ‘Street Kings’ in its fourth week. ‘What Happens in Vegas’ had a good weekend overseas, topping in half of the European territories other than Germany.