In Contention

Category: Box Office

  • SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Book’ report

    The Book of Eli*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    First off, I should apologize for neglecting to write a Friday Forecast column this week. Fridays are my day off from work so while I have plenty of time to cook up an article, it’s also the one day where the box office is farthest from my mind, so I beg your pardon. I’m pretty sure the world went on spinning without it and rest assured, I would have predicted all these numbers to the cent.

    So, our number one film this week is “Avatar.” That’s five weeks in a row and it’s the first film to accomplish that feat since “The Sixth Sense” a decade ago. Yes, the entire naughties nearly went by without a single film setting up residence at the top for more than four weeks.  The fact that “Avatar” has done it and dropped only 18% in the process is flat out jaw-dropping.

    The film grossed $41.3 million for the weekend, which is only 47% off from the film’s debut weekend almost a month ago. In other words, this would have been a perfectly respectable second weekend total, but as a fifth weekend, it trails only the $47 million of “Titanic.” So, Cameron’s latest has finally dipped below the weekly performance of his last, although “Titanic” only had $371 million at this point, while “Avatar” has $491.8 million.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: That ‘Avatar’ thing is doing well, eh?

    Avatar*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Have you guys heard of this movie “Avatar?” Apparently, seeing as it’s the number one movie for the fourth week in a row and dropped a ridiculous 29% to $48.5 million. First off, it’s the biggest fourth weekend for a film ever, narrowly eclipsing the $45 million of “Titanic.” Its running total of $429 makes it the 24th biggest film of the last 30 years and it’s only been out for 24 days.

    Remember how big “Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith” was? Well, “Avatar” will pass it tomorrow on the all time chart. Remember how ludicrous the grosses for “The Passion of the Christ” were? That’ll get passed on Tuesday.

    There’s no overstating the size of this film’s performance, and it’s time to start talking about a $600 million+ finish domestically. Since I was born in 1982, there have only been five films that have made that kind of money: “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial,” “Titanic,” “Return of the Jedi,” “Jurassic Park” and “Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.” Somewhere right now, James Cameron is shitting a gold brick.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: Happy Blue Year

    Avatar*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Okay. What kind of fairy dust is James Cameron sprinkling in his films? Subliminal messages perhaps? There’s no other explanation. “Avatar” is the number one movie again this weekend, raking in $68.3 million, off 10% from last week. It becomes the first film to spend three straight weeks at the top since “Tropic Thunder” and that weekend tally is the all time record for a third weekend by a mile. “Spider-Man” previously held the title with $55.7 million.

    “Avatar” now has a running total of $352.1 million and will almost certainly pass $500 million before it exits theaters. Whether or not it can reach the $533.3 million of “The Dark Knight” is not certain, but with January’s releases looking particularly dismal, who knows? It is certain that Cameron’s film will become the second-highest grossing film of all time worldwide behind “Titanic,” and that is just ridiculous.

    The movie is already #94 all time domestically, and #16 of the decade. It’s the highest grossing non-sequel since “The Passion of the Christ” and should eventually be the highest grossing original property since “Titanic.” Box office figures of that nature are pure flukes and for a director to do it twice with completely different properties is jaw-dropping. James Cameron is, without a doubt, the king of the world.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: Box office is a Festivus miracle!

    Sherlock Holmes*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Holy shit. There’s no other way to describe the box office this weekend, which may well go down as the most attended three days on record. Nearly 35 million tickets were sold and three films grossed more than $50 million each.

    The number one movie for the weekend is James Cameron’s “Avatar.” I mentioned in the comments last week that it needed to drop a maximum of 35% to be considered a formidable box office force and a film with working positive word of mouth. Well, it dropped 3% to a virtually identical $75 million.

    $212 mil in 10 days for the film is the 18th highest total for any film after that amount of time and you can expect one more massive weekend and top spot finish on the way. $400 million is a very real possibility now and Fox has to get a lot of credit for convincing audiences that this was a film that you simply had to see or risk being ostracized. (I know from experience.)

    “Sherlock Holmes” came in a very strong second with $65.4 million for the weekend. Only “The Day After Tomorrow” has ever made more money as a non-#1 film, when it was beaten by the second weekend of “Shrek 2” in 2004.  It’s the sixth biggest December debut of all time and the film’s Friday gross set a record for a Christmas Day figure.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: Pandora’s tops

    Avatar*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Alright, let’s get down to brass tacks. “Avatar” is the number one movie of the weekend with a $73 million gross. This is an enormous figure, there’s no two ways about it. It’s the fourth-biggest December debut of all time. It’s the 26th-biggest debut of all time for a non-sequel. It’s the ninth-biggest debut of all time for a film with no previous source material or built-in fanbase.

    A record amount of money was spent on this production with only the reputation of James Cameron as a selling point and it may just pay off. A film like “I Am Legend” can debut in December with $80.6 million and with lukewarm reviews and word of mouth can make it all the way to a $264 million total. With the reception that “Avatar” has received and the inevitable batch of Oscar nominations, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t make $300 million domestically. It would need to match that overseas to even come close to profitability, but that should be no problem as the film already has $150 million in the bank overseas.

    It’s no secret that I thought the film looked stupid. I also would love nothing more than to never have to hear about 3D in movies again. But I also know that any time a film with an original screenplay from a distinct filmmaker can earn this type of money, it’s a good thing for the industry.

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  • FRIDAY FORECAST: Blue boon

    Sam Worthington in Avatar*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    It’s “Avatar” day people! The day some of us have been waiting for! The movie has been hyped for years and if you listen to the critics, James Cameron has delivered. The man has a pretty impeccable box office history and is belatedly coming off the highest grossing film of a generation.

    That would be the $921.5 million-grossing, 11 Academy Award-winning “Titanic” for anyone wondering. No matter what he made next, anticipation was going to be huge, but the non-stop chatter about “game-changing” and “brand new viewing experience” has made things reach a fever pitch.

    After the trailer debuted, I thought we were looking at an epic fail. I thought the effects looked crappy and the story looked stiff as a brick. I thought no one over the age of 40 would possibly be interested. Now that some people have actually laid eyes on it, it seems I’m in the extreme minority. This sucker is poised to make a lot of money.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: A little ‘Princess’

    The Princess and the Frog*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Disney tasted a bit of its old early-1990s magic with the number one finish of “The Princess and the Frog” this week. The hand-drawn toon grossed $25 million after two phenomenal weeks in New York and Los Angeles only. “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast” and “Aladdin” all had similar Holiday season launches and only “Aladdin” went wide with a bigger total.

    Of course, all three were on far fewer venues than the 3,434 of “The Princess and the Frog,” but this is still a very encouraging figure.  Family entertainment is solid gold during the two weeks around Christmas and a finish well over $100 million should be no problem. These aren’t Pixar numbers, but they at least match up to “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “The Fox and the Hound” and other second-tier Disney classics. Or is that third-tier?

    “The Blind Side” takes second place with another $15.5 million and cruises past the $150 million mark. Another $3 million and it will pass “Remember the Titans” for the title of highest grossing sports drama since “Rocky.” The $246 million it would need to pass “The Waterboy” for the title of highest grossing football movie may be out of reach, but let’s all pause for a second to digest the fact that “The Waterboy” made $245 million.

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  • FRIDAY FORECAST: Freeman vs. frog

    The Princess and the Frog*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    We are only one week away from the day that movie-going is changed forever so why even bother seeing anything now? I can’t be hassled by anything in only TWO dimensions! I didn’t buy these designer 3D/sunglasses for nothing!

    Disney really emphasizes the 2D this weekend with the wide launch of “The Princess and the Frog,” the studio’s first non-computer animated title since “Home on the Range” in 2004. That modest film grossed $57.8 million, despite ingeniously casting Roseanne as a cow, but the damage had already been done by “Treasure Planet” two years before.

    Intended to be Disney’s huge Thanksgiving family film, that flick grossed a terrible $46.9 million and effectively closed down the production house. Ironically enough, it’s John Lasseter who is spearheading the renaissance and the grosses here will go a long way towards deciding the future of the medium.

    Two weeks of exclusive engagements in New York and Los Angeles have been a gold mine and “A Christmas Carol” and “Planet 51” will not be offering much competition. “The Blind Side” might be the only obstacle in the way of a really large opening but I think this should be the number one film easy and earn $32 million or so. I know I’ll be there.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Brothers’ gloom

    Brothers

    *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?”

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  • FRIDAY FORECAST: Thanksgiving leftovers and new turkeys

    (from left) Kate Beckinsale and Robert De Niro in Everybody's Fine*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Sorry this is a little late, as I’ve been super busy this week. Luckily, it’s one of the slowest box office weeks of the year and there is little to look forward to.

    You can bet the farm that “The Blind Side” will win the weekend for the first time on its third try and continue it’s epic run towards $200 million. “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” should be your runner-up and it may get as low as five or six before you see a new film.

    Miramax is going for broke with the drama “Everybody’s Fine.” I thought the studio might start limited and try to trick people into thinking this would be one of those good, Oscar movies but they are sticking a Christmas tree on the poster and getting it into every Regal Cinemas in the country. Will it work? It should finish with $5 million for the weekend.

    In case you don’t know, the weekend after Thanksgiving is always deadly at the box office and studios rarely open worthwhile product. Last year gave us “Punisher: War Zone” at $4.3 million and the year before gave us “Awake” with $6.1 million. How someone pitched an action movie with a catatonic lead character and got it made is pretty incredible and beyond me.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: New releases ‘Blind’ sided

    The Blind Side*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Did you enjoy your Thanksgiving? If you are Sandra Bullock or work for Warner Bros. then I think I already know the answer.

    The number one movie for the second weekend in a row is “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” with $42.5 million. This is a good news bad news situation for Summit. The good news is that the film has $230.7 million after 10 days and only eight films have grossed more in that period of time. The bad news is that the figure represents a 70% drop from last weekend and only three films released on at least 3,000 screens have ever dropped more.

    And this is a holiday weekend. Does anybody at Summit care? Probably not, as the drops should level off a bit from here and the film will easily scoot past $300 million and become the second highest grossing title of the year.

    But what is the deal with “The Blind Side?” Seriously. A second consecutive weekend in the runner-up spot and another $40.1 million over the three days gives the drama $100.3 million after just 10 days. For those keeping track at home, that’s an 18% increase over last weekend and there’s a very real possibility that the film will make close to $250 million in the United States.

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  • FRIDAY FORECAST: ‘Old Dogs,’ new pics

    (from left) Seth Green, John Travolta and Robin Williams in Old Dogs*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Happy Thanksgiving everyone. If you are like most of America, then you vaguely had an idea that some movies opened on Wednesday, you stuffed your face on Thursday and you will flock to the multiplex today. This five-day period is extremely lucrative for the box office in general but not always new releases, which will most certainly be the case this year as “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” should continue its dominance over the marketplace.

    The one studio who likes this frame more than any other is Walt Disney and it will be unleashing “Old Dogs” on unsuspecting audiences. Seven of the top 10 Thanksgiving weekend openers of all time belong to the Mouse House, including all-time champ “Toy Story 2,” which walked away with $81.1 million over just the three-day weekend in 1999. Most recently, the studio tipped its hat to the past and came away with $35.9 million for the three days in 2007 with “Enchanted.” Early word has “Old Dogs” earning around $3 million on Wednesday, which is surprisingly soft and could put it on course for an $18 million weekend and $25 million for the five days.

    Warner Bros. opens the mandatory action film for Dads in “Ninja Assassin” and early word had it making $3 million on Wednesday as well. The multiplier won’t be as good as it is for “Old Dogs” but it still could translate to $15 million for the three days and $22 million for five. That’s right in line with “Transporter 3” and “Hitman” and all the other terrible action films that have opened during Thanksgiving.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: ‘Twilight’ning strikes again!

    The Twilight Saga: New Moon*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Well, that happened.

    “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” proved the franchise was no one-hit wonder by opening with $140.7 million over the weekend, breaking numerous records in the process. The $72.7 million pulled in on Friday is a new single day record, leaving “The Dark Knight” in the dust.

    The November opening weekend record of “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” is disintegrated. The two days Chris Weitz’s film took to reach $100 million equals the fastest on record. The weekend figure is the fifth-biggest debut of all time and the per-theater average is the fourth-best for a film on over 4,000 screens.

    All that is to say that the “Twilight” franchise has now aligned itself with the biggest and brightest of all box office stars. Any conversation that includes Batman, Spider-Man and Jack Sparrow must now include Bella and Edward.

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  • FRIDAY FORECAST: Bad ‘Moon’ rising

    Taylor Lautner in The Twilight Saga: New Moon*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    It’s Edward and Bella’s world and we’re just living in it. The film to beat for the Holiday season is “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” and fans finally got their chance to lay eyes on it tonight at midnight. Twi-hards have been lining up and breaking advance ticket sales records on Fandango so there’s no question that the film will be big. But how big?

    The original film opened just 52 weeks ago and earned a surprisingly huge $69.6 million. Prognosticators knew that the book had fans but there was little evidence to suggest a figure that size, particularly because new distribution outfit Summit Entertainment was the studio putting it out. The $36 million it took in on opening day was the 17th biggest Friday ever and represented more than half of the weekend take. If the fanboy rush was that big for the original, you can imagine how frontloaded the sequel is going to be.

    Some sort of record will probably be broken this weekend as the film unloads on a massive 4,024 screens nationwide with round-the-clock showtimes. “Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire” is the current November opening weekend champ at $115 million and that isn’t totally out of the question. Neither is the $67.2 million opening day record by “The Dark Knight” completely safe, although I’m not quite bold enough to predict that big a Friday for Chriz Weitz’s film.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: Apocalypse wow

    2012*All historical figures are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    Roland Emmerich’s still got it. And by “it,” I mean the ability to make blockbuster hits out of the same movie again and again.

    “2012” opened at the top of the box office with $65 million and the seventh-biggest opening of 2009. It’s also the 10th-biggest November opening of all time, sliding in between last year’s “Quantum of Solace” and 2002’s surprise juggernaut “8 Mile.”

    Mid-November releases have the benefit of the highly lucrative Thanksgiving holiday coming somewhere around their second or third week, so “2012” has the chance to earn three times its opening, which certainly wouldn’t be the case in the summer. I actually don’t think it will be the case here either and I think we’ll see it top out around $150 million. While that figure is less than the production budget, the film has already made $225 million worldwide after just three days, so Emmerich has free reign to make whatever disaster movie he wants next.

    Destroying the Earth four times is probably the limit for any director but luckily for Emmerich, we just discovered water on the moon, so he can go ahead and make a movie where we’ve colonized it and are living there, but for whatever reason it gets destroyed.

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  • FRIDAY FORECAST: ‘2012’ on the way

    John Cusack in 2012*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    (This is the first of a new series of columns splitting the weekly Sunday Cents column in half. We’ll cover the weekend box office on Sundays and save the forecasts for Thursdays from here on out.)

    Roland Emmerich returns this weekend to popular landmark destruction for the fourth time in his career. He has experienced gargantuan openings in each previous attempts, so there’s little reason to think that “2012” won’t win the box office weekend by a mile.

    Sony has spent a fortune on the making and advertising of this film, although the studio seems to have saved some money by not hiring an editor as the finished product clocks in at a totally gratuitous 158 minutes. Squeezing in less showtimes may factor microscopically in the grosses, but theaters will be playing this sucker around the clock beginning tonight at midnight.

    “Independence Day” opened with $81.6 million during the fourth of July weekend in 1996 for a venue average of $28,311. “Godzilla” earned $67.4 million during Memorial Day of 1998 for an average of $20,373. “The Day After Tomorrow” also bowed on Memorial Day, in 2004. with $79.5 million and an average of $23,206. Clearly, audiences have a taste for the Emmerich touch when it comes to disaster flicks. His various attempts to make films outside this micro-genre have been met with relative shrugs at the box office (“The Patriot” and “10,000 B.C.”).

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: Slight ‘Christmas’

    A Christmas Carol*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars.

    The first weekend in November is considered the official kick-off of the Holiday season at the box office and so it’s appropriate that Robert Zemeckis’s yuletide digital experiment, “A Christmas Carol,” is the film leading the way. The film grossed $31 million for the weekend to easily claim the top spot and set itself up very nicely for a strong, two-month run.

    Sure, it’s nowhere near the $63.1 million that “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” claimed on this weekend last year, but “The Polar Express” started with $27 million in November 2004 before chugging along through the new year and maxing out at $187.7 million, and I expect “A Christmas Carol” to come very close to, if not match, that figure.

    Zemeckis has directed 15 features in his phenomenally successful career and only three of them have failed to reach the $100 million mark (his first two and “Beowulf”). An amazing seven of them have grossed the equivalent of over $200 million in today’s dollars. To use that success and single-handedly try and pioneer a new medium of filmmaking is admirable, even if it means millions of children will have nightmares involving Tom Hanks, Jim Carrey and their dead, soulless eyes.

    “Michael Jackson’s This is It” fell a respectable 40% to $14 million and a running total of $57.9 million. Anything under 50% was going to be a huge win for Sony and will undoubtedly cause the studio to back off the “two weeks only” promise and let this one coast to around $75 million domestic and $200 million+ worldwide.

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  • SUNDAY CENTS: That was it?

    Michael Jackson's This Is It*All historical figures cited are adjusted to today’s dollars

    Michael Jackson’s concert footage was finally released upon the public amid a whirlwind of hype that caused many, including myself, to get a little carried away. The documentary grossed $21.3 million from the three-day weekend, second only to “Fahrenheit 9/11” for docs, and $32.5 million since opening on Wednesday.

    Compared to what Sony must have thought it MIGHT get, this is a disappointing result, but compared to what was spent and what type of product this actually is, it’s still phenomenal. If it wasn’t for the fluke juggernaut that was “Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert,” this would be the biggest result ever for a concert film. As it stands, people like me have egg on their face, but Sony will still be raking in a tidy profit when it’s all said and done as the film grossed a cool $101 million in its first five days worldwide.

    “Paranormal Activity” continued to expand but saw it’s weekend gross decline for the first time with $16.5 million and second place. Halloween landing on a Saturday is usually box office poison, but the supernatural flick bucked the trend somewhat and now has almost $85 mil in the bank. Believe it or not, if it can keep chugging along, it will become the first straight horror movie to top $100 million since “The Grudge” in 2004 and the first R-rated horror to do it since “Red Dragon” in 2002.

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