Weekend Box Office (Sep 2 - 4)

THIS WEEKEND Sandra Bullock and Gerard Butler both scored hit comedies this summer, but the two now face-off with new releases entering the marketplace for the long Labor Day holiday weekend which officially ends the summer movie season. Butler looks to flex more muscle with the action entry Gamer while Bullock stays in romantic comedy mode with All About Steve. Another comedy hitting theaters is Extract from director Mike Judge who aims to offer a different type of humor. Look for the box office to easily beat last year's holiday numbers.

Gunning for young men, Lionsgate releases Hollywood's seventh R-rated wide release of the last four weeks with Gamer. Butler plays the superstar of a futuristic online system where players control real people in a first person shooter game. The intriguing storyline and action-packed TV spots should excite a solid amount of moviegoers to give this a try. Butler provides good starpower and is in the type of gladiator role that fans may just want to see him in. Competition will be a factor as there already are a number of violent action and horror films out there doing well with male audiences. But Gamer provides something new and should play to frequent ticket buyers who have already seen everything else. Opening in 2,502 theaters, Gamer may gross about $15M over the four-day Friday-to-Monday span.

Looking for commercial extremes, Sandra Bullock follows her top grosser ever with another romantic comedy which is likely to become one of her weaker efforts. All About Steve finds the popular actress playing a clingy loser who stalks a man across the country thinking that he is attracted to her. Thomas Haden Church and Bradley Cooper co-star. Fox is putting only so much of a push behind this formulaic vehicle which hopes to attract women at a time when the marketplace is flooded with violent blood-soaked offerings. But the product is not too strong and the target audience won't be very thrilled with seeing such a weak and annoying woman be the central character of a film. Some short-term business will result, but large drops await in the weeks ahead. Entering about 2,000 theaters, All About Steve could gross about $9M over the four-day holiday frame.

Director Mike Judge follows up on his 1999 cult hit Office Space with another workplace comedy in Extract. Miramax is not giving the R-rated pic a release that is too aggressive as it will only roll out in about 1,600 locations. Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Kristen Wiig, and Ben Affleck star. Judge built up a huge fan following with his Lumbergh flick, but much of that will be wasted as only a portion of that crowd will actually pay to see Extract. Starpower from the cast isn't too formidable either and reviews have only been mixed. A four-day tally of about $6M could result.

Horror fans got their 3D kicks last weekend with The Final Destination which should have a steep fall, although the four-day gross will not see the usual steep decline from the three-day debut. With so many students now back in school, weekday grosses have been good but have not been in the same league as films from the last few weeks. A 40% drop would give Warner Bros. about $16.5M over the Friday-to-Monday span giving the fright sequel $52M in 11 days.

Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds has won over some fans so many who have heard about it will catch up on the buzz. A 20% fall to around $15M would give The Weinstein Co. a sturdy $95M cume. The company's horror sequel Halloween II should suffer the worst decline in the top ten as it is losing audiences fast. A three-day-to-four-day fall of 45% would result in a $9M take over the long weekend for a total of $29M after 11 days. Sony's District 9 will hold up much better and might slip by 15% to roughly $8.5M putting the sum for the alien saga at $103M.

Shrykespeare wrote:Profitable? Not hardly, when you consider it's pricetag.