Weekend Box Office Report: August 1 to 3: Fraser Fanaticism

Weekend Top 10

Who cares about opening at the top of the box office when
you can have two titles in the Top 5?  Right?  How cool is
that?  Ok, fine.  I’m sure The Dark Knight folks are
tickled purple that they narrowly held off the competition to secure a rare
three consecutive weekends at the top of the heap.  But, I’ll tell you who doesn’t care … Brandon Fraser, that’s
who.  This guy puts out one mind
numbing, crowd pleasing hit after another and consistently delivers the
cash.  And now, with the number two
debut of The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and the slight 29% drop for Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D, Fraser finds himself headlining two big
hits at the same time. 

Meanwhile, The Dark Knight camp continues to command the
attention of every man, woman and child on the planet (not surprisingly, the
Batman sequel is doing boffo business overseas as well).  It drops off a very respectful 42% in
its third week and is will close in on $400 million before Monday is up.

The Mummy people should be happy they managed as well as
they did.  This may not be the kind
of movie that people read reviews for but this is by far one of the worst
reviewed films of the year.  It’s
supposed to be worst than The Love Guru people!  (I cannot back this up as I have carefully avoided both
titles.)  The $42 million take is a
far cry from the $65+ million take of the last mummy movie from seven years
ago.  In fact, this debut marks the
worst for the series, which falls perfectly in line with the critical
consensus.

The only other debut the Top 10 saw this weekend is barely
worth mentioning.  Opening in sixth
place and soon to be forgotten in the Kevin Costner starring, Swing Vote.  There, that’s about as much attention
as it deserves. 

Below the Top 10, the art house scene is finally alive and
well after being overshadowed by the summer blockbusters.  Brideshead Revisited continues its
successful, aggressive expansion.  Adding over 150 screens pushed its business nearly 250% and it might
even find itself sitting comfortably in the Top 10 next weekend when it adds
another chunk of screens across the country.  If you thought an increase of 250% was impressive, how about
280%.  This is a feat boasted by
Sundance favorite, American Teen.  The documentary about today’s teens added 34 screens and will continue
to roll out in the weeks to come.  Meanwhile,
the highest per screen average of any film playing belongs to Transsiberian, a
Brad Anderson thriller starring Woody Harrelson.  In its third week, the film pulled in an average of $15K per
screen on just two screens.

NEXT WEEK: Opening early of Wednesday, Pineapple Express looks to hit the young, both the stoned and the sober but they best be quick
because the “highly anticipated” The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2 is
opening two short days later.  All the actresses from the original have returned but the jeans have been worn out.