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Good for Borat.

Was sold out in my hood although a number of people walked out. it is shocking but part of its charm.

Flushed Away was cute, and I cannot imagine why Santa Clause 3 did so well. The first one was funny enough but #3 was just tiresome.

I wonder with the success what are the defintie number of screens for Borat and The Queen this next week?

Great for Borat. But if it does the same business next week on twice or triple the screens, is it a win, loss, or a draw?

amazing

Borat can't lose at this point. I bet it hits 100 million in at most 3 weeks. It's something for adults, that adults want to see.

The Queen's number is more than good. It has kept pace with Sideways every week so far in fewer theaters:

Week 1

Sideways - 4 theaters, $207,042, $51,761 PTA, $207,042 total

The Queen - 3 theaters, $122,014 (2-day), $40,671 PTA, $122,014 total



Week 2

Sideways - 16 theaters, $404,605, $25,288 PTA, $710,076 total

The Queen - 11 theaters, $401,978, $36,543 PTA, $634,788 total



Week 3

Sideways - 66 theaters, $1,047,607, $15,873 PTA, $1,917,590 total

The Queen - 46 theaters, $1,022,475, $22,227 PTA, $1,861,414 total



Week 4

Sideways - 144 theaters, $1,414,773, $9,825 PTA, $3,751,301 total

The Queen - 99 theaters, $1,510,081, $15,253 PTA, $3,768,588 total



Week 5

Sideways - 279 theaters, $1,828,760, $6,555 PTA, $6,039,004 total

The Queen - 152 theaters, $1,909,139, $12,560 PTA, $6,289,941 total



Week 6

Sideways - 497 theaters, $2,912,836, $5,861 PTA, $9,950,066 total

The Queen - 387 theaters, $3,010,000, $7,777 PTA, $10,087,000 total

"The Queen" has its Oscar nominations bought and paid for. After all it's from Miramax!

A Daniel Battsek Miramax is not the same thing as a Weinstein Miramax. Miramax has no inherent advantage over any other studio.

Interesting, xiayun, but not really the same machinery.

By Week 4, Searchlight started dropping all TV for Sideways, having decided to wait to go wide until January and the presumed Oscar nod. Not a bad idea of The Queen, but as far as I know, not the plan.

"Good," btw, is based on the company it keeps, not a disconnected objective analysis about a movie about the Brit monarch and Young Tony Blair dealing with politics. The movie is doing GREAT by that standard. My "good" is about Oscar and LMS and other standards of the current indie year.

Wreck - The Queen has Amanda Lundberg and an on-a-mission Cynthia Swartz... that is a lot of what Harvey had at old Miramax. That is an advantage, even if 42 West is on a million other campaigns.

Miramax without the Weinsteins seems to be doing better than the Weinsteins without Miramax, at least in terms of quality movies/Oscar buzz. And at least so far, they don't seem to be going to the lengths to get Oscars except by picking up quality movies and making sure the right people see them.

I think it's interesting that the per-theatre average for Borat is higher than Star Wars Episode III... and oddly, the character's fans are only slightly more annoying than Star Wars fans in their fanaticism. I wonder if Universal signed the papers on that deal for his next movie before Friday.

BTW, David, 42West is working on one of the Weinstein Company's campaigns. Do you know which one it is or should I tell you? (Should be obvious)

Yes, waiter, I'll have the crow, fries, salad with ranch on the side, and a large Alka-Seltzer.

timing is everything.

i look at the weekend box office for Borat.

Then i open last week's EW which has the lead story about Internet buzz not translating to box office, and how Borat was about to suffer the same fate as Snakes on a Plane.

I wonder if EW will write an article entitled "EW eats massive load of shit" next week.

Once again, proving that the 'gurus' have no real clue what's going on, their thumbs far from the pulse and firmly planted up their own asses.

The mistake, in my opinion, was not really understanding what Fox was going with the 800 screen thing. It was making the best of a problem, not retreating. If Fox was retreating, they would have increased screen count, not dropped it.

A lot of media never really understood Snakes, which was a niche film... and whose web hype was not driven by the studio.

The pulse is almost impossible for anyone to get accurately. The best minds are often wrong when you get past black and white. What drives me nuts is the thinking that what is bouncing around The Bubble is the truth and not just a myopic experience that demands serious caution.

I don’t need to beat on people for being wrong. But I would love it if the core thinking was more clean and less self-involved.

This does not mean that I am not susceptible as well. But I am aware of it and I do try to gain perspective each year. As one reader wrote in, asking me to eat crow on Borat, I responded that it was important that I bring up the possibility that the shark had been jumped and equally important to acknowledge a great choice that Fox made in response to their similar concerns. What was brilliant at Fox this week, as it was at Paramount on Failure to Launch and WB with Million Dollar Baby, is the willingness to make a daring move to adjust on the fly. Fox had committed to a strategy for months… stubbornly. And when they saw the writing on the wall, they put their asses on the line and made a move that they knew would draw fire. But they also knew that only a small percentage of ticket buyers obsess on this stuff the way EW does (and I do, on a much smaller publishing scale). The rest just wipe, flush, and go to the movies.

True Dave, and you were far ahead of the pack on predicting huge Borat money and best pic possibilities (96% on rottentomatoes). But I'm confused when you say "the writing on the wall". Based on the weekend numbers, the writing on the wall that the film was not tracking was way off-base. Since Borat got the #1 spot in 800, it will have lots of nice press this week. But that doesn't mean that the downsize decision was a great one. Surely a $40 mill out-of-nowhere open would have gotten just as nice press.

The one thing Poland got wrong was his Oscar nod prediction. Borat won't see any noms, even in a year with an unusually weak lead actor category.

Borat opened to well.

I still think Dave is off with his 35m for second week - those extra screens are all in areas where they don't care about the BORAT experience. Calls of 180m are as insane as Borat's oscar nomination. I called the film at 80m early on and I don't think its going to fly past that in its 2nd week. Its avg is going to drop down below 6k next weekend.

The 800 screens were carefully selected and calculated to return high per screen averages. My problem with the film is that the targets are soft and the five writers who came up with this material really needed to be tougher on each others material. I mean come on.. whats so sharp about knocking over stuff in an antique store?

Also the minute they obvioulsy setup gags they lost a lot of the anarchic spirit of his original material. And why the hell was the Pam Anderson storyline necessary? Was Anna Nicole busy?

I'm sorry, where's Babel? What's Paramount Vantage's plan for it?

TH, Babel opens wide on Friday. It was #18 with around $918 thousand according to BoxOfficeMojo. Should be able to make $5 - 6 million next weekend.

The thing about Borat Week 2 is that a lot of people in the first region will have seen it... will they see it again? And will the people in the other areas (the ones where the movie/character isn't as well known) flock to see it the same way as in the big cities and college towns? There's also some serious competition this weekend for all demos from Will Ferrell and Russell Crowe (unlike this past weekend where it was really just two family films).

I read somewhere that Borat is a 'non-fiction' film? Would anyone please clarify that for me? I know that Borat is a fake persona for Sacha Cohen (or whatever his name is). So, is he really pretending to be from Kazhakstan and interviewing people for real? The interviewee had no idea that they were being fooled? Thanks in advance.

Thanks. I like Babel and I think it will make money in the end, but as good as it is, and everyone who's into film should see it, captive in a theatre, because it's powerful and muscular, I think it's dead in the water awards wise, except for technicals live cinematography and editing and sound editing (wow is it a device), maybe even a DGA award. I saw it again, there's more to the hairy monster shot than I thought the first time; should be an all time fav screen grab. Now, get to work. My dog's waiting on me for a walk, and a zillion other things are being avoided.

P.S., Drama/Mex played Toronton is in competition at AFI and playing Monday night. It's got similarities, I'll call them Babelesque.

I agree with Wrecktum, however much Borat makes, it still has too much naked wrestling for the Academy to ever reward with nominations.

I'm predicting Borat either stays pretty even next week or actually falls just a bit. I just cannot see it making $35mil next week.

In other news: I'm happy that Flushed Away didn't indeed get flushed away and that in fact it nearly beat Santa Clause 3 (what's the bet that "$20.0 mil" gross drops on Monday?)

And what's the status on Flags? Is $35mil the end spot for it? Whither art thou Oscars...

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