Weekend pits 'Sky' vs. sports
'Captain' takes on 'Wimbledon', 'Mr. 3000'
As the box office welcomes back higher-profile pics, the main question is how high can "Sky Captain" fly in the fall?
Paramount's hoping for a payoff this weekend, after having bailed out from June 25 for onetime summer tentpole "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow." Instead of going up against "Spider-Man 2," which opened June 29, "Sky" goes up against a pair of sports pics -- U's romantic comedy "Wimbledon," Kirsten Dunst's first outing since "Spider-Man 2," and Disney's baseball comedy "Mr. 3000" with Bernie Mac.
Of the trio, Par has launched the biggest marketing push, starting with a screening of "Sky" at Comic-Con in July to prime the target core audience and show off impressive visuals, including director Kerry Conran's 2,100 CGI f/x shots. It also has corralled a summer-sized 3,170 playdates, compared with 2,736 for "Mr. 3000" and 2,033 for "Wimbledon."
Par has attempted to paint "Sky" as offering a mythologized version of 1939 combined with the feel of classic popcorn icons "Star Wars" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark." "Sky" has shown best traction in the male over-25 demo, with 35% rating it as first choice, followed by females over 25.
"Mr. 3000," with Mac in his first film lead, reps the first baseball pic to debut wide since Disney scored surprisingly well with 2002's "The Rookie," which topped $75 million domestically. Studio's campaign for "3000" is focusing on two bases -- baseball fans and partisans of "The Bernie Mac Show" on Fox TV.
Tennis, anyone?
"Wimbledon," also starring Paul Bettany as a Brit whose fading game is reignited by romance, is aiming squarely at the young female demo. It also reps one of Hollywood's few ventures into a tennis-themed pic since Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Strangers on a Train" in 1951.
"Sky," "3000" and "Wimbledon" all face a daunting obstacle: moviegoers' historic preference of avoiding multiplexes in September due to the twin distractions of the starts of the school year and football season. Also, biz in the Southeast is certain to be muted due to the impact of Hurricane Ivan.
The frame's magic number is $20 million, with insiders skeptical about prospects for the new entries to eclipse that figure. Only eight September titles have ever debuted above $20 million, including the $23 million taken in last weekend by Sony/Screen Gems' zombie sequel "Resident Evil: Apocalypse." Only seven films that opened in September -- "Sweet Home Alabama," "Rush Hour," "Seven," "Remember the Titans," "Double Jeopardy," "The First Wives Club" and "American Beauty" -- topped $100 million domestically.
The year-ago weekend of 2003 saw the best-ever three-day September frame, with box office tracker Nielsen EDI calculating total grosses at $105.8 million. Distribs opine the most likely scenario is that the three newcomers plus the soph sesh of "Resident Evil: Apocalypse" can duplicate the perfs of the year-ago frame when four films topped the $10 million mark, led by Sony's opening of "Underworld" with $21.8 million, followed by New Line's debut of "Secondhand Lions," Par's launch of "The Fighting Temptations" and Sony's second weekend of "Once Upon a Time in Mexico."
Looking for 'Gold'
Also opening amid uncertain prospects at 899 engagements is "National Lampoon's Gold Diggers," distribbed by P and A and starring Will Friedle and Chris Owen as incompetent con men.
On the arthouse front, Newmarket's making the biggest splash by opening John Sayles' political drama "Silver City," toplined by Chris Cooper and Richard Dreyfuss, at 113 locations.
Sony Classics opens period piece "Head in the Clouds," starring Charlize Theron, Stuart Townsend and Penelope Cruz, with 10 playdates; Fine Line will open John Waters' sex comedy "A Dirty Shame" at a single venue in his hometown of Baltimore.
