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Friday
27Mar2009

Mike Judge's New Comedy Gets That Oh So Lucky Labor Day Opening

DateFriday, March 27, 2009 at 7:10PM
Mike Judge can't catch a break these days. The man behind Beavis and Butt-head, King of the Hill, and Office Space has seen his two previous movies get various degrees of the shaft by Fox, and now it could be happening again at Miramax.

Exhibitor Relations (by way of Cinema Blend) reports that Judge's next film, the ensemble comedy Extract, will receive a September 4th release. Right now, that means it will wage war with Pandorum and Game on Labor Day weekend. The trouble comes with the studios' long-held belief that Labor Day weekend is a burial ground. It's not completely unfounded; only five new releases have earned more than $10 million on Labor Day weekend in the past six years, Transporter 2, Balls of Fury, 3:10 to Yuma, Crank, and Halloween, the only one to top $20 million.

But look at the movies typically released on that weekend and you'll see why it's such a low watermark. The reason it has a reputation for bad box office is because that's when Babylon A.D. and Dickie Roberts arrive in theaters. Nobody would see those in June, either.

Shuffling Extract to Labor Day does not seem like a move made to bolster box office results for the simple reason that unless your name is Halloween, you haven't ever done really well in that slot. Perhaps Miramax will throw gobs of money at it in promotion, but that doesn't seem likely.

And Judge has been here before; Idiocracy was dumped into 130 theaters on Labor Day weekend 2006 with no real support, and the film - predictably - stiffed. Hopefully, the appeal of the Extract cast - Jason Bateman, Mila Kunis, Ben Affleck, and Kristen Wiig, among others - will help the film keep a higher profile as Labor Day draws closer.

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | Comment1 Comment |

Reader Comments (1)

I hope this movie gets a massive opening and few weeks after that! just cus i feel bad for the guy!

Saturday, March 28, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterAaron Leaman

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