'The Help' Grossing 9.9 Millions On Two Days

Tate Taylor's female-fueled The Help continued to serve up a strong box office performance Thursday, grossing $4.3 million for a two-day total of $9.9 million.

Thursday is often a down day at the box office, but The Help did better than expected.
It's now likely that The Help--benefiting from an A+ CinemaScore and great word of mouth--will post a five-day debut in the high $20 million range. However, if the pic is front-loaded, the number could be lower. Disney is being more cautious, putting its estimate in the mid $20 million range.

Fans of Kathryn Stockett's novel are turning out in force to se the DreamWorks and Participant Media film, along with moviegoers simply curious about the film's storyline and large female cast, led by Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer and Bryce Dallas Howard. Disney is distributing.
The Help is only the second movie of the year to receive an A+ CinemaSocre after TriStar/Film District's Soul Surfer. Films earning the top score enjoy strong multiples, such as Soul Surfer, which opened to $10.6 million and grossed $43.9 million domestically. Disney's Tangled and the Weinstein Co.'s Oscar winner The King's Speech were the only 2010 releases to receive an A+ CinemaScore. Past winners of the top grade include The Blind Side and Titanic (the top grossing film of all time).

The Help is also benefiting from appealing to female moviegoers otherwise turned off by Hollywood's big summer blockbusters, with women making up more than 80 percent of Wednesday's audience. Roughly 78 percent were over the age of 25.

Set in the early 1960s in Jackson, Miss., The Help explores the complicated relationships between white women and their maids, and what happens when a young white journalist exposes how the maids are treated.

DreamWorks and Participant Media co-financed the $25 million the movie, which was produced by Chris Columbus and Mike Barnathan's 1492 Pictures. The film is already drawing awards buzz for its performances.

The Help also stars Jessica Chastain, Ahna O'Reilly, Allison Janney and Sissy Spacek.
Tate, a childhood friend of Stockett's, makes his feature directorial debut with The Help.

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Pics: Bryce Dallas Howard At "The Help" Premiere In Beverly Hills ( August 9)

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BTS Stills From "The Help"

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The Cast From 'The Help' Talks About Hollywood, Roles & Other Important Things

A period drama set amid the explosive racial politics of the 1960s South. An all-female ensemble cast. An inexperienced director.

It sounds like a recipe for a movie that would send studio executives running. Yet “The Help” — a complex tale of white women and their relationships with the black maids who clean their houses and care for their children — didn’t just get made. Arriving in theaters Aug. 10, the DreamWorks film is vying for the attention of audiences more interested in substantive fare as Hollywood begins to shake off the popcorn movies of summer.

Based on Kathryn Stockett’s 2009 novel, the film project had one thing going for it: the book’s popularity. Reviewers loved it, and readers couldn’t finish it fast enough; it stayed atop bestseller lists for close to two years.

Still, there were prominent detractors. Some critics carped about a white author writing in a black dialect for a pair of maids who serve as two of the book’s three narrators. Others felt the white narrator — an idealistic college grad named Skeeter Phelan, who persuades the black maids of Jackson, Miss., to tell their stories to her and causes a sensation when she publishes their tales anonymously — was too much of a savior.

Before the novel hit big, Stockett’s childhood friend Tate Taylor — a white, Southern actor who wrote and directed the 2008 indie “Pretty Ugly People” — optioned the work, determined to direct the film himself. When Hollywood came calling, trying to take the property away, he held on tight, set to work on a script and enlisted the support of producer Chris Columbus to make the movie. DreamWorks and Participant Media came aboard, and improbably, Taylor, 42, had a greenlight.

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(Photos) Bryce Dallas Howard At Screening Of "The Help" In LA - NAACP

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New Stills From 'The Help' With Bryce Dallas Howard

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(Bryce Dallas Howard) "The Help" In Vanity Fair - July Issue

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HQ Photos Of Bryce Dallas Howard From "The Help" Press Conference

(June 29)

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3 New Stills From "The Help" (Bryce Dallas Howard)

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New "The Help" Stills (Bryce Dallas Howard)

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