It looks like King Kong is a box-office turkey, having ratcheted up a mere $9.8 million on opening day. To offer serve the public, I have translated Universal’s spinspeak into regular vernacular:

UNIVERSAL SPINSPEAK: “It’s a great start.” (Nikki Rocco)
REGULAR VERNACULAR: “This is the worst beginning we ever exepcted.”

UNIVERSAL SPINSPEAK: “We’re very pleased with the word-of-mouth that’s feeding back to us and the film’s playability and reviews are great, so we’re looking forward to the weekend.” (Nikki Rocco)
REGULAR VERNACULAR: “Our test scores we’re through the roof. What happened? An example must be sent. I’ll have Bob get the guillotine out and roll a few heads through the publicity department. But it’ll have to wait until this film really tanks over the weekend.”

UNIVERSAL SPINSPEAK: “We knew we weren’t launching a sequel and it’s at a busy time during the holiday season, so I was thrilled to see the numbers were close to $10m.” (Nikki Rocco)
REGULAR VERNACULAR: “Remakes of film classics have marketability, my ass! We’re sticking with remakes of television series. Hell, we’ll be lucky if this thing clears $40m by Sunday.”