The OtherArena

[jdw]

Opening Days:

$72,740,052 Twilight 2
$67,165,092 The Dark Knight
$62,016,476 Transformers 2
$59,841,919 Spidey 3
$58,471,512 Potter 6
$55,830,600 Pirates 2
$50,013,859 Sith

I'm completely stunned.

It will be interesting to see what the numbers are for Saturday and Sunday and just how frontloaded this is. There's just two "weekdays" before the Thanksgiving Holiday starts on Wed Night. If this isn't completely frontloaded X-Men style into Friday Night and has big legs, this is going to be monsterous.

John, who really needs to get to bed...

[Steve Yohe]

BOX OFFICE MOJO - NEWS BULLETIN
Monday, November 23, 2009

With actual grosses reporting, 'New Moon' beat its Sunday weekend estimate by $2.1 million, and it was underestimated by any even wider margin at the foreign box office, leaping to $132.1 million from the originally estimated $118.1 million...

[jdw]

$72,703,754 Fri
$42,288,881 Sat
$27,846,502 Sun

That's still a massively frontloaded movie.

Here's TDK:

$67,165,092 Fri
$47,650,240 Sat
$43,596,151 Sun

Spidey 3:

$59,841,919 Fri
$51,336,732 Sat
$39,937,865 Sun

And Pirates 2:

$55,830,600 Fri
$44,443,225 Sat
$35,360,729 Sun

TDK and Pirates had strong legs. Spidey didn't.

Famously weak legs:

X-Men 3
$45,102,265 Fri
$31,997,843 Sat
$25,650,557 Sun

43.8% of Spidey-3's box office was opening weekend. 43.8% for X-3.

Twilight 1 did about 36% of it's box office opening weekend.

I suspect this will be huge because it does have the long Holiday weekend starting Wed night. It's also got Date Movie potential, and has a certain buzz going as a Big Movie Event. So in that sense it's a bit like Pirates 2. But dropping to $27M on Sunday is indicative of Not So Great Legs. Wouldn't say bad, and it could get a second wind. But that Friday number looks like there were a ton of fan that just had to see it opening night.

$350M is reasonable. A strong showing this holiday weekend would make $400M possible. A falling off, and it's more likely to track Spidey 3, which got to $336M.


John

[jdw]

Twilight 2 was down 70.0% this weekend. A bit unfair since the biggest part of that was the Friday drop: the $72.7M to $17.7M. Saturday was down 61% while Sunday was down 69%. Perhaps a 65% drop is more represenative.

It's clearly a frontloaded movie. It looks more like the legs of X-3 than any of the other movies. $230.9M through it's second weekend. Potter-6 was at $221M. Twilight 2 did much better than the $29.5M that Potter-6 took in: $42.9M. Even with the drop, $300M still seems like a lock unless there's another 65% to 70% drop next week. $350M... that's quite a ways to go.

Blind Side increased its box office +17.6%, which is extremely rare for wide release movies... especially ones that pull in $30M plus their first week out and only add 30 new theaters. It's been beating Twighlight on a per theater basis since Thursday. It could win this coming weekend, and turn into one of the sleeper hits of the year along with The Hangover. It's not likely to get up to where The Hangover is, but it's actually only $4M behind with an $8M second weekend advantage and seemingly a reasonable chance of topping it again in the third weekend (Hangover did $26.8M). Blind Side has good buzz behind it.

John

[Iron Chad]

Nick Saban puts asses in seats baby, plus Sandra Bullock seems well suited for the rich-blonde pushy Southern Belle with a heart of gold role. Too bad they didn't put a shower scene (not Nick Saban, Sandra) in the flick, it might of beaten Titantic.

[jdw]

$25M "wide" opening weekend The Princess and the Frog, which surprised me quite a bit. I thought this had hit written on it, at least as far as opening. There really isn't any competition for it this week, as Invictus is a different genre and didn't look like a potential huge hit. Everything else has been out for a while. I wonder if perhaps a bit of a mistake in not opening it on 12/23 (Wed before X-Mass) to try to take advantage of all the rugrats off from school. Chipmunks 2 opens that day, but likely would have moved if Disney claimed it some time ago. Holmes opens X-Mass, but that's also another genre.

Thought this had a chance to draw for the old school animation stylings. Failing to draw might just be one of the last nails in the coffin of it.

Another $15M for Blind Side, staying in a comfy #2 spot. Up to $150M, gained more theaters rather than losing them. I think it's got a chance at $200M if it doesn't get swamped in the coming weekend: Avatar and the SJP & Hugh Grant romantic comedy.

Twilight 2 is up to $267M, but down to $8M this weekend. $300M is possible, but it even more than blindside needs to avoid getting swamped by Avatar *if* Avatar turns out to be a hit. Very much a frontloaded movie all the way.

A Christmas Carol is showing some decent legs in slowing down it's bleeding. It's losing some theaters, and likely will take a drop with everything that's coming out. Outside shot at $150M. It's a $200M movie, so they can't be happy with that going in, but probably are happy that's is sustaining some legs after failing to open huge. It's drops from weekend to weekend have been odd... don't think I've seen many $100M to $150M box office movies bounce up and down in it's drop % in its first six weeks like that.

John

[eron]

[jdw]

Wow... Roger did go bonkers there.

I think if they get a quick ad campaign out in the next couple of days with buzz around those reviews, but Friday it *might* be an Event.

John

[CTC]

I didn't want to see Avatar at first - I thought the commercials looked a bit stupid, and I dismissed it out of hand - until I read this review, and I have to say Ebert was 1000% correct about it. It will be the Star Trek/Star Wars of its generation, if it doesn't generate backlash because of its message. It does have what many less thoughtful people - you know, the winking, 'folksy' types - would consider a 'preachy' story, just as WALL-E did, but if you aren't sitting there with your brain turned off simply because it's a somewhat flimsy analogy to the occupation of Iraq, then it's easy to appreciate.

I wasn't much of a fan of the main villain (a bit one-dimensional), some of the wildlife on the planet is too ostentatious - the evolution geek in me kept thinking, "Now why would they have their breathing passages there, or an extra set of eyes here?" - and the simple question of "when does Jake sleep?" is a head-scratcher, but the overall effect of the world that's created is amazing, like what one feels when reading Dune for the first time. There's just a rush to it all that's easy to be swept up in, thanks to such effective immersion.

And it might not have even been the best movie I saw today. Local theater finally started showing The Road, which I'd been interested in seeing just to see how completely fucking bleak it would be. And fucking Christ on crutches, is this completely fucking bleak. It's strange that I just watched The Terminator the other day and then saw this. One bleaks the shit out of you via metaphor and possibility, and the other bleaks the shit out of you by showing what would likely come to pass in the real world. I also reacquainted myself with some of the stuff Harlan Ellison wrote that fed indirectly into Terminator, and I think this movie is on par with those stories (particularly "I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream") for the way it absolutely hounds you with the big existential questions and forces you to stare the worst of humanity straight in the face.

I think fans of the book will probably enjoy this, if it's possible to truly 'enjoy' something so terrifying; someone else I talked to described the book as 'being written like it was on starvation rations, just like the characters', and if nothing else, I felt like the few moments of inner monologue we get from Viggo Mortensen's character reflect that. I'm not sure it beats out Grave of the Fireflies for being the most depressing movie in the history of cinema, but goddamn if it doesn't give it a run for its money. I think it falls just short because the first face we see is Charlize Theron's, and it's hard to be *that* depressing when you've got her smiling at the camera for even a nanosecond.

It's weird that I started the year so torqued that Watchmen was finally getting made and was such a faithful adaptation, but I wouldn't even give it much thought of cracking my Top 5 for the year. Haven't seen Hangover, but Star Trek, Up, Where the Wild Things Are, and these two movies have it beat. And I wouldn't be surprised to see either or both of these make it into the Best Pic list now that it's bumped up to 10.

[Steve Yohe]

Saw AVATAR today. Liked it, but I'm not crazy about it. It will not be another STAR WARS. It will be a big hit & earn its money. ****

"but if you aren't sitting there with your brain turned off simply because it's a somewhat flimsy analogy to the occupation of Iraq, then it's easy to appreciate."

Its more about how white men screwed the Indians & Mexicans out of their land. I didn't think it was flimsy...it's the way we are, all thru our history.


Saw THE ROAD last week. Had to watch the whole movie before I knew if I liked it...and I did. But it is bleak, bleak & more bleak. The uplifting part is the star dying. I don't know how they expected to make money with it. Acting is good with great casting. ***1/4

Yohe

[CTC]

[JAG]

I wanted to love 300 so much in '07 and it bored me with its simple political message and even though I agree with the one being stated here, the same thing happened.

$237 million to say that? Cameron should have just made Aquaman.

Also the evil overlord is a shitty actor and came off as a caricature, as did Col. Rob Parker.

As for the 3D, it's fun, but I'm a grown-ass man and I got over it 2 hours in. Unfortunately, there were was an hour left. I'm sure the technology will improve, but I'm happy with HD at my house.

And why couldn't the chicks from the 2154 Pandora be hotter? And did anyone else thing Sully would have to link tails to fuck in that lame scene?

Jagdip

[jdw]

From Mojo:

'Avatar' Blasts Off on Opening Day

$27M opening day for Avatar. #3 ever in December behind ROTK ($34.5M) and I Am Legend ($30M).

It won't have the monster opening that Twilight 2 had. Going to be very interesting to see the buzz and legs it has. School is out, and there a very long stretch of days between now and Chistmass next Friday. As long as that $27M wasn't massively frontloaded (like Twilight), it should end up with a good weekend number. Then it's a matter of seeing Monday and Tuesday what numbers it's pulling in.

John

[eron]

Sherlock Holmes is probably going to be the only thing that hurts it until Shutter Island comes out.

[jdw]

Avatar is looking good. Transformers 2 seems out of reach unless it shows insane legs. But the $302M of Potter 2 (#2 release of the year) might be possible if this ends up with strong legs through the holiday season, and good legs beyond. It's a long way off, but could be very interesting.

John