It was a "wunderbar" weekend for comedian Sacha Baron Cohen, whose latest mockumentary, Bruno, finished first at the box office by grossing $30.4 million, according to early estimates by Hollywood.com Box Office. However, Cohen better celebrate his victory quickly because like his gay Austrian character's interview with Congressman Ron Paul, it's not going to last too long. Brunotopped the charts on Friday with an imposing $14.4 million, but then dropped 39 percent on Saturday. In fact, while Bruno won the weekend, it came in third place on Saturday. Clearly, many of Cohen's fans rushed to see Bruno on its opening day, but that considerable Friday-to-Saturday drop may also indicate poor word-of-mouth (the comedy scored a rancid "C" rating from CinemaScore moviegoers). Bruno surpassed the debut of Cohen's last mockumentary, Borat, which opened to $26.5 million in November 2006, although it's not a fair comparison -- Bruno started its run on more than three times as many screens as Borat. All indicators point to Bruno struggling to match Borat's cumulative gross of $128.5 million.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurswas No. 2 with $28.5 million, dropping only 32 percent from last weekend. The animated family film has made $120.6 million in two weeks. Third place went to the robots, as Michael Bay's Transformers: Revenge of the Fallensmashed up $24.2 million in its third weekend, bringing its total to $339.2 million. Transformers 3 will be here before you know it.
Public Enemies(No. 4 with $14.1 million) and The Proposal (No. 5 with $10.5 million) round out the top five. The Proposal marks star Sandra Bullock's first $100 million picture since 2000's Miss Congeniality, and the romantic comedy should have no trouble passing 1994's Speed to become Bullock's biggest hit. The weekend's other new wide release, the teen comedy I Love You, Beth Cooper, opened at No. 7 with $5 million.
Looking to the indie scene, a trio of films garnered decent openings. Blood: The Last Vampire drained $103,000 from 20 theaters. The "mumblecore" comedy, Humpday, made $30,000 on just two screens, and the music documentary, Soul Power, took $25,000 from six screens. The year's best-reviewed film, The Hurt Locker, expanded to 60 theaters in its third weekend and earned $623,000 for a hearty $10,383 per-screen average. The Iraq War thriller will continue expanding into additional theaters over the next few weeks.
A gay Austrian's dream to become "uber-famous" came true, as Sacha Baron Cohen's new mockumentary, Bruno, topped the box office on Friday, according to early estimates. Bruno, which pushes its R-rating to places never before thought possible, grossed $14.2 million on Friday. By comparison, Cohen's previous mockumentary, Borat, made $9.2 million on its first day; however, Bruno debuted on more than three times as many screens as Borat (2,756 versus 837). Second place went to the third Ice Age movie, which consumed $8.7 million on Friday while evolving past the $100 million mark. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen dropped 58% in its third week for a gross of $7.6 million. While that steep of a drop would spell trouble for most movies, Transformers has already tallied $323 million in the U.S. (not to mention more than $330 million overseas), so we doubt Paramount is shedding any tears. In fourth and fifth place were Public Enemies and The Proposal, which picked up $4.3 million and $3.5 million, respectively. Also opening wide this weekend was the teen comedy I Love You, Beth Cooper, which clearly could have used more love -- it registered a dweebish $2.1 million. Friday's figures are below. Be sure to check back here on Sunday for the complete weekend box office report.
1. Bruno -- $14.2 mil 2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs -- $8.7 mil 3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen -- $7.6 mil 4. Public Enemies -- $4.3 mil 5. The Proposal -- $3.5 mil
Big Brother and So You Think You Can Dance showed summer reality is as stable a staple as ever, even on a night when the network audience was relatively small. CBS' procedural reruns held strong, while ABC's combination of burn-off episodes of Samantha Who? and repeats of Grey's Anatomy and Private Practice struggled.
Time
Show
Viewers (in millions)
8:00 p.m.
Big Brother 11 (CBS) Bones (Fox) Samantha Who? (ABC) 30 Rock (NBC) Smallville (The CW)
6.7 5.7 (repeat) 3.6 3.4 (repeat) 1.4 (repeat)
8:30 p.m.
Samantha Who? (ABC) The Office (NBC)
3.2 3.0 (repeat)
9:00 p.m.
So You Think You Can Dance (Fox) CSI (CBS) The Office (CBS) Grey's Anatomy (ABC) Supernatural (The CW)
In a matter of weeks, actress Hope Davis will transform herself from Annette -- the upper-class wife and mother who spars on stage with Jeff Daniels, Marcia Gay Harden, and James Gandolfini eight shows a week in the Tony Award-winning Broadway play God of Carnage -- into Hillary Clinton for HBO Films' political drama The Special Relationship for British director Richard Loncraine (Wimbledon). She was just asked Monday to step into the role after Julianne Moore had to bow out due to a scheduling conflict. Now, Davis is tasked with embodying our current Secretary of State during her less glamorous years as First Lady to Bill Clinton (played by Dennis Quaid) during the Monica Lewinsky affair.
So how does the award-winning actress plan to hastily prepare? Through lots of audio tapes, lots of books, and a trusty wig. "With something like this, you can't spend all your time worrying about what you sound like, that you're not doing the storytelling part," Davis tells EW, while on her way to yet another live show of Carnage. "That has to come first."
While the title A Special Relationship refers to the friendship between two heads of state, U.S. President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (to be played for the third time by actor Michael Sheen), the film, from screenwriter Peter Morgan (The Queen), also imagines what went on behind closed doors between the Clintons during the Lewinsky affair. And it's something Davis can relate to. "Almost every woman in the world has been in that position -- it was a long time ago in my life -- where the person that you trusted looks at you and says, 'I have an admission to make.' It's a moment we've all lived through."
Davis will be flying to London on Sunday to meet Quaid and Loncraine and to do a script read-through. Production will begin July 20 and Davis will join the cast in the beginning of August.
Sacha Baron Cohen's equal-opportunity offender Bruno is barging into theaters this weekend, promising enough outrageous shtick to lure in the most reluctant of moviegoers, if only to see how far he'll go. While Twentieth Century Fox, Cohen's Borat distributor, was tasked with selling a strange Kazakhstani journalist to audiences, Universal is in the fortunate spot of marketing Bruno like a sequel. The studio's over-the-top campaign shows that they may even be having a little fun with their gay Austrian fashion reporter. Now, with Bruno opening in 2,757 theaters, the one question is how well Baron Cohen's flamboyant character will play in more conservative parts of the U.S.
1. Bruno: $37 million In 2006, Borat opened in only 837 theaters to $26.4 million, a stunning debut at the time. Bruno is sure to gross more than that this weekend, continuing this summer's trend of successful R-rated comedies. The under-35 crowd is definitely the core audience here, with the film sure to play well with college kids. But whether or not Baron Cohen's homophobia satire resonates as a joke, or only as a furthering of gay stereotypes, will be the topic of discussion once the movie is seen. But, really, generating discussion can't be a bad thing for the box office.
2. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs: $22 million While its opening weekend didn't live up to those of its predecessors, Ice Age 3 was still a hit with the younger set and their parents. And, no, it didn't beat out Transformers 2 last weekend, but that should all change this frame. With nothing in its way, expect its sophomore session to drop in the 45 percent range with help from all those 3-D showings.
3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen: $19 million While we won't dwell on what it says about our society that Transformers 2 is the second fastest movie ever to hit the $300 million milestone (behind the beloved The Dark Knight) we will say that that is quite an achievement. But now it's time for the film to start dropping off, and Bruno is just the movie to knock it from its perch. Still, expect a 55 percent hold: Some guys just can't get enough of Megan Fox and transforming robots.
4. Public Enemies: $13 million Johnny Depp's John Dillinger flick bowed to a respectable $25 million. And its mid-week numbers have helped push it up to $50 million. The big question for this film is how it will hold during its second session -- that point is crucial, actually, since the studio is banking on at least a $100 million gross. Some insiders are predicting a steep drop, but I think Public Enemies is likely to fall just under 50 percent.
5. The Proposal: $7 million This Sandra Bullock romantic comedy has performed remarkably well, grossing $100 million in three weeks and never dropping more than 45 percent. Even if this weekend's fall puts it off by 50 percent, The Proposal will still be deemed a remarkable success for the over-40 movie star.
Also opening...
I Love You, Beth Cooper: $6 million Director Chris Columbus has had opening weekends as high as $90 million (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone) and as low as $6 million (Heartbreak Hotel). Unfortunately, his latest film looks like it's destined for the latter category. EW gave I Love You, Beth Cooper, starring Heroes' Hayden Panettiere, a positive review, but other notices haven't been so kind. Let's hope Columbus has better luck with his next outing.
The climactic moment of Tuesday's Michael Jackson memorial service came when 11-year-old Paris Jackson stepped to the mic and spoke through tears: "Ever since I was born, daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine," she said. "And I just want to say that I love him so much."
Ken Erlich, the producer of the memorial, has told EW that the moment was in no way planned. "A lot of the show was not scripted," he says. "A lot of the speakers spoke from their heart. We told them we’d be happy to work with them, but a lot of them -- the Smokeys, the Berry Gordys, the people who knew Michael all his life -- wanted to speak from the heart, on their own. When [the Paris moment] happened, I had asked the family to come up if they wanted to and say something. I thought, frankly, that we were going to get the brothers and the sisters. This went way beyond that, obviously."
Erlich also reports that the moment when Usher left the stage to sing "Gone Too Soon" next to Jackson's casket was similarly impromptu. "He did that on his own and it was wonderful," says the producer. "All we had time to do with this show is create the sense of it. The rest of it happened because we allowed it to happen. We didn’t want to get in the way."
You can read more about Jackson's memorial in this week's issue of EW, on stands Friday. (Reporting by Archana Ram)
Cameron Diaz is considering an offer to play the female lead in Green Hornet, opposite Seth Rogen. A deal hasn't been sealed yet, but sources tell EW that she is in early talks for the role. Her reps at CAA declined comment. Michel Gondry is set to direct the film based on a script by Rogen and his writing partner Evan Goldberg. Shooting is supposed to begin shortly, with a release date already set for July 9, 2010.
CBS won Tuesday night as a repeat of NCIS narrowly defeated NBC's America's Got Talent for the title of the evening's most-watched program. The only real ratings surprise came at 10 p.m., when ABC's Primetime: Family Secrets took the hour by growing 5 million viewers week-to-week (and 189 percent in adults 18-49) with a program that revolved around Michael Jackson's children and featured a rarely seen interview with Debbie Rowe. It's the highest-rated installment in the three-year-old news series' history.
Time
Show
Viewers (in millions)
8 p.m.
NCIS (CBS) Great American Road Trip (NBC) The Superstars (ABC) Movie: Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (Fox) 90210 (The CW)
10.8 (repeat) 4.7 4.2 2.2 (repeat) 1.0 (repeat)
9 p.m.
America's Got Talent (NBC) The Mentalist (CBS) 20/20: Remembering Michael Jackson Hitched or Ditched (The CW)
For the week ending July 5, America's Got Talent took home the No. 1 and No. 2 spots in the weekly ratings race with 13.1 million and 11.4 million viewers for the Tuesday and Wednesday airings, respectively. And actually, the top of the chart wasn't the only place where Talent popped up: Repeats of the show, which air in the hour prior to both the Tuesday and Wednesday episodes, appear at No. 8 and No. 28, adding an additional 8.2 million and 6 million viewers to the franchise's overall pull. NBC hasn't had an entertainment program top the charts since last summer when...Talent last aired.
Amid the usual sea of repeats of CBS procedurals and comedies, a new episode of CBS' 48 Hours Mystery rolled in at No. 11 with 8 million viewers; ABC scored at No. 11 and No. 15 with fresh installments of Wipeout (8 million viewers) and The Bachelorette (7.9 million viewers), respectively; and Fox's two latest editions of So You Think You Can Dance cleared 7.7 million viewers and 7.2 million viewers on Wednesday and Thursday, respectively, to land at No. 17 and No. 19. The rest of the Top 20, which you can find after the jump, is -- you guessed it! -- filled with summer repeats.
The holiday weekend gave CBS reasons to celebrate during an otherwise rife-with-reruns summer weekend. An inside look at the U.S. Airways flight that landed on the Hudson River last winter and an interview with Jon Bon Jovi helped buoy 60 Minutes to 8.2 million viewers, while Saturday's Boston Pops Fireworks Special played to 6.7 million and helped the net win the night. NBC's Macy's 4th of July Fireworks entertained another 5.4 million that night as burn-off episodes of ABC's Eli Stone (2.6 million) and NBC's Kings (1.3 million) floundered the same night. Michael Jackson coverage continued to fuel newsmagazines on Friday night, with two hours of Dateline NBC (4.4 million) and ABC's hour-long 20/20 (4.3 million).
Below, a look at Sunday's lineup.
Time
Show
Viewers (in millions)
7 p.m.
60 Minutes (CBS) Dateline (NBC) America's Funniest Home Videos (ABC) 'Til Death (Fox) Valentine Inc. (The CW)
8.2 4.6 (repeat) 4.3 1.5 .6
7:30 p.m.
Just for Laughs (ABC) American Dad (Fox)
4.2 2.0 (repeat)
8 p.m.
Million Dollar Password (CBS) Merlin (NBC) Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (ABC) The Simpsons (Fox) Road House (The CW)
6.7 (repeat) 4.3 3.8 (repeat) 3.7 (repeat) 1.4
8:30 p.m.
King of the Hill (Fox)
3.3 (repeat)
9 p.m.
Cold Case (CBS) Family Guy (Fox) The Bourne Supremacy (NBC) Desperate Housewives (ABC)
