"It was a little sleeper for Screen Gems that Screen Gems did their usual great publicity job on," Sony's Jeff Blake said Sunday morning. "It certainly is a picture that had a great cast and a major star in Richard Gere, but really was an interesting picture. (It's) certainly not a straight horror picture. It's a picture about creepy supernatural occurrences that really kind of caught a little more of the public's imagination than a lot of people predicted.
"I think this is a good solid opening for us and the word of mouth on this picture is going to be good. I think it's a real creepy thriller much in the way that pictures like The Others were that kind of creep on the market and really get a nice word of mouth going. We feel real good that it got off the start it got off to and that it will hang in there. It's a very crowded market, so as usual I give a lot of credit to the Screen Gems team for breaking through. The Others opened to $14 million and word of mouth got them to $100 million. We certainly hope the same pattern happens for us."
Universal, DreamWorks and Imagine Entertainment's PG-13 rated drama A Beautiful Mind fell one peg in its sixth week to fifth place, showing sensational post-Golden Globes legs with an ESTIMATED $11.67 million (-1%) at 2,237 theaters (+12 theaters; $5,215 per theater). Its cume is approximately $93.0 million, heading for $150 million or more in domestic theaters depending on how it performs in terms of Oscar nominations Feb. 12.
Directed by Ron Howard, the Brian Grazer production stars Russell Crowe, Ed Harris and Jennifer Connelly.
"We're very happy with A Beautiful Mind," Universal distribution president Nikki Rocco said Sunday morning. "the story of the weekend is the 1 percent off. That's the best hold (of the weekend). No one's seen a hold like this in a long time. Saturday's business was up 14 percent from last week."
Asked if Mind's four Golden Globe wins, including best picture/drama, were a key reason for its strong hold, Rocco replied, "Absolutely. (It's) the Golden Globes, the visibility we've gotten from the Golden Globes and the word of mouth on the film. We were up (after the Globes) like 6 percent, 8 percent and 9 percent on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Business was up from the previous week."
Focusing on the benefit films get from exposure and wins on the Globes and the Oscars, Rocco noted, "they're globally televised. You get a lot of publicity and good will (because) they're such broadly televised shows."