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Night At The Museum is performing awfully well.

Man, people love that Will Smith, don't they?

Went to the Arclight last night to see Dreamgirls. Was surprised it wasn't sold out -- though I did have to sit closer than I would have liked.

Great, another Shawn Levy hit.

Apparently Bob Yari lost his fight to get a producers credit for Crash. I am sure there are other articles about this but here is a brief blurb:

http://www.imdb.com/news/wenn/2006-12-28/#3

According to the mojo, "Night at the Museum" is up 83 screens as of Friday, putting it at 3,768. But don't you think it'll run out of steam before it outperforms those "Fockers?" In an unrelated note, "Children of Men" should hit more than 1,200 screens next Friday, again according to the mojo, so people can actually see what all the fuss is about.

Night is $40 million behind Fockers at this point... and though Fockers had 2 more days by this point in the respective seasons, it doesn't matter. When the holiday is over, it is over. Night can never catch up.

I would guess Night tops out at $150m - $170m... which is strong, but nowhere near Fockers' $280m domestic.

I'd really be curious how much business improves at the Museum of Natural History cause of the movie. Went I went by there on Tuesday, the place was hoppin' and I have a feeling the movie will just make it an even bigger tourist stop in New York than it already is. I can't how disappointed kids will be with all the exhibits sitting still.

Dreamgirls is already playing in its best theaters and had massive drops on Tues and Weds then dropped again on Thursday going into the weekend.By the time Dreamgirls expands most of its core audience will have seen it.I think Dreamgirls will need help from Oscar even to reach $100 mil and that $150 mil is not going to happen.The Departed is also getting a re-release in Jan which should add another $10-20 mil to that films current gross of $120 mil. The Departed will be Oscars highest grossing film not Dreamgirls.

You can lead a horse to history, but you can't make it think.

Classy. Why do you have a blog if your readers are such dummies?

You can put blinkers on a racehorse, but you can't make it win.

"I can’t really find any precedent for this gross. Of course, plenty of movies have outgrossed this $40 million-plus first week of Dreamgirls… but not on 852 screens."

Uh, Borat?

So, I'm a little tired of hearing about the Dreamgirls box office potential at this point. You basically have two camps: people who like it who think it'll be huge and people who hate it who take every chance they can to knock it. I saw it at a matinee last Wednesday, and the predominantly African-American audience I saw it with absolutely ate it up. They broke out into applause twice (both big Jennifer Hudson numbers) and stayed through the end of the film to see all credits. I can't remember a film where the audience broke out into applause half-way through. So, I think the film will easily gross over $100 million. How much over? I have no idea. Don't really care, honestly. I think it will have a huge Martin Luther King weekend, personally, because it's an African-American event film. I bet most of us talking about Dreamgirls on this blog are as white as Jeffrey Wells and don't really understand the film's core impact. I could be wrong, though.

Anyway, I didn't mean to get into all of that. I wanted to ask Dave what he thinks about the box office performance of "Iwo Jima." It doesn't seem to be doing exceptionally well, and JW said it was "petering" out. Thoughts?

Discussing the box office of Notes on a Scandal or Letters from Iwo Jima is irrelevant until Oscar nods come out.

Children of Men's number looks pretty good to me - the 11 am show in Boston this morning was nearly full in a 500-seat theater.

The Holiday's failure is the wakeup call Nancy Meyers sorely needed.

"Dreamgirls is already playing in its best theaters and had massive drops on Tues and Weds then dropped again on Thursday going into the weekend.By the time Dreamgirls expands most of its core audience will have seen it."

Somebody explain to me how the studios think when they have a movie on 852 screens and slowly roll it out - isn't that a BIG risk? That as stated the core audience (gay/women/Black) would have already seen it?

However, I notice that the individual songs are being released and the vids are playing on MTV and Youtube, so maybe that's part of their marktg campaign.

Good question, J-Mc. But I think the intellegence - and more importantly, the willingness to engage thoughtfully - of those who come here is the reason to have it.

So, if I am so terrible, why do you come here endlessly?

chmoye - Iwo Jima was never destined to make much money at the box office. It is a wonderful, powerful film, but not something most people want to see. Getting a nomination and recovering his rep from Flags (or the expectation of not getting a nomination for Flags) is most likely why it is in release. It's not as though a less hectic slot would have increased its box office potential. And no doubt, his team feels that an Oscar nom will boost the numbers.

And Chicago48 - The premise that Dreamgirls will have burnt out its base has no basis in reality. It is the hope of the Dreamgirls bashers. No one made this odd claim about Chicago or A Beautiful Mind when they took a similar route. But because it is a black cast and gay men love musicals, suddenly there is a case being made by some that it will burn out.

The simple reality is, the Monday number was outrageously strong... double what was anticipated as a good number for that day. (Yes, btw, Borat is the one parallel, though there is a major seasonal variation, expansion plan, and marketing positioning.) So the drop on Tuesday and Wed was only important if you want to see the worst case scenario.

What studios see when rolling out like this is a pent up demand that gets satisfied this week followed by some post-New Year's drop off, followed by some more award noms, followed by a Martin Luther King Day expansion that will make the film available to millions who are not anxious enough to drive 50 miles or more to see the movie, followed by Oscar nominations and another expansion to even more people who are not the traditional audience for an all-Black film or a musical.

If you want to discuss risk, it is going this wide this early, not being restrained. The media obsession with the film - which has now turned rancid in some corners, as the film is blamed by the media for the hype the media created - is no more the whole world's perception than it was on Snakes on a Plane or Letters From Iwo Jima. You have to sell a movie that was not a slam dunk for the widest group of ticket buyers and you also have to be aware of the awards race. They feed and feed off of one another. This is what Team Weinstein did so well. And this is what Dreamgirls is attempting, with a bit of a twist.

The film has already reached well beyond its “core.” And the relentless effort to ghettoize the film offends me. It also makes no sense. Chicago is the biggest movie any of those actors ever made. A Beautiful Mind is the #2 movie for Crowe and for Howard and easily their biggest melodrama. The three above-the-title names in Dreamgirls are all crossover stars, the album is selling great, and the numbers are exceptional. And yet, we are still talking about its ghetto.

The alternative, of course, was a wide opening on December 22, $60 million by Jan 2 instead of $40, and the film actually burning out (around $80,) before MLK Day. Do you know the last time a movie that won Best Picture tried to open wide in December and rode it out? Rainman… in 1988. And they had Tom Cruise coming off of Top Gun, The Color of Money and Cocktail. And that is the only example in the last 30 years.

So… do you think that strategy would be wise?

"You can lead a horse to history, but you can't make it think."

DP, this is what I was referring to. What was the benefit of allowing this contemptuous thought outside of your own head?

Oh, to answer your question: because even though you're flawed, you're still less flawed than your competition.

Well, Jeff, you are less flawed than Mr. Wells too. But you still sound a lot more like him than you do like me.

I _think_ that's an insult but I'm not completely sure.

Do you know the last time a movie that won Best Picture tried to open wide in December and rode it out? Rainman… in 1988. And they had Tom Cruise coming off of Top Gun, The Color of Money and Cocktail. And that is the only example in the last 30 years.

1. Titanic (Dec 1997)

2. ROTK (Dec 2003)

That is right, Rox... sorry... wasn't clear enough about my perameters... both of those were anomalies as well... but fair enough...

Well Dave, I am listening to the sound track now and it's a very good score. So to those critics who say there's not one memorable song - I heartedly disagree, this is a wonderful score! And the marketing machine is in full force. I read on another board that JenHud is making her concert debut tonight in NYC with Hinton Battle choreographing.
Now, how cute is that?

Fan-fuckin-tastic night in NYC with Jen Hud. It was AMAZING. They'd better get her to sing SOMETHING at the Oscars.

Only if they nominate "Love You I Do" because if "Listen" is the only Dreamgirls nomination you can bet your arse Beyonce is not going to share that stage with anyone.

Especially not with someone who would completely steal her thunder. xD

"And $26.8 million in five days on 852 screens is a record… however obscure."

Borat managed 32.9 on 837 in 5 days, and that's without the benefit of Christmas weekdays. Though, technically, that's balanced out by the fact that Dreamgirls hasn't had the benefit of a full weekend behind it.

"The Holiday's failure is the wakeup call Nancy Meyers sorely needed."

It's not Meyers who needs the wake-up call, it's the studios who keep shelling out tens of millions to a "star" who not only doesn't open films but actually keeps people away (that would be Cameron Diaz).

Diaz doesn't really keep people away, if Meyers can be faulted for her casting for that movie it has to be for the box-office poison pill that is Jude Law. Chris Rock was right all along......

Diaz can be very hit-or-miss. Just last year she was ace in In Her Shoes (but outshone by Toni Collette, but that's not a rare thing for anyone opposite Collette) and she's been good in stuff like Being John Malkovich.

Although, those two weren't exactly the highest grossing movies ever (why In Her Shoes wasn't at least a $50mil grosser is beyond the realm of my brain's thinking ability) so... yeah.

I dunno, $50 mill domestic for a Diaz/Law/Black romantic comedy seems about right. Diaz is not box office poison, but she isn't Julia Roberts either. The film has brought in viewers. It just looks like a failure in view of its huge budget. The film should have been made for $50 mill., and it would most likely have hit profit at that budget.

Brokeback Mountain's release was so drawn out that it would've been hard for it to make much more than a few million on any day of its release. It was in so few theaters at first and then expanded so slowly that most people who wanted to see it already had by the time it was out everywhere. It wasn't until Feb. when it came around where I live.

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