From 'hump day' to 'jump day'

On Wednesdays, films can get early box-office boost

HOLLYWOOD -- Pink is the new black, 50 is the new 40 and, when it comes to summer movies, Wednesday has become the new Friday.

By Labor Day, the major studios and several independent distributors are releasing more than half a dozen new films on a Wednesday, usually considered one of the slowest days of the week for moviegoing.

Although two Wednesday premieres -- Sony's "Pineapple Express" and Warner Bros.' "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" -- opened two days early in part to avoid the start of the 2008 Olympics, the midweek theatrical openings are largely designed to maximize positive buzz so the new releases can hit Friday with a full head of steam.

"We think our movie plays really, really well," says Chris McGurk, whose Overture Films will release Don Cheadle's terrorist drama "Traitor" on Aug. 27 to get a jump on the Labor Day holiday. "We just believe releasing it on a Wednesday before a four-day weekend is like having a rolling sneak preview."

Says Jack Foley, the distribution chief for Focus Features, whose comedy "Hamlet 2" will move into wide release Aug. 27: "You get a lot of positive word of mouth going into the weekend. You have two days of people validating the movie locally."

While "The Dark Knight's" summer receipts are so stunning that it's not a fair predictor of any other movie's performance, the Batman sequel's midweek numbers have shown that moviegoers will flock to the multiplex on days other than the weekend.

Thanks in part to so much midweek attendance, total summer grosses are up about 1 percent from last year's vacation season, when domestic ticket sales hit a record $4.16 billion. Still, total summer admissions are down more than 3 percent from last summer, with the higher grosses driven by an average national ticket price of $7.16, according to new data from the National Association of Theater Owners.

Some distributors say the summer's overall returns -- coupled with the consistent midweek revenue -- suggest that some people hurt by the struggling economy are going to the movies rather than taking off on vacations.

"It's a sign that people are not only picking movies as the weekend choice for entertainment but also in the middle of the week as well," says Jeff Blake, Sony Pictures Entertainment vice chairman.

Distributors say Wednesday openings -- especially late in the summer, when kids are starting to return to school -- actually boost, rather than cannibalize, weekend grosses.

In deciding to release "Hamlet 2" in 100 theaters on Aug. 22 (a Friday) before taking it to 1,700 theaters on Aug. 27 (a Wednesday), Focus looked at the performance of its "Vanity Fair" in 2004 and "The Constant Gardener" in 2005, both of which opened on Wednesdays and did strong business before the weekend.

Similarly, "The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 2" maker Warner Bros. looked at the Wednesday premieres of Disney's "The Princess Diaries 2" in August 2004 and "Freaky Friday" in August 2003 and saw that a film appealing to girls could do strong business following a midweek launch; both Disney films grossed more than $95 million domestically.

"It just makes your weekend even stronger," says Jeff Goldstein, Warners' executive vice president of domestic distribution. The first "Pants" film opened on a Wednesday in 2005 as well, and while it was not a runaway hit (grossing more than $39 million domestically), the film did sell a ton of DVDs.