Hits and Misses – 03/12/10 – Snow Business

Snow dampened the box office this Friday but with an improvement on Saturday and Sunday the weekend wasn’t a total wash out. Unable to knock Harry off the top spot animated comedy MEGAMIND opened in second place in both 2D and 3D flavours. Even with its huge advertising campaign the film opened slowly on Friday but managed to pick up the pace on Saturday – however it couldn’t come close to replicating the success of similarly themed and also PG rated DESPICABLE ME which still continues to hold on in the Top 10.

Diane Lane and John Malkovich in Secretariat

Opening with a very respectable average the lo-fi MONSTERS came second highest in the openers. The smarter-than-your-average monster movie opened perhaps a touch too wide but with fantastic press across the board (you couldn’t look anywhere without mention of director Gareth Edwards for the last few weeks) it deservedly took a place in the Top 10. Opening to tenth place THE WARRIORS WAY came in with a feeble average due most probably to its lack of coverage across major media outlets. The polar opposite, OF GODS AND MEN got fantastic reviews in most places, opening to just a handful of screens it came in with the third highest average of the weekend, expect it to continue strongly throughout the week. Managing to pull an opening weekend screen average of just 4% of its American figure SECRETARIAT, the horse racing drama starring John Malkovich, took a nosedive off the back of successful US numbers.

RARE EXPORTS just missed breaking the thousand pound mark, the Finnish Christmas horror/drama drew a crowd curious to see what the film was about, hopefully some good word of mouth will keep the film moving along. With mediocre reviews MIRAL (the new film from DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY director Julian Schnabel) also failed to draw any sort of audience. THE BE ALL AND END ALL the new film from British writing team Steve Lewis and Tony Owen (THREE AND OUT), opened on a very select 10 screens to poor figures, taking £150 less than THREE AND OUT which was released back into 2008. FREAKONOMICS the film based on the best selling book took another pitiful average from its five sites, little in the way of press and marketing didn’t help the film connect with those who had picked up the books. Finally EASIER WITH PRACTICE (winner of best new feature at Edinburgh film festival last year) had a very limited release pulling a very limited box office.

Three Bollywood releases opened this week, with all bar one failing to break the thousand pound mark – The Indian revolution drama KHELEIN HUM JEE JAAN SEY, a tired love-triangle plot is played out again in MAR JAWAN GUR KHAKE but it was CHIKKU BUKKU a romance set in the UK that managed to take the fourth highest screen average of the weekend.

Still performing HARRY POTTER continues to dominate even with a 55% drop from last weekend, UNSTOPPABLE continues a pace dropping just 32%, DUE DATE remains the only adult comedy around and as such managed to drop just 24%, THE AMERICAN plods along, LONDON BOULEVARD continues to miss an audience, DESPICABLE ME clings on for dear life at eighth place and THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNETS’ NEST remains very average .

Opening Stateside the only wide release seen was THE WARRIOR’S WAY doing a similarly bad box office figure across the post thanksgiving weekend. Limited releases saw BLACK SWAN open in 18 sites to a fantastic screen average, it expands to 60 sites this Friday. I LOVE YOU, PHILLIP MORRIS finally sees American soil at 6 locations, it expands to open wide by January. Finally Video On Demand success ALL GOOD THINGS opened theatrically in New York to encouraging figures (even though the film has been available across the country digitally for the last few weeks), Magnolia have since taken the VOD down to open exclusively theatrically – it opens in LA and Washington this Friday.

Coming to our shores this Friday, IN OUR NAME and ON TOUR see a limited release from Artificial Eye, Johnny Depp returns in THE TOURIST, we return to NARNIA for the third time in VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER, Sofia Coppola returns with SOMEWHERE, Janet Jackson appears in FOR COLOURED GIRLS, Italian romance in LOOSE CANNONS, James Nesbit sneaks into Scottish warewolf horror OUTCAST, Michel Gondry introduces his family in THE THORN IN THE HEART and James Stewart returns to our screens in a re-release of THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER.