“Reign” is doing okay
Things aren’t as soft as they seem for Reign Over Me, which took in $8 million last weekend for an 8th place showing. What matters is that (a) the $4788 per-screen average was fairly decent and (b) the film is expected to motor along with good word-of-mouth from women and over-25s. The per-screen tally was better than the opening-frame $3617 average for Spanglish, a semi-serious Sandler film that “actually outgrossed comedies Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore and Little Nicky,” according to Variety‘s Ian Mohr. Reign director Mike Binder confided a couple of days ago that “we actually did okay [last weekend]. Not the kill I wanted but we got a bad [i.e., extremely crowded] weekend. It’s good though. I’m happy.”
The Spanglish and Little Nicky comparisons are fine.
However, using the per-screen averages of Sandler’s first starring roles (from well over a decade ago) to crow about ROM’s performance is a stretch.
But I do agree that it’s not a bad opening by any means.
I’m a bit skeptical that word-of-mouth is gonna be that good, tho’. Roeper-and-guest trashed it over the weekend, fwiw.
Does anyone actually know what time Roeper at the Movies Plus Someone is on anymore? Not nearly as many people care what he says as they did Ebert or Siskel.
It’s a good film and I hope it does well at the box office. It’s refreshing to watch an Hollywood product with substance.
ROEPER is like some movie critic out of They Live … just another crazy bastard licking his nuts … Roeper is even less relevant than Gene Siskel … sure, the Thin White Roepmeister is probably an okay guy, and he must have had good karma from a past life to be acclimated to the position of this generation’s most known and least interesting film critic … “10:30 Monday morning, don’t bring Sugarman.”
Interesting how much Jeff is promoting REIGN when you know how much hate he’s poured on Adam Sandler in the past.
I guess he’s no longer the AntiChrist.
Just wait’ll Eddie Murphy does a M. Mann film!
Bad movie, no heat.
and the spin both starts…….and stops, here…