*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.
As I already mentioned, the first weekend in December is a veritable dead zone at the multiplex as audiences start shifting more towards Christmas shopping and making vacation plans. Or maybe they are just too busy having sex. (More people are born in August than any other month.)
Whatever the reason, business slowed enough for Sandra Bullock and “The Blind Side” to take the top spot in its third weekend. A $20.4 million haul is off 49% from last week but that’s actually a great hold for this frame and the running total now stands at $129.3 million. $200 million seems all but certain at this point and that means it’ll pass the $208 million that “Speed” made to become Sandy’s all time top grossing film.
I don’t think Oscar will come knocking but she’ll probably land on Entertainment Weekly’s list of Entertainers of the Year and that’s just as desirable, right? Side note: How good is “Speed?”
“The Twilight Saga: New Moon” takes second place with $15.7 million and a drop of 63%. The film will pass “Star Trek” tomorrow to become the fifth biggest title of the year with “The Hangover” next in its sights. Again, I don’t think Oscar will come knocking, but the cast will probably land on Entertainment Weekly’s list of Entertainers of the Year and that’s just as desirable, right? Seriously, “Speed” is amazing.
“Brothers” takes the bronze with a stronger than expected $9.6 million from 2,088 screens. The war-themed drama may not have much chance with Oscar but it is one of the few serious films playing wide and audiences are clearly in the mood for drama. And by serious drama I mean lots of men yelling and women crying.
“Armored” opened back in seventh place with $6.7 million on 1,915 screens. This is your prototypical post-Thanksgiving weekend performance and the film will be gone before you unwrap your presents Christmas morning. Thank goodness because a DVD of “Armored” is at the top on my wish list.
Bringing up the rear in tenth is “Everybody’s Fine” from Miramax. $3.8 million from 2,133 screens with a decent cast and family-oriented concept is a disappointment. I blame the passive title. Call it “Everybody’s Awesome” and see how the audience doubles and thank me later.
Drops were uniformly ugly with “Old Dogs” falling 59%, “Ninja Assassin” dipping 62% and “Fantastic Mr. Fox” going AWOL from the top 10 with a 59% slide. All to be expected though. That movie “Transylmania” did even worse than my extremely low expectations, earning just $274 for every one of its 1,005 screens. Thank you America, for giving this film the big “fuck you” it deserved. Now, please do the same for this.
The only other noteworthy performance is the phenomenal debut of “Up in the Air,” which earned $1.2 million from 15 screens. That kind of performance proves Best Picture credentials, provided it can keep the momentum up through wide release. Strangely, Lionsgate has stopped expanding “Precious” around the 660 theater mark and has stunted its momentum just as Reitman’s film comes to the table.
I plopped down $7 for “Precious” on Friday and will be siding with Guy and not Kris on this one. There’s one absolutely dynamite scene at the end but far too many poorly conceived and executed ones before then and anytime Mo’Nique isn’t on screen, the movie failed to pack any punch for me. Incidentally, it was the first time Lionsgate convinced me to go to the theater and see one of its movies since the first “Saw” in 2004.
What did you guys see? Here are the weekend’s top domestic grossers, courtesy of Exhibitor Relations:
Comments
22 responses to “SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Brothers’ gloom”
I appreciate the Brothers Bloom pun in the title.
Estimates for Princess and the Frog next week?
I’m pretty certain Bullock is in at The Oscars, they could use at least two commercial stars in the 5 slots (Meryl and Sandra).
I’m with you on “Precious”. I think it’s a film with one great performance and one great scene. It’s overdirected to the point of tedium and those scenes of domestic abuse are dulled significantly without cause.
As a result, I didn’t even find it overly affecting.
Speed kicks all kinds of ass.
Speed is, along with Die Hard, the greatest action movie ever.
What the hell happened to Jan DeBont career?
Wow! Mr. Fox flopped big time. What a letdown.
Kris – So are the Skins gonna hang on to this thing or what?
I think the shirts will probably beat the skins.
I saw “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and rented “Hunger” and “Goodbye Solo.” Loved all of them. Can’t believe “Fox” is doing so badly. Then again, I was one of three people in my theater, so…
“Precious” is still the best film of the year.
Precious also has the dubious honor of being one of the most downloaded torrents last week. A bright and sparkly screener has hit the net.
Brothers was, yes, a lot of men screaming and women crying, but I think we know reducing any film to that is unfair. In fact, conceptually, it avoids the cliches that have plagued the genre — taking the trailer and giving you something you wouldn’t expect. All I’m saying is, if we want to pretend 500 Days of Summer is something because of an unpredictable third act, Brothers does the same with Act 2.
That said, the movie has some real issues, occasionally getting too grandiose for itself. I just can’t get over the glut of B/B grade movies this year … For better or worse.
I saw Brothers at my small-town multiplex at 4:30 on Friday and was surprised to see a small, well-behaved adult crowd there. Usually the theater is empty at this time. It was good to watch an adult film with some other people who seemed into the film.
It’s interesting to see Precious dropping as hard as it has. For a film that’s been so talked about and praised, it sank 67% this weekend, which is even more than less-acclaimed films like Old Dogs and Planet 51 did. Even though it has certainly made enough to be considered a success, I really thought it would do better than it has.
I’m most sad for Fantastic Mr. Fox, it looks like it’ll make as much in the U.S. as has done in the UK alone, which is great for the UK but not very good at all on the U.S. market. It was a really, really tough sell though so it’s not that surprising, but sad still after it got such good reviews. Hopefully it can still get an Oscar nomination based on its artistic merits.
Just got back from ‘The Messenger’ after seeing ‘Brothers’ the night before.
Holy crap, is ‘The Messenger’ good.
And you what ….. Ben Foster should be getting ALL the buzz that Jeremy Renner has been getting for ‘The Hurt Locker’.
I’m sorry, but I honestly feel that. I was shaking in my seat through some of his (and the cast’s) scenes.
Morton, Harrelson, Buscemi, all putting forth great supporting work.
It’s now in my Top 5 of the year, so far.
‘Brothers’ – I found to be a goodish, well acted, meat & potatoes melodrama. No more, no less. Gyllenhaal stood out for me. Tobey was good in an atypical role for him. And Natalie does very well in an underwritten role.
That’s my weekend movie-going offering.
SPEED was a terrific movie. Nifty premise, engaging cast, great stunts. Apparently crazy Jan DeBont only had one great movie in him (and one decent movie after that), but it sure seemed that the man who made SPEED would have a solid career ahead of him.
I saw “The Messenger” for the second time this weekend. Even better this time. I say Harrelson and Morton are definitely in, Foster maybe (but certainly deserved).
I’m telling you folks, watch out for The Messenger. You might be looking at this year’s City of God.
Funny enough, as much as I loved ‘The Messenger’, and as much as the people in my theater seemed to enjoy it, I’m reading tons of negative-ish user reviews across the internet.
From your mouth to the Oscar’s ears about Sandra Bullock. “I don’t think Oscar will come knocking, but the cast will probably land on Entertainment Weekly’s list of Entertainers of the Year…” She’s got deadpan delivery down to a science but I don’t know if that is what the Academy was looking for. Others disagree. I have high hopes for the slate of nominees this year.
Well, The Blind Side is the only Fresh movie in the Top-10 this week in Rotten Tomatoes…
Bia: “I’m pretty certain Bullock is in at The Oscars, they could use at least two commercial stars in the 5 slots (Meryl and Sandra).”
Haha who’da thunk 10 years ago we’d all be referring to Meryl Streep as a commercial star. I still can’t get over this. People keep saying she is the greatest actor alive, but she is most definitely the most driven and/or lucky person alive.
“I’m pretty certain Bullock is in at The Oscars, they could use at least two commercial stars in the 5 slots (Meryl and Sandra).”
This implies that a) the nominations are chosen by people involved with the show and b) the nominations are chosen by committee.
Neither is true. Individual voters don’t care about the show or commercial stars. They vote for either a) the performance they liked best or b) their friends. End of story.
Chad speaks the truth.
It’s the same reason it’s always a mistake to talk about the nominees in terms of “slots.”