Teen screamer “Prom Night” beats Keanu’s dirty copper in Street Kings, 21, Nims and Clooney

By Robin Rowe

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA (Hollywood Today) 4/13/08 – A remake of the 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis “scream queen” slasher ‘Prom Night’ dominated the box office with $9.5 million from 2,700 theaters in a weekend of unexciting openings. The $20M-budget feature finish the weekend with $22.7M. That it’s prom season helped, as did Screen Gems encouraging a young female audience by toning down the gore to a PG-13. “In the post-‘Saw’ world, we’ve gone as far as we can with onscreen violence,” says executive producer Marc Forby. “We went back to the classic, old-school thriller.”

Fox Searchlight’s dirty cops flick ‘Street Kings’ came a distant second place with $12 million from 2,467 venues, after being trashed by reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes (70% rotten). The R-rated drama is projected to crawl to a $12.5M weekend, dragged upwards by an A-list cast of Keanu Reeves, Forest Whitaker and Hugh Laurie. Keanu Reeves was “intrigued by the level of violence surrounding the character and the dramatic consequences of that.” Others were not.

Sony’s gambling film ‘21’ made 3rd place with $11 mil 2,736 sites and a total of $61.2M. Fox family vehicle ‘Nim’s Island’ took fourth place with $9 million . George Clooney’s ‘Leatherheads’ from Universal continued to disappoint in its second week, with $6.2 million.

A bright spot is Fox’s ‘Horton Hears A Who!’. Charging strong in its fifth week, with $1.5M Friday from 3,209 theaters, that brings it to nearly $140M. ‘Horton’ is a major hit for 2008.

EEKEND TOP 5 STUDIO ESTIMATES, APRIL 11-13, 2008

Rank. Movie Title (Distributor)
Weekend Gross | Theaters | Total Gross | Week #

1. Prom Night (Sony / Screen Gems)
$22.7 million | 2,700 | $22.7 million | 1

2. Street Kings (Fox Searchlight)
$12.0 million | 2,467 | $12.0 million | 1

3. 21 (Sony / Columbia)
$11.0 million | 2,736 | $62.3 million | 3

4. Nim’s Island (Fox)
$9.0 million | 3,518 | $25.3 million | 2

5. Leatherheads (Universal)
$6.2 million | 2,771 | $21.9 million | 2

Robin Rowe is a co-founder of ScreenPlayLab (www.screenplaylab.com). Stats from boxofficemojo.com