Hollywood fails to catch fire at box office

Los Angeles Times

LOS ANGELES -- It didn't feel like summer inside movie theaters this weekend. Though Hollywood offered a quartet of new movies, none caught heat with the public, leading to the smallest total grosses on a weekend in May, June or July - the heart of the summer movie season - in more than two years.

"Shrek Forever After" was No. 1 at the box office, as relatively slow declines on its third weekend gave it estimated ticket sales in the U.S. and Canada of $25.3 million.

The comedies "Get Him to the Greek" and "Killers" both had decent starts of $17.4 million and $16.1 million, respectively, while family film "Marmaduke" managed only $11.1 million and horror movie "Splice" bombed with $7.5 million.

Many studio executives breathed a sigh of relief simply because most of the weekend's pictures performed in line with pre-release polling, or tracking. A number of recent releases such as "Robin Hood," "Shrek Forever After," "Prince of Persia" and "Sex and the City 2" have had soft domestic opening weekends.

"Nothing about the marketplace recently suggests 'Wow,' " said David Spitz, executive vice president of distribution for "Killers" studio Lionsgate. "We were glad we opened in line with expectations since it seems like everything has been underperforming recently."

There was nothing close to "The Hangover," a breakout hit that opened on the first weekend of June in 2009 and helped fuel a very strong moviegoing year.

Of this weekend's rookies, "Get Him to the Greek" has the best chance of being at least a modest hit. Produced by Universal Pictures with Relativity Media and Spyglass Entertainment for about $40 million, the raunchy comedy starring Jonah Hill, Russell Brand and Sean Combs had an opening almost identical to "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" in 2008.

That film, which was also directed by Nicholas Stoller and garnered strong reviews, went on to gross a solid $63 million domestically and Universal executives have similar hopes for "Greek."

Like most R-rated comedies, it drew a majority male crowd and did best in large cities such as Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Chicago. "Killers," meanwhile, drew bigger crowds in the Southeast and Texas and more women than men.

The action comedy starring Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher was a big risk for Lionsgate, an independent studio that has traditionally focused on lower cost genre pictures. The studio spent $75 million to make "Killers," but used tax incentives and international pre-sales to reduce its exposure in the U.S., Canada and Great Britain, where it is distributing the picture, to about $40 million

Based on guidance provided to investors by the Santa Monica studio, the opening likely means that "Killers" will be a slight money loser.

Though audiences gave it an average rating of B, critics lambasted "Killers" with overwhelmingly negative reviews after the studio declined to show it to them before release.

By opening "Marmaduke," a live action / CGI hybrid based on the long-running comic strip, in June, distributor 20th Century Fox was clearly trying to replicate the success of the similar canine tale "Garfield" in 2004. However "Marmaduke" managed barely half of the $21.7 with which "Garfield" opened.

Fox, which co-financed the movie with New Regency for about $50 million, is hopeful that the family movie will do well on weekdays as school ends this month.

The unusual decision to open "Splice," a low-budget horror film acquired by producer Joel Silver's Dark Castle Entertainment at the Sundance Film Festival, as summer counter-programming didn't pay off.

"Unfortunately we had higher expectations," said Jeff Goldstein, executive vice president of distribution for Warner Bros., which released the film.

Despite mostly positive reviews, those who saw "Splice" largely disliked it, giving the film an average grade of D.

"Shrek Forever After" was down only 42 percent on its third weekend, as it continues to benefit from strong buzz and declines at a slower pace than "Shrek the Third" in 2007. After its disappointing opening, however, the fourth and final installment in DreamWorks Animation's series is at a domestic total of $183 million, compared with $256 million for "Shrek the Third" at the same point three years ago.

The French independent film "Micmacs" expanded from two to 17 theaters and grossed a so-so $102,000. It performed much better in the Los Angeles area, collecting an average of $10,500 at four theaters, compared to $6,036 nationwide.