Madagascar
Friday 5:50 showing
almost sold out

Trailers:
Fantastic Four
Wallace & Gromit: The Movie
Dreamer: Inspired By A True Story
Open Season

Movie: B+
A great kids comedy. Funny. I loved the lemurs and the penguins.

I am seeing Monster-in-Law tomorrow.

Ugh. What a night. Went to see The Longest Yard at 6:50pm...sold out before we get there. Then, drive over to another theater for the 7:20pm show...sells out while I'm in line. Afterwards, try to go to one more theater for the 8:00pm, and make it, but get the worst row in the house (the first row).

The Longest Yard
8:00pm show, 500 seats, jam packed.

Trailers
The Island (whispering; my friend thought it was the sequel to I, Robot..."I, Human")
War of the Worlds (LOTS of talking)
High Tension (complete silence; I'm not sure whether people could figure out what it's about...)
Cinderella Man (silence; what do you expect with 500 teenagers?)
Batman Begins (lots of talking)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (lots of talking)

The crowd was really wild. It was like being at an actual football game. And, why not? It was hilarious.

Movie
Freakin' funniest movie of the year so far. This is the old Adam Sandler. The funny Adam Sandler. The movie was a blast from beginning to end. Non-stop laughter. Just like Meet the Fockers, the crappy trailer was worth it because the movie kicked ass. Sandler was hilarious, of course. Chris Rock was, by far, the best part of the movie. Other additions like Nelly, Goldberg, Stone Cold, Kevin Nash, and others made the movie even better. Unfortunately, Burt Reyonlds sucked. Waste of screen time. It's not Sandler's best work, but damn, I just couldn't stop laughing. A-

Movie #1: Madagascar
2:45 show, 200-seater, sold out.

Trailers
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Dreamer
Rebound
The Perfect Man

Movie
Very disappointing. The film is very kiddie and lacks much of the warm humor that made previous computer animated films a joy to behold. The animation is solid but unspectacular, also. Of the cast, Ben Stiller is incredibly irritating as the lion and Chris Rock is muted being in a children's film. Jada Pinkett Smith and David Schwimmer do fine jobs as Gloria the hippo and Marcel (I forget his name) the giraffe, however. Overall, I thought the film was just lacking. It wasn't necessarily bad, just completely unremarkable in every sense of the word. Madagascar is by far the worst computer-animated film released by a major studio to date. C-

Movie #2: The Longest Yard
5:15 show, 400-seater, 95% full.

Trailers
The Island
Batman Begins
Sky High
Hustle & Flow
Land of the Dead

Movie
The Longest Yard continues the trend of comedies being far better than horribly-edited trailers would suggest. Although this movie is certainly not great, it is overall quite enjoyable. Although I had a bit of a hard time swallowing Adam Sandler as a NFL MVP (his body is simply not muscular enough), his performance is decent and more low-key than usual. The rest of the supporting cast do fine jobs. One thing I thought was a little weird was how *spoilers - highlight to read* Chris Rock's character was killed halfway through the film. It came across as too macabare for what seemed like an amusing comedy, and it took Rock's character of the picture far too early.. Either way, the film is rousing and provides some amusing laughs. B

The Longest Yard
9:45 PM, 400-Seater, 55% full

Trailers:
War of the Worlds - good reaction
Sky High - actually a lot of laughs, maybe pity laughs
Mr. and Mrs. Smith - nothing
The Island - nothing
Batman Begins - nothing except a whisper

The Movie:
It didn't have as good as humor as DodgeBall, but every scene there was still something to laugh about. The supporting characters weren't that well established, I kept confusing them with each other. The movie was still very funny, and I enjoyed it.

Grade: B/B-

Saturday. Here is the sold out report at my theater.

Star Wars
2:40 (110 seater)
3:25 (175 seater)
4:05 (150 seater)
4:05 (200 seater)
4:45 (150 seater)
5:20 (150 seater)
6:05 (110 seater)
6:50 (175 seater)
7:30 (150 seater)
7:30 (200 seater)
8:45 (150 seater)
9:30 (110 seater)
10:15 (175 seater)
(13 sold out shows, I am not kidding, they needed to put these in bigger theaters).

Longest Yard
6:45 (300 seater)
7:15 (250 seater)
7:45 (200 seater)
9:35 (400 seater)
10:05 (400 seater)
10:35 (200 seater)
(spetacular night, the others were in the 600 seaters, which did not sell out).

Madagascar
8:25 (150 seater)
That's right, only 1. Though we did alot better than yesterday, the theaters were filling up, but they never sold out.

Monster in Law
9:25 (150 seater)

Crash
9:35 (135 seater)

Kingdom of Heaven
8:35 (90 seater)

Unleashed
9:50 (90 seater)

All in all, it was a very busy day. We are now going back into business.

- Rock's death, as in the original, had to come early / halfway point - as it needed to happen before the football game started.

Those theaters are way too small.

They gave the biggest one's to Madagascar and Longest Yard. Big mistake I say.

The Star Wars Strikes Back!!!! \:D/

Great report, Scott. Wow, it will be a shocker if The Longest Yard can actually stay with the other two the whole weekend.

That would be shocking. Hopefully the Saturday increases are better then I've been expecting. If Madagascar can increase over 50%, it would be great.

Well above I was just commenting that I hate small theaters

But I wouldn't put TLY up there.

Again people aren't giving TLY the respect it deserves

TLY did all that it could do - selling out all of those theaters.

As a matter of fact - looking at the above numbers - SW and TLY brought almost the same number of people into the theaters. SW had 2x the theaters but TLY ones were 2X as big.

*************************************************************************************

Who knows if the people came to see SW or TLY but they paid and filled up TLY theaters and that is all that matters.

From Friday to Sat Madagascar and Star Wars did pick up slightly, selling out more shows (sold out 6 of our Mats for Madagascar)...

however on friday we sold out 8 shows of Longest Yard and Sat we only sold out 4...

frontloaded ? yes at my theatre at least...

ROTS
745PM Saturday
Crossroads 12, Waterloo, IA
254 Seater, Sold Out.

yay SOLD OUT!

take that Sith haters [-X

MONSTER-IN-LAW
2:30 showing, 60% full (150 seater)

Trailers:
The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
Wedding Crashers
Mr. and Mrs. Smith

An enjoyable comedy. Very funny. Wanda Sykes had a great performance. Jennifer Lopez and Jane Fonda also generated some good laughs. The audience along with me enjoyed the film. A-

Cinderella Man
7:00 sneak preview, 275-seat theater, sold out.

Trailers
Flight Plan
The Skeleton Key
Fantastic Four
Pride & Prejudice
Must Love Dogs

Movie
Cinderella Man is a rousing, wonderfully made "inspirational" film. It succeeds at being enjoyable but not especially manipulative, which often befalls films of this nature. As with the last boxing film, Million Dollar Baby, the boxing scenes are brutal but tremendously well-edited and shot. It is impossible to be bored during any of Braddock's fights. The acting is impressive. Russell Crowe, one of Hollywood's best actors, is completely effective as Braddock. We see him as a loving father and husband, and we never have a hard time doubting it. As Braddock's wife Mae, Renee Zellweger is solid and contains some nice scenes, even though the character sometimes comes across as too cliched. Playing Braddock's manager, Paul Giamatti is wonderful and may finally actually earn an Oscar nomination. My only complaint with Cinderella Man is that the script borders on trite at times and many cliches are run through thick and thin. However, Ron Howard has the '30s Depression era down pat, and the film as a whole comes together marvelously. Highly recommended. A-

Forgot to add that to your sig. :razz:



Looks good, doesn't it?

At my theater, business was nowhere near as great as Saturday. But there was one interesting report.

Cinderella Man.
7:15 (300 seater) - Sold out.
(It was half full 2 hours before the show, looks promising so far).

Cinderella sold out at the theater I went to tonight I'm fairly sure. It was moved from a 150 seat theater to a 450 seat theater switching with Madagascar.

Just out of curiousity, but who are the SITH haters around here?? I thought it was pretty unanimous that everyone enjoyed the movie minus all the bullshit nitpicks about dialogue and acting in of all things a SW movie??

Aah... this is why you're my favorite poster. Blissfully unaware of things.

Don't worry, BKB. Sith haters have lost and are eating humble pie.

BKB, I think by "sith haters", BJ is referring to the people underestimating Sith's box office. Not actual haters of the movie itself.

The Cinderella Man previews seem to be doing really well. Is it possible for them to give K&S an Saturday-to-Sunday increase?