Some insider information on screen allocation from Lee: http://www.leesmovieinfo.net/Article.php?a=907.

What the hell? See No Evil is Number 1 on moviefone

I find Movefone about as helpful as my magic 8 ball I got for Christmas in 1992.

If people knew how to use it, Moviefone can be quite useful.

...and I wasn't referring to you?

I was referring to the two people after you who think it's useless.

5.6m for Just My Luck is pushing the limit, but I now do agree that it will disappoint against my original prediction of $13-15m. Lohan's fanbase tends to generate a large Yahoo ratio, but the film is not showing up anywhere there (trailer chart, most requested, buzz chart). It's worrisome. The reviews are terrible too, with one review conveniently saying watching it will be the unluckiest thing you do that day.

Also for the past three weeks at least, when MTC's tracking is lower than RS', the actual gross has always been even lower than MTC's; when MTC is higher, the actual gross is also higher. Just an interesting observation.

Tentpoles to the test

Day-and-date code hard to crack

By DAVE MCNARY, ARCHIE THOMAS


In its first five days "Mission" has remained less than blockbuster status domestically, reaching $54.4 million in its first five days, while flexing much more muscle in foreign markets -- with an $83.1 million overseas cume so far.

"Mission's" weekday domestic grosses -- a 72% drop from Sunday to $3.5 million on Monday, then $3.2 million on Tuesday -- are not far out of line for summer titles released in May.

While the first weekend in May has become the established starting line for Hollywood's summer season, most kids are still in school and fewer adults are on vacation than in the heart of the season between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Rob Moore, Par prexy of marketing, distribution and operations, told Daily Variety that the weekday perfs were in line with studio expectations. He cited historical performance by similar pics in the same time frame and predicted that "MI3" will show significant traction in coming weeks.

"At this point, we're optimistic about how we are doing going into the second weekend," Moore added. "And we're looking particularly strong in overseas markets since there's so little competition."

"MI3" will face off Friday with Warner's "Poseidon" domestically, with rival distribs expecting "MI3" to prevail. "Poseidon" is moored mostly in drydock in foreign markets, opening only in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

"MI3" added $13 million overseas on Monday and Tuesday with the best cumes so far coming from South Korea ($12.2 million), the U.K. ($11.4 million), France ($7.6 million) and Spain ($4 million). Australia, Russia and Italy all have $3.6 million each, outdistancing what's been a disappointing run so far in Germany at $3.4 million.

Weak weekdays in early May is one of the reasons that studios sked pics that are going to do a lot of family biz -- like DreamWorks "Over the Hedge" and Pixar's "Cars" -- later in the summer.

"Mission's" Sunday-to-Monday domestic drop was 72%, but that's not much different from other titles released in early May.

Last year, for example, 20th Century Fox's "Kingdom of Heaven" saw grosses fall 67% on its first Monday. In 2004, Universal's "Van Helsing," which was also launched the first weekend of the month, saw ticket sales drop 69% on its first weekday, from a $12.6 million Sunday to a $3.9 million Monday.

Even "Spider-Man" saw a big drop-off on Monday four years ago, although it still grossed $11 million that day.

Read the full article at:
http://www.variety.com/story.asp?l=stor ... 42944&c=13

Any Monday drop bigger than Van Helsing is pretty bad especially considering the comparable reviews/word-of-mouth...Van Helsing had nothing good said about it, while at least some people are enjoying MI3. I think all the negative media spin has not been good for it... I do notice that they started the "campaign for women" this week with Michelle Monaghan on morning talk shows and a more "romance driven" clip being shown. Not sure if that really will work if Cruise really has turned off his female audience. I think it'll have a 50% drop-off, too, but I don't think it will be #1 this weekend either.

I cant see a logical reaasoning why people think that if MI3 bombed that Poseidon will pick up the slack or vice versa either.