BLACK SHEEP @ The Box Office: HARRY POTTER Works his Magic!

This time last year, THE DARK KNIGHT shattered the notion of what it meant to open a movie with a three-day haul of $158.4 million. I can still remember how very ticked off I was that I had to settle for MAMMA MIA! on opening night because all THE DARK KNIGHT IMAX screenings were sold out. No one expected HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE to come anywhere near that but Mr. Potter and friends still managed to get a trick or two in anyway.


It certainly seemed like this sixth Harry Potter installment had the potential to reach new heights when it debuted to $22.2 million in advance midnight screenings the day before its release. This gross easily surpassed THE DARK KNIGHT’s $18.5 million record midnight haul from last year. The next day, it came very close to beating the record for best Wednesday opening that was set just a few weeks back when TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN opened to $62 million. Ultimately, opening to the third largest theatre count in history helped HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE take in a weekend haul of $79.5 million for a five-day total of just under $160 million. It is the largest Harry Potter opening to date and fitting, if you, like I, thought it was the best Harry Potter film to date as well.


The news was not so good for BRUNO this weekend. The film fell off a drastic 73% in its second weekend, ensuring that it will come nowhere near the success of star, Sasha Baron Cohen’s last hit, BORAT. I speculated last week that BRUNO didn’t do as well because of its gay content and as I’ve done no research on the subject, I have no basis for this. The film is certainly not being as praised by critics or fans this time out but most people I know who’ve seen it, still thought it was funny. And so I am still left wondering whether the world just didn’t want to watch such a flamboyantly gay character for that long. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts.


And, while THE HURT LOCKER (pictured further up because I don't want to see any more BRUNO pics) continued to outdraw the majority of the Top 10 in terms of per screen averages, with $8K at 94 screens, a 19% increase over last week, the big art house success story of the week belonged to lovers. 500 DAYS OF SUMMER, a big favorite at this year’s Sundance film festival, opened in 12th place with a per screen average that easily exceeded every title in the Top 10, $31K on just 27 screens. The film expands next Friday and the Black Sheep review is coming this week.

NEXT WEEK: You know its going to be a great weekend when the good money is on the movie with the talking hamsters. Disney’s G-FORCE opens on 3200 screens. Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler battle it out for all the sexes in THE UGLY TRUTH (2700 screens). And yet another movie about a demonic child, THE ORPHAN, opens on 2600 screens. In this one though, we’ll never believe what made the little girl do it. That's what the trailer says anyway.

Source: BOX OFFICE MOJO

Black Sheep @ The Box Office: BRUNO Ist Fabulous!

Well, maybe fabulous is used too loosely here but it is still appropriate considering loose is a fabulous word to describe Bruno too. BRUNO was expected to capture the top of the box office this weekend and the $14 million Friday take seemed to have sealed the deal. The 39% drop from Friday to Saturday put it all into question though. In was very tight in the end between BRUNO and the latest ICE AGE but BRUNO ultimately came out on top – puns fully intended.


BRUNO finished the weekend just north of $30 million, with a per screen average of over $11K. Universal rolled BRUNO out in a much more aggressive fashion than BORAT was unleashed back in the day. Star Sasha Baron Cohen was unproven at the time and therefore the film was released on under 1000 screens. It sold out nearly all weekend and scored somewhere just below $30 million total before the theatre count was tripled the following weekend. BRUNO made slightly more but did so on over 2700 screens with a per screen average that came in at less than half what BORAT did. Reviews are mixed and the general consensus is that BRUNO is not BORAT (or maybe that is just how I feel) so it isn’t likely that BRUNO will go on to match BORAT’s success. In a summer where THE HANGOVER, another R-rated comedy, can make over $200 million, BRUNO should have been bigger. Maybe America did not want to watch a particularly flaming homosexual for an hour and a half or perhaps the film just isn’t amazing. I cannot say for certain but I would not be surprised.


This week’s only other wide release was teen comedy, I LOVE YOU BETH COOPER. The film was completely dismissed by both critics and audiences alike, as it landed in 7th place with just $5 million. The bigger winners can be found below the Top 10. Iraq war films are infamously hard sells by Kathryn Bigelow’s THE HURT LOCKER is now a dark horse Oscar contender and it saw its gross expand by almost 375% as it added another 51 screens. I saw it last night, thoroughly enjoyed it and will be reviewing it later this week. The week’s biggest per screen average belonged to a quirky comedy about two guy friends who are making a porn that calls for them to have sex at some point. At least that’s what I got from the preview for HUMPDAY. The film opened on just two screens and pulled in an average of $14.5K. Check back on Black Sheep tomorrow for tickets to the Montreal premiere!


NEXT WEEK: HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF BLOOD PRINCE finally hits theatres after being delayed from last November. The film hits 4250 screens on Wednesday and will add a bunch more IMAX screens in a couple of weeks when TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN finishes its minimum four-week run. And this year’s summer hopeful from the folks at Fox Searchlight is the Sundance pleaser, 500 DAYS OF SUMMER. The modern romantic comedy starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel opens on 27 screens and expands in the weeks to follow.

Source: Box Office Mojo

BRUNO

Written by Sasha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Dan Mazar and Jeff Schaffer
Directed by Larry Charles
Starring Sasha Baron Cohen and Gustaf Hammarstein


Brüno: Put your shoulders back. This is a fashion show, not a slave auction.

The camera bulbs flash and the incessant club beat bangs. This is excitement; this is glamour; this is BRUNO, the new film from the creative team of star, Sasha Baron Cohen and director, Larry Charles (RELIGULOUS), the people who brought you BORAT: CULTURAL LEARNINGS OF AMERICA FOR MAKE BENEFIT GLORIOUS NATION OF KAZAKHSTAN. In BORAT, Baron Cohen embodied a TV journalist from Kazakhstan transported to the USA to learn just how the Americans make this thing we call life work so well. In BRUNO, he is completely unrecognizable as a gay Austrian fashion television host, who again travels to the United States, this time in hopes of finding international fame. And, just like in BORAT, Brüno finds just as much ignorance and stupidity in his unsuspecting interview subjects. Unfortunately, he does not find as much scandal nor as much insight into human nature. Subsequently, the laughs are fewer to be found as well.


BRUNO had incredible potential. At a time when the rights of gays and lesbians are at the forefront of debate in America and around the globe, BRUNO could have exposed the harshness behind the opinions of those who fight hard to make sure that gay men and women continue to exist as second class citizens. On the other hand, BRUNO also had the potential to fuel their fire by shoving an oversexualized stereotype in their faces. We could have scowled at the haters or laughed heartily at the gays. Both luckily and unluckily, BRUNO musters neither reaction. It isn’t to say that Baron Cohen plays it safe; one could hardly say that when he makes out with another man in an Arkansas Ultimate Fighting challenge as the spectators hurl their beers and chairs over the cage that thankfully separates them. That said, we aren’t always laughing at Brüno; sometimes we are laughing at just how gay he is. Baron Cohen makes Brüno human, which makes his character’s direction forgivable, but the damage is done.


Personally, I didn’t find BRUNO to be offensive but isn’t that supposed to be the game? This is not your ordinary gay guy at Starbucks serving you your grande soy vanilla latte (Yes, I’m talking about you.); this is a German homosexual, who at one point is dressed in traditional African clothing taking a baby out of a box from the airport baggage claim. This is practically the definition of excess, a concept the gays are supposedly famous for. Yet, somehow it doesn’t seem to be shocking anyone at all. Sure, the psychic looked noticeably uncomfortable when Brüno pretended to give the dead guy from Milli Vanilli oral sex in front of him, but I already knew that overt homosexuality made people feel uncomfortable. I wanted BRUNO to show me why they felt that way and that never happened. It often seemed like more of a commentary on celebrity and chasing fame, making the whole seem unfocused.


Off the top of my head, I cannot think of anything funnier than a singing penis head and BRUNO has that and a whole lot more to keep you laughing. It lacks the depth of BORAT though, a film that explored the American experience, from patriotism to religious obsession and homeless despair. BRUNO feels less spontaneous, more orchestrated and exaggerated for comedic effect and little else. The visceral nature of Baron Cohen’s humour is what lends to his genius but his Brüno persona just feels like its been walked down the runway one time too many. Maybe no one would have cared if he played the gay guy at Starbucks but maybe in every day life, we might have caught a glimpse of what America can’t seem to get over when it comes to being gay. Instead, Brüno is so flighty that the film suffers the same fate.