The animated film is on track to gross up to $38 million in its sophomore weekend, exceeding the $35-million 35-million for "Dumb and Dumber To".
If I see anything gross up there, no worries.
The sixth-best frame of the past year delivered grosses 47% up on the equivalent period from 2011, when Super 8 and Mr Popper's Penguins were the top new releases.
Following back-to-back weekends posting grosses up 111%, 70 %, 64 % and 40on their equivalent frames from 2009, the 20-22 August period enjoyed a nifty 67% uptick on a year ago, when Inglourious Bastheir dequivalentthe top oframeschart.
But unlike executives in many recent mergers, where reimbursements of the tax bill -- called tax gross-ups -- on all the stock are often part of the deal, aQuantive's executives will not get gross-ups.
For example, 43percentt of the companies making changes to their pay said they had eliminated merit increases, while 15percentt said they had reduced retirement benefits or eliminated tax gross-up payments on perquisites like insurance policies or use of jets.
While the revival of "Godspell" appeared to get a slight bounce from its performance number on the Tonys telecast on CBS, with grosses up 20 percent last week, the dollar amount was still relatively anemic — $194,322, or about 25 percent of the show's maximum possible gross.
They're also cutting back on "gross-ups," or payments to cover taxes due on the free stuff they provide executives.
(Of course, some executives will try to get around a ban on gross-ups by asking for a special stock or option grant that will cover the tax bill. Directors would have to be on the lookout for these kinds of end-runs).
It might be easier to take if the sneering voice of Tyler Hubbard and the barrage of guitar didn't recall Nickelback quite so much, and if the horndog leering on songs such as Sun Daze wasn't quite so gross: "I'll sit you up on the kitchen sink / And stick the pink umbrella in your drink".
