Stiller marriage comedy has a rocky start

The Ben Stiller comedy “The Heartbreak Kid” was a stunning disappointment in its opening, but there was plenty of heartache to go around as Hollywood executives estimated their weekend receipts Sunday.

DreamWorks Pictures’ R-rated comedy -- a re-teaming of Stiller with “There’s Something About Mary” directors the Farrelly brothers -- opened to an estimated $14 million in the U.S. and Canada.

That was well below industry expectations of $20 million to $25 million for the film, which cost upward of $60 million to produce. The movie was expected to top the charts but instead finished No. 2, behind the comedy “The Game Plan,” which stayed No. 1 by grossing $16.3 million.

“We were surprised by the harsh reviews because we’ve seen it play well over and over again in advance screenings,” said Chip Sullivan, a DreamWorks spokesman. “Reviews can be important for an R-rated comedy because all the hilarious moments can’t be shown in any of the marketing materials.”

Critics gave the raunchier remake of the 1970s classic only a 31% “fresh” rating, according to movie website Rotten Tomatoes. Paying audiences gave the film an unusually low CinemaScore rating of C-minus in exit surveys.

The fantasy adventure “The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising,” from 20th Century Fox and Walden Media, had even more trouble finding an audience. The PG movie, seen as the potential launch of a new franchise based on a series of novels, opened to $3.7 million domestically -- also far shy of predictions.

“The only positive spin is that the exit polls are good, a smidge above the norm,” said Chris Aronson, senior vice president of distribution at Fox. He also noted that few other family films were opening in the next month.

The weekend’s other wide new release, Sony BMG’s musical dance drama “Feel the Noise,” opened quietly to $3.4 million, although expectations were modest for the low-budget production.

The happiest campers in town had to be the gang at Walt Disney Co., whose father-daughter comedy “The Game Plan,” starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, fell only about 29% in its second weekend.

Studio surveys showed that two-thirds of the opening weekend audience was made up of families, but Disney executives said the film was playing broadly as word of mouth spread.

“Anecdotally, we’re seeing a lot of couples without kids,” said Chuck Viane, the studio’s distribution president. “It’s an everybody movie, and the Rock is a really good comedy actor.”

Universal Pictures’ terrorism thriller “The Kingdom,” starring Jamie Foxx, was No. 3, grossing $9.3 million with a 45% drop in its second weekend.

Overseas, “The Heartbreak Kid” had a more promising start, grossing an estimated $5.7 million altogether in four European territories including Russia.

DreamWorks, a semiautonomous division of Paramount, has been on a roll this year. Its hits including “Blades of Glory,” “Norbit” and the DreamWorks-Paramount co-production “Transformers” have helped lead Paramount to the No. 1 ranking among domestic distributors in 2007 market share.

But speculation has grown that the DreamWorks honchos, including co-founder Steven Spielberg, feel slighted and could part ways with Paramount late next year.

In a bid to make peace, the studios last week established DreamWorks/Paramount as the distribution entity for movies such as “The Heartbreak Kid” that come from the DreamWorks team.

Although the industry is off to a slow start this fall, several films are playing well in limited release.

Warner Bros.’ legal thriller “Michael Clayton,” starring George Clooney, averaged a stellar $47,000 at 15 locations, setting it up well for its wide expansion on Friday.

Industrywide ticket sales of about $80 million were a whopping 27% below the same weekend in 2006, according to research firm Media by Numbers. Depending on today’s final count, this will be the industry’s worst October weekend since 1999 or 2000, the firm said.

Hollywood reaped record box-office revenue of more than $4 billion this summer. But one month into the fall moviegoing season, domestic receipts are down 6% from last autumn’s pace and seasonal attendance has dropped 10%.

“There are not a lot of feel-good, ‘let’s-go-and-be-entertained’ movies out there right now,” Fox’s Aronson said.

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josh.friedman@latimes.com