BuzzVee.com

FRIDAY PM/SATURDAY AM: as July ends, three opening studio movies — Dinner For Schmucks, Charlie St Cloud, Cats & Dogs 3D: the Revenge Of Kitty Galore – are making for a crowded summer box office what with holdovers Salt, Inception, and Despicable Me still going strong. here are Friday and estimated weekend and cume grosses for the U.S. and Canada. This weekend will be the first since June 4th without a $30+ million grossing pic. But overall ticket sales still look to total $135M a point or two ahead of last year:1. Dinner For Schmucks (Paramount) NEW [2,911 Dates]Friday $8.3M, Estimated Weekend $24MThe behind-the-scenes maneuvering to turn this DreamWorks movie from a mediocre grosser to average makes for an always interesting but far from atypical story. back on June 9th, I reported that the buzz had been “it’s not working” on this pic so Paramount, DreamWorks, and Spyglass delayed Dinner For Schmucks originally scheduled for release on July 23 to the younger-skewing weekend of July 30. Well, within minutes of my writing that, I was told no less than “129 people involved with the film lost their minds” as only Hollywood types can. I received panicky calls and emails admitting why the buzz was bad and explaining why it wasn’t anymore. What happened is that the movie’s first test screening last March in Thousand Oaks produced only average scores. excellent was 35, the top two boxes were 70, and the definite recommend was 50. ”Literally, right on the norm. But not where … Read More »