Weekend Box Office Report: July 4 to July 6: Will Smith’s Independence

Weekend Top 10

I don’t know why everyone draws this automatic link between
Will Smith and Independence Day weekend.  From the way people go on, you would think that his films systematically
came out the long holiday weekend every year.  In reality, he hasn’t had a film open on or around July 4
since 2002, when Men in Black 2,
debuted with $52 million.  Sure he
has four other titles that have scared away the competition on that same
weekend from previous years but nothing recently, until now that is.  The Peter Berg directed Hancock drummed up $66 million worth of business, about $11
million less than his last runaway smash, I Am Legend, from last winter.  The movie has collected over $107 million since its
Wednesday bow, including Tuesday night advance screenings.  This is fairly on par with what most
box office prognosticators were expecting but is a far cry from the $155
million Transformers made during
the same five period last year.  Hancock will need strong word of mouth to make it a genuine
Will Smith hit and the negative critical consensus will certainly not be of any
help.

Kit Kittredge: An American Girl rises 15 spots this week to land at number 8.  After debuting to a stellar average of
$41K per screen two weeks ago, the film’s expansion looked very promising.  Unfortunately, the film found no
playtime outside the five markets that house flagship stores for the doll
franchise.  Even “Little Miss
Sunshine” herself, Abigail Breslin, couldn’t get the tweens to spend their
parents’ money on this one.  In
just two weeks, the per screen average has plummeted to under $2K, which should
find the film disappearing just as quickly as it appeared.  I guess that talk of branching out the
different dolls into a series was a little prepubescent, uh, premature.

Last week’s big shots did not hold up as well as they could
have but still performed strongly.  Wall-E dropped off by 47%
compared with last year’s Ratatouille, which dropped off by just 38% in the same frame.  Still, everyone’s favorite trash
compacting, love machine is still outperforming every previous Pixar title
except for Finding Nemo.  Wanted had a harder struggle as Hancock ate directly into its market.  The film has still earned a robust $90
million in ten days but that steep 60% drop suggests people are leaving the
theatre more turned off than on.

Two art house debuts made sizeable waves this weekend.  The first is the documentary, Gonzo, Academy Award winning director, Alex Gibney’s
follow up to Taxi to the Darkside.  The film, which chronicles the life of
late journalist, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, pulled in a solid $7.3K average from
26 screens for a total of $190K.  Opening on just 6 screens but pulling in the highest per screen average
across the board is The Wackness.  The drug dealing comedy stars Ben
Kingsley, Olivia Thirlby and Nickelodeon breakout, Josh Peck, and grossed a
total of $145K and an average of over $24K.

NEXT WEEK: The weekend is wide open for anyone to take as
three titles try to overcome their seeming mediocrity in hopes of box office
gold.  Hellboy 2, Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D and the Eddie Murphy farce, Meet Dave will have exactly one week before The
Dark Knight annihilates them the following
weekend.