Just last week the This is It people were crowing about their movie being the third-highest advanced ticket seller of 2009, and AEG (the concert company) predicted it would make $250 million in the first five days. Domestically, it made $21.3 million for the weekend, which is less than Funny People made and that was considered a bomb. It was the number one movie of the weekend, but it was also the only major release, so it basically had no competition. Worldwide five-day total: $101 million. Which if you’re doing the math at home, is a lot less than $250 million. Less than a third if my numbers serve me… carry the one… aw crap I hate myself.
Elsewhere, Paranormal Activity continued to kick ass and may eventually get to $100 million. Couples Retreat and Law Abiding Citizen both held well, proving that mediocrity still holds sway, I guess. Meanwhile, Where the Wild Things Are fell another 63.8%, meaning it’ll have to try to earn back its $100 million budget on DVD.
Astro Boy and Cirque Du Freak are bombs. Guess kids are too young for a character that looks like Bob’s Big Boy, and maybe a kids movie with a French title wasn’t the best idea. Shocking, I know.
(”IS YOUR DAUGHTER’S ROOM THIS WAY?”)
THE BOX OFFICE WIPE UP, OCTOBER 26, 2009
In a surprise move, today’s box office estimates reveal that horror movie fans may have a brain, as Paranormal Activity outgrossed Saw VI by seven million dollars. I normally wouldn’t root for a movie grown-ass men are trying to say is haunted, but it’s pretty easy to root against Saw VI. At least now we know that, if provided a decent alternative, you sick freaks that absolutely need horror movies will avoid the blatantly mass-produced ones. This was the worst opening for a Saw movie since Saw I.
Where the Wild Things Are fell a surprising 56% from its opening weekend and looks to have a tough time recouping its $100 million budget. Where were you at this weekend, marketing slugs? Notice how they always take credit for success but never failure?
Wild Things rustled up an estimated $14.4 million, lifting its total to $54 million in ten days, but its drop was much steeper than Bridge to Terabithia and other similar titles. [BoxOfficeMojo]
Tough luck, WTWTA. But take solace in the fact that you made a movie unique enough that the best comparison industry analysts could come up with was f-cking Bridge to Terabithia. That’s gotta be a victory of some sort.
(IF YOU LIKED WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, YOU’LL LOVE G-FORCE. Thanks but no thanks, Washington Post.)
Where the Wild Things Are landed at number one with $32 million, exceeding studio expectations and spawning countless rumpus puns. People were sort of worried about it because they weren’t sure whether it was a kids film. Turns out it’s not, it didn’t matter, and kids don’t know anything anyway so screw them. Overall the box office was up 39% over the same weekend last year, which means there’s plenty of money for your unproduced script graphic novel, provided it involves zombies.
Law Abiding Citizen was a surprising number two, and made $21 mil, despite awful reviews and, to my eyes, looking pretty generic. But good for Jamie Foxx, he’s always seemed so humble.
Paranormal Activity made $20 mil for the weekend and is up to $34 mil total, which isn’t bad on a $15,000 production budget. And that was on only 760 screens (compared to WTWTA’s 3,735). It will continue to expand and if it doesn’t earn more than Saw VI when it comes out in two weeks, there is no God.
Here’s your box office wipe-up for the weekend of October 2-4. Now with helpful section headings.
Zombieland kicked ass
Buoyed by strong word-of-mouth that I thought it didn’t fully deserve, it more than tripled the next-highest new release (and no, I don’t consider a re-release of Toy Story in 3D a new release). That said, it did have its moments. It’s at least a triumph of solid execution, if not of creative thinking. …Or perhaps you prefer your box office roundups with more truthy pop-psychology?
Horror comedy struggles with general audiences because of its awkward thematic and tonal clash: comedy is generally benevolent while horror is inherently malevolent, rendering horror comedy too funny to be scary and too scary to be funny. Zombieland skirted this issue by falling squarely on the side of action comedy in its marketing campaign. [BoxOfficeMojo]
Good point. But on the other hand, go f’ck yourself.
Invention of Lying… not so much.
I wanted to see this more than Zombieland, but ended up seen Zombieland to see what the fuss was about. Perhaps that was Invention’s problem. For a movie you’d expect to have good buzz (who doesn’t like Ricky Gervais?), it didn’t have very good buzz. But you know what does have good buzz? A bee drinking martinis. Remember I said that.
The movies they release this time of year are so uninteresting that I decided to use this picture of a pro-Adam West demonstrator at the G20 instead of a picture of any of this week’s releases. Seriously, Surrogates? Who cares. Anyway, let’s get this mandatory post no one cares about out of the way, shall we? Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs landed on top again with a modest $24.6 million, while Surrogates and Fame kinda sorta bombed with $15 and $10 million. And thank God Fame didn’t become a phenomenon, I can’t take it with the singing and dancing anymore.
Beyond that, The Informant! held well (-33% from week one), most analysts say because of the exclamation point, and Jennifer’s Body held better than most horror films (-49%), but didn’t magically become an un-bomb. Plus it was competing against The Surrogates. Pandorum, meanwhile, was a total bomb with $4.4 million in number six, but that’s what happens when you cast Cam Gigandet. And because I’m sure you were all curious to know how the Tucker Max movie did, I’ll have to tell you about it because it didn’t make the top ten list below. It was number 23 with $369,000 on 120 screens, for a per-screen average of $3,075, which actually isn’t horrible. Reached for comment, a Tucker Max fan said, “Haha, 69!” and then date raped me. In his defense, I totally wanted it.
