Weekend sets stage for summer b.o.'s final month (HWD)

By Paul Dergarabedian

Three wide release newcomers and an IMAX coming out party for "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" mark the start of the final month of the summer movie season.

With $240 million in domestic box-office and counting, the "Potter" gravy train is about to get another infusion of cash as the IMAX release of "Harry Potter 6" prepares to be unleashed in 166 domestic locations and 66 international giant format screens for a total of 232 IMAX-ed worldwide "Potter" playdates. Talk about a nice third weekend hold, this IMAX release should provide a nice boost to this, the fifth highest grossing film of the year and climbing.

Opening this weekend in over 3,000 locations are Fox's fantasy family adventure "Aliens in the Attic" and Universal's "Funny People." The horror/thriller "The Collector" from Freestyle Releasing also debuts, but in just 1,325 theaters. These three very different movies offer a great transition to the following week's opening of the next major summer blockbuster "G.I. Joe" from Paramount.

Perfect timing will allow the R-rated Apatow, Sandler, Rogen comedy of "Funny People," the PG-rated family friendly nature of Fox's of "Aliens in the Attic" and the R-rated horror of Freestyle's "The Collector" all to have their best possible shot at success before the onslaught of "G.I. Joe."

Additionally in their favor is that each of these films has their own distinctive audience that will hold them in good stead in the coming weeks.

Certainly the collective appeal of the Apatow brand combined with Adam Sandler's continued popularity and Seth Rogen's "cool" factor, make "Funny People" a film that could prove to be a late summer R-rated comedy hit.

We are going to need another box-office miracle (much as we saw when "Transformers" revived the the dog days) in the next couple of weeks if we are going to have a new summer revenue record. This non-stop tug-of-war between last year's and this year's grosses have caused the box-office fortunes of the Industry to rise and fall at an amazing rate. The combination of "Funny People" and "G.I. Joe" will hopefully swing things back in favor of 2009 and secure us that magic record revenue number.