"Code Blue! Dr. Ross to the ER! Dr. Ross to the ER!" Monday Recap - Leatherheads

So...the first time I decide to put this in writing and I miss horrendously. Things I learned:

* It's one of the oldest betting axioms, always bet with your head not your heart. And I can tell you that heart sank when I walked into a barely half-full 8:20 Friday night showing. I definitely won't make the same mistake this week with Street Kings.

* The girlfriend is not in fact a bellwether. Something to be mindful of when I'm predicting the opening weekend of Sex and the City, the trailer of which puts the girlfriend into fits of apoplectic giggling and clapping.

But all in all, it wasn't too tragic. Everyone seems to have made the same mistakes, overvaluing Clooney, not factoring in 21 only dropping 37%. Who knows, maybe the experts at Variety and the LA Times listened to their girlfriends too.

Final Verdict: Leatherheads - a Kraft Lunchable, not quite a ham sandwich, but it might hold you over until dinner.



Meanwhile, 21 served up the unexpected "hey, look there's a leftover ham sandwich in the frig!" $15 million. Pretty impressive for a movie that was poorly reviewed and not well received.



Edit: Steve came up with a much better moniker, which I will now commandeer. Not a Lunchables, but in fact a half-empty bag of pigskins. Kudos, Steve.

Welcome to the Ham Sandwich Report

There's an old episode of "Law and Order" where Jack McCoy is in the familiar position of justifying his case to professional grumpy-guy Adam Schiff. He tries to explain that tenuous circumstantial evidence was sufficient to convince the grand jury to indict the accused. Schiff rebuffs him by saying, "You can get the grand jury to indict a ham sandwich."

It seems to me likewise that during the portions of the cinematic calendar not dominated by wizards, superheroes, Will Smith, and Will Smith as a superhero that the studios can release any movie and with the muscle of their marketing departments guarantee a $15 million opening weekend. These movies I like to refer to as the ham sandwiches.

My co-worker "Client #9" (name changed to protect his identity) and I amuse ourselves on dreary winter Fridays during ham sandwich season predicting the opening weekend of these mostly drab slabs of cold cuts and Wonder Bread. We've gotten pretty good, so I decided to up the ante and start tracking our predictions against the so-called experts.

The first contestant in this buffet of lunch meats is Leatherheads. First, the experts: the LA Times calls for $16 million; Variety projects $19 million. Variety bases its claim on the fact that the movie has been tracking well with the nostalgia set but that the oldies don't see movies on opening weekend - evidently it takes a while to warm up those Rascal Scooters.

Client #9 predicts $18.5. A solid ham sandwich and a bag of chips.

I was initially enthusiastic because the girlfriend asked me if I wanted to see it, which certainly isn't the case with most sports movies. But crunching the numbers, I couldn't find anything to bolster that enthusiasm past Client #9's $18 million. Invincible, Friday Night Lights and Glory Road seem to be the best analog for the sports angle and they opened with $17 mil, $17 mil, and $20 mil respectively (and FNL certainly skewed younger than Leatherheads).

For the fairer sex, George Clooney hasn't been in a romantic comedy since One Fine Day, which opened with a paltry $6 mil (and was pummelled by Beavis and Butthead Do America). O Brother, Where Art Thou? would seem to be a good indicator, being a period dramedy, but that movie was slow-rolled and so doesn't have the opening numbers. And George Clooney has squandered whatever goodwill he had with female audiences with his recent string of message films, all of which underperformed.

Renee Zellweger has more experience with the romantic comedy, but her resume there is Jerry Maguire; huge success, Bridget Jones; huge success, and then flop, flop, flop. No ham sandwiches they. Her best analog in fact might be Cinderella Man, not a comedy to be sure, but a period sports movie that performed well. Would you like to guess the opening weekend? $18 million.

So, factoring in a little inflation, and the remaining enthusiasm I have from my hopefully bellwether sweetheart, I'm calling for a $21 million value meal - a ham sandwich, a bag of chips and a fountain drink.

LA Times: $16 million
Variety: $19 million
Client #9: $18.5 million
Me: $21 million

Check back on Monday for the results.