‘Semi-Pro’ opens (quietly) on top

The gloomiest week in New Line Cinema’s 40-year history ended with a clunk, as the Will Ferrell basketball comedy “Semi-Pro” opened to an estimated $15.3 million and fell far below box-office expectations.

The raunchy comedy, produced for $57 million, had been expected to open at around $25 million in ticket sales, according to executives at the studio and industry analysts, but its restrictive R rating clearly kept younger moviegoers away.

In a hollow victory, “Semi-Pro” ranked No. 1 for the weekend, followed by Sony Pictures’ holdover thriller “Vantage Point,” which took in $13 million, and Paramount Pictures’ family fantasy “The Spiderwick Chronicles” at $8.8 million.

Executives at New Line, which learned Thursday that the studio would be merged into corporate sibling Warner Bros. by parent Time Warner Inc. as a cost-saving move, declined to comment Sunday on the weekend box-office results.

New Line, best known for the blockbuster “The Lord of The Rings” series before slumping during the last several years, will continue as a production label but is expected to make fewer, and cheaper, movies. Hundreds of jobs are likely to be eliminated in the transition.

Two other new films matched industry expectations.

“The Other Boleyn Girl,” a period romance starring Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana, took in $8.3 million to rank No. 4 for the weekend, according to Sony’s estimate. The movie, made for $35 million, was a co-production with Relativity Media and Universal Pictures’ Focus Features division.

The film averaged a solid $7,000 per theater at a moderately wide 1,200 locations, an indication that it could hang tough for several weeks in the marketplace, said Rory Bruer, Sony’s president of domestic distribution.

The movie got mixed reviews but a decent reception from audience members surveyed: 80% rated it “excellent” or “very good,” Bruer said.

As expected, the PG-13 film skewed female, with women and girls making up 72% of the customer base. Two-thirds of the audience was under 35.

Summit Entertainment’s romantic fable “Penelope” also skewed female, opening to about $4 million and will rank No. 8 or 9 in a tight race.

The PG-rated movie, starring Christina Ricci, James McAvoy, Reese Witherspoon and Catherine O’Hara, was produced for under $15 million by Stone Village Pictures and Witherspoon’s Type A Films.

Business climbed by a solid 57% from Friday to Saturday, and audience members surveyed by CinemaScore gave it an “A-minus” grade, said Richard Fay, president of domestic distribution at upstart studio Summit.

josh.friedman@latimes.com