‘Inside Man’ steals the weekend

Reflecting on the surprising strength of his new movie directed by Spike Lee, producer Brian Grazer said Sunday morning, “I’ve had some unique professional victories, and this is one of the top.” “This” was the far-better-than-expected $29-million estimated opening for “Inside Man” -- the year’s second-strongest movie debut.

Universal Picture’s $45-million heist thriller also marked opening-weekend career highs for Lee and Denzel Washington and second-best opening weekends for costars Clive Owen and Jodie Foster.

The No. 1 box-office ranking surpassed marketing prognostications that the movie would likely pull in a figure in the teens or, at most, the low 20s.

Given all the handwringing over the sluggish state of the box office, Nikki Rocco, president of distribution for Universal Pictures, said she was glad for her studio’s sake and “happy for the business.”

“Inside Man” appealed to a broad demographic spectrum, according to theater exit surveys that Universal said the studio conducted in L.A., New York, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta.

About 68% of audiences were age 30 and older, and males accounted for 54% versus 46% female. Additionally, 63% of audiences in the surveyed locations were white, 21% African American and 10% Latino.

“Inside Man” included Lee’s pointed observations about ethnicity and society yet still represented something of an unexpected departure for the director. It’s his first genre film, and it’s also the rare time Lee did not serve as a writer on a project he directed. (“Inside” is screenwriter Russell Gewirtz’s first produced script.)

For a business in which the path from development to finished film is frequently torturous, Grazer said, this one was relatively easy. “I had wanted to work with Spike since ‘Do the Right Thing.’ ” As it turned out, the two were meeting on a separate project when, at the end of the discussion, Lee “whipped out the script for ‘Inside Man’ and said, ‘What about this?’ It was rather theatrical. He’s like that. He had read the script independently,” Grazer recalled.

Grazer expressed interest but stopped short of a firm commitment, “and when we walked to the elevator, he turned to me, grabbed me by the wrist, looked me in the eye, and said, ‘Brian, I promise you’ll have a good time on this.’ ... That sealed it.

“The thing about Spike -- he either discovers great people or has the ability to attract great people,” Grazer said. That quickly proved to be true, as Washington, Owen and Foster signed on in short order.

For the year, “Inside Man” ranks just behind the $30-million opening by Tyler Perry’s “Madea’s Family Reunion.”

Last weekend’s top movie, “V for Vendetta,” took second with about $12.3 million, declining about 52%. The total for “V” is about $46.2 million. Debuting at No. 3, the video-game thriller “Stay Alive,” which Disney opted not to screen for critics, took in about $11.2 million. Another film withheld from critics, Lionsgate’s “Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector,” opened at No. 7 with an estimated $7.1 million.

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Box Office

Preliminary results (in millions) based on studio projections.

*--* Movie 3-day gross Total Inside Man $29 $29

V for Vendetta 12.3 46.2

Stay Alive 11.2 11.2

Failure to Launch 10.8 63.9

The Shaggy Dog 9.1 47.9

She’s the Man 7.4 20.5

Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector 7.1 7.1

The Hills Have Eyes 4.3 35.6

Eight Below 2.7 77.2

16 Blocks 2.2 34.1 Source: Nielsen EDI Inc. Los Angeles Times

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