I think I may have underpredicted The Longest Yard big time. It's sold out in multiple locations.

Report from HSX

Early #'s from the LBC:
-- notfabio, May 27, 18:36

As of 3pm PST. 1/2 screen is that two films are sharing the screen for half the day each. This does include advance sales for later tonight and is slightly inflated for MADAGASCAR because of those wacky Ralphs Grocery Store checks (at least 200 were redeemed today at $8.00 a pop)


STAR WARS (playing on 7 screens):
$8209.00

MADAGASCAR (playing on 4 1/2 screens)
$6962.00

LONGEST YARD (playing on 4 1/2 screens)
$5758.00

Star Wars: ROTS is still on the Ultrascreen at my theater which is the best theater in the state and it was sold out.

I saw the Longest Yard at 5:25 pm.
Sold out 400 seat theater

Trailers-
War of the Worlds- This is the new trailer and it blew me away. Lots of talking after it.
Batman Begins- I've seen this trailer with every movie I've seen for the past month. Great marketing.
The Island- New trailer that looks amazing as well.
There was another trailer but I can't remember it.

Movie-
It was pretty good and got a lot of laughs from the crowd. Not one of Sandler's best movies, but it was ok.
B

Madagascar
7:15 PM, 241 Seater, 90% Full

Trailers:

Open Season

Movie. The movie is uneven, funny at times and boring at others. Better than Shark Tale. Better suited for young kids. Movie references include Cast Away among others. The best character is King Julian with an Indian accent

There were no teenagers in the theater at all. I don't think this will cross $200M.

B

Another King Julian fan. =D>

The Spalding joke didnt work for me.

The spalding scene cuts away too fast and the kids will not get the joke anyway.

You are right. The lemurs and penguins stole the show. Penguins had the best line of the movie in Antarctica.

My daughter saw Shrek 2 in the theater seven times. I think she enjoyed this one somewhat. But I don't think she will want see this too many times.

*gasp* This is the first Friday since the weekend of Sahara that I didn't see a movie.

I'm going The Longest Yard tomorrow, though.

Here is the matinee report at my theater.

Madagascar (5 screens)
10:30 (150 seater) - 18% full.
11:00 (400 seater) - 5% full.
11:30 (250 seater) - 3% full.
12:00 (600 seater) - 2% full.
12:30 (400 seater) - 4% full.
1:00 (150 seater) - 11% full.
1:30 (400 seater) - 5% full.
2:00 (250 seater) - 18% full.
2:30 (600 seater) - 4% full.
3:00 (400 seater) - 8% full.
3:30 (150 seater) - 22% full.
4:00 (400 seater) - 10% full.
4:30 (250 seater) - 19% full.
5:00 (600 seater) - 8% full.
5:30 (400 seater) - 11% full.
5:55 (150 seater) - 36% full.
6:30 (400 seater) - 25% full.
(This is kinda low, even for a matinee. In fact, this is even lower than Shark Tale and Robots. Could struggle to get to 10 million today).

Layer Cake
1:10 - 5 people.
4:00 - 8 people.
(next).

Star Wars Ep. III
10:40 (150 seater) - 15% full.
11:20 (110 seater) - 21% full.
12:00 (300 seater) - 12% full.
12:40 (150 seater) - 20% full.
1:20 (250 seater) - 19% full.
1:55 (150 seater) - 23% full.
2:40 (110 seater) - 37% full.
3:25 (300 seater) - 31% full.
4:05 (150 seater) - 26% full.
4:05 (200 seater) - 3% full.
4:45 (250 seater) - 26% full.
4:45 (175 seater) - 10% full.
5:20 (150 seater) - 52% full.
6:05 (110 seater) - 78% full.
(The force was still strong. FYI, Star Wars will take over the 600 and 400 seater that Madagascar has later in the night, so that movie will be forced to play in smaller ones. I say between 14 and 16 million Friday for this one).

Longest Yard
10:45 (175 seater) - 14% full.
11:15 (200 seater) - 10% full.
11:45 (300 seater) - 7% full.
12:25 (600 seater) - 5% full.
1:05 (150 seater) - 19% full.
1:35 (175 seater) - 19% full.
2:05 (200 seater) - 12% full.
2:35 (300 seater) - 11% full.
3:15 (600 seater) - 14% full.
3:55 (150 seater) - 44% full.
4:25 (175 seater) - 30% full.
4:55 (200 seater) - 33% full.
5:25 (300 seater) - 30% full.
6:10 (600 seater) - 33% full.
6:45 (150 seater) - Sold Out.
Believe it or not, this was the biggest porformer of the day. Shocking isn't it. I don't see anything lower than 15 million today.

The rest of the movies barely registered. All in all, this was the least spectacular Mermorial Day weekend we've ever had. I was sent home 90 minutes early.

Update.

Longest Yard sold out the 8:15 show in the 300 seater.
Madagascar sold out the 8:25 in the small 150 seater.
and Star Wars sold out the 8:10 in a 175 seater.

Now were talking.

Poor Layer Cake.

What is NCRBL?? Just cant think..

The Incredibles

I was never that convinced with Madagascar - nothing about it made me think MEGA blockbuster. Eventually CGI will not be a guarantee for $100m. Expect this to make $170-190m at best in its run. Still great numbers though. I think if we have a lower than usual Memorial Day weekend - its because of the weak early May lineup and not thee 3 films.

:razz: Thanks!! Would never have guessed that! #-o

I'll say MADAGASCAR will cross 200 Million for sure!

More from HSX:

"As promised, here's some box office analysis from today...
-- jhamaker (aka "jhamaker11"), May 28, 3:03
MADGS grossed about 38% of what SHRK2 grossed on the same day last year (it was SHRK2's second Friday). Both films had 2 prints and MADGS actually had 1 more showing.

The combined gross for the two prints of MADGS was actually a bit less than the gross of LYARD. However both movies opened about 10% better than Monster-In-Law.

STAR3 was the top movie for the day but was down about 50% from last Friday. That compairs with a 45% Friday to Friday drop for SHRK2 last year. Friday's total for STAR3 was about 23% less than SHRK2's total on the same day last year.

Overall the box office was off about 30% from the same day last year. A part of that can be attributed to the combined gross for both openers being about 1/3 less than the opening night gross for Day After Tomorrow.

The only other things worth reporting were Monster-In-Law being down about 41% from last Friday and Crash being down about 35% (and that's with a reduced schedule)"

Disapointing for Sith if it is realy down 23% from Shrek 2 last year than thats not even 16m for friday

I think it's more relevant that it's down about 50% from last Friday at his theater. That'll still translate to 16-17M for Friday.

still less than the 18m I had hoped for, but awell as long as it can find a way over 65m for the 3 day wknd I will definately be happy

The Longest Yard, 10:50, 450 seater. Sold out.
Wow, talk about a great crowd. Tons of cheering and laughing, even some applaud at the end despite the very end moment to the credits being an extremely odd spot to cut the movie. It felt like it was meant to have an epilogue afterwards, but that's a very small point. It wasn't a great movie by any means, but it was incredibly entertaining and definitely a big crowd pleaser. Trailers were:

Deuce Bigalo: European Gigilo (Lots of laughter throughout the ad, second best reaction if I had to guess)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (Some talking)
The Wedding Crashers (For some reason, the teaser, not the trailer. :???: Some laughter, not a huge amount)
The Island (A lot of buzzing afterwards, silence throughout the ad though. I'd be lying if I said I could judge the reaction in the slightest)
The Honeymooners (Some laughing, especially at the "blind dog" bit, but not a lot)
Land of the Dead (Silence, damn!)
War of the Worlds (Ok, now this one had the crowd pumped. Huge amount of buzz afterwards)

Yeah, this really was a lot of fun. Much of the movie probably had to do with the incredibly exicted crowd, but it was still a lot funnier then the ads made it look. A few jokes were overplayed, but a lot went over really well. Coming out of the theater, I heard everyone talking about how great it was, so I'd agree with Scott that we are looking at some very solid legs. A number of the members of the supporting cast helped carry the movie big time (Cloris Leachman in particular had one scene where I was nearly in tears thanks to having seen her and Sandler in Spanglish just a week ago), though Adam Sandler wasn't half bad. Chris Rock wasn't as great as he could've been but that's like saying that you got a 50 instead of a 100 dollar bill off the ground. I do have to say though that Burt Reynolds really didn't seem up to the challenge. Bad case of sleepwalking through the role, let's hope he doesn't for Dukes of Hazzard too. Overall though, it wasn't anything great, not even Adam Sandler's great comeback all my friends were saying (I liked 50 First Dates more, even though it wasn't half as funny), but it's definitely a fun night out at the movies and one of his better, more even movies. EDIT: B+ It's been growing on me.

On my way out, I asked the manager how business was. Not surprisingly, The Longest Yard did the best business easily even though it was on two screens instead of Star Wars and Madagascar's 3 (though it had the giant screen and one of the two second biggest). However, as the theater is in the middle of a hugely urban area, I don't think it means it'll open to 20 million today like that would've indicated. They said Madagascar did decently, a bit less then Shark Tale but much more then Robots (again, I think location comes into play) and that they expected it to pick up big time in the next three days. Star Wars also did very well according to them even though it did a bit less then half as well as last Friday night there. Take all taht as you will, but me, I'm thinking Longest Yard will win Friday, but unless it's by a margin over 4 or 5 million, lose the weekend.

This is a multi report since I did a trailer check and actually saw a movie as well.

4 showings of MADAGASCAR
Times: 1905, 1925, 1955, 2020
When: 5-27-05
Where: Cinemarck Tinsletown OKCOK
Size/Occupancy: None of these showings had over 50 people in them. In fact, all were less than 50 and they were in two large capacity and two small capacity theatres.
Trailers:
Dreamer : no noticeable reaction but I think the movie looks endearing
Open Ranger : positive reactions
Wallace & Gimlot?? : a spattering of reaction, nothing meaningful
Pride & Prejudice : dumbest trailer attached to madagascar, movie appears stupid as well
Chicken Little : okay, few reactions
Pink Panther : no reaction but I think it's funny

During my trailer checks at this theatre my brother did trailer checks of the Longest Yard during the same times and he was telling me that TLY was consistently packed with 100+ or more in it's theatres. I am in a football state if that makes a difference.

1 showing of ROTS
Time: 2230
When: 5-27-05
Where: Harkins in OKCOK
Size/Occupancy: 500+/35-40% I'd give it
Trailers: nothing new

While I was at this theatre I did notice the 2135 showing of TLY was sold out with showings going past midnight in queue.

From what I saw, unless madagascar hits big on saturday it should be behind TLY imo based on my unscientific visual evidence.

I'll tell you right now that the way this film performed at one of the prime theatres in my city this will NOT break 200. No way, no how.

Awww no, this sucks for MADAGASCAR....Guess it's gonna end up with $130-$160M total.

The film is shit. I wouldn't feel too bad.

No way it won't! Even if the word-of-mouth was only mediocre it would still end up doing well this summer. And it will do much better on Saturday and Sunday of this weekend, and even Monday. Plus the legs will be solid, like with most all animated movies, even SHARK TALE, which had mediocre reviews too. No way would this make less than that.