Box Office 12/15/09: Frog Leaps to #1
Another quiet pre-Avatar weekend at the box office was lead by the wide release of Disney's return to traditional animation The Princess and the Frog, which grossed $24.20M in 3,434 theaters against a budget of $105M. The Blind Side continues to do remarkable business, with $15M for a total of $149.81M after four weeks.
Clint Eastwood's Invictus lands at #3 with a modest $8.61M, but this Yorkshire-man's heart is glad to see a rugby-themed movie by a major director with major stars anywhere in the Top 10. The Twilight Saga: New Moon is down 48% at #4 bringing in another $7.96M for a staggering $267.32M total.
A Christmas Carol dropped just 12% on seasonal sentiment, earning $6.83M for a six week total of $124.42M. The rest of the chart mainly consists of films we've seen before, The Road continues to stumble along, adding seven theaters and $505,878 for a total of $4.01M, which must be a tiny fraction of its undisclosed budget and Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones debuts at #30 in three theaters to mostly negative reviews, with $116,616, winning the week's highest per-theater average with $38,872.
At #52 Transylmania drops 94% (and 889 theaters) earning $16,018, a miserable $136 per screen, for a 10 day total of $390,486, making to officially the least successful horror comedy ever to open in more than 1,000 theaters - earning a mere 10% of its nearest rivals, 1993's My Boyfriend's Back and 1988's Critters 2: The Main Course.
This coming weekend see the opening of James Cameron's Avatar and some other films very few people will see.
Box Office 12/08/09: Transylmania Lack Bite
Very little excitement for genre fans this week as we all hold our collective breath for the Avatar juggernaut (tickets go on sale today). The Blind Side continues to rise and takes the #1 spot with $20.04M, while The Twilight Saga: New Moon comes in at #2 with $15.42M, down 64% after adding 84 theaters - but with a US running total of $255.36M and a global take of an additional $243M, nobody's worried.
Jim Sheridan's Brothers opened at #3 with $9.52M, while A Christmas Carol dropped 467 theaters and 50% with $7.76M for a combined US tally of $115.24M (foreign totals are unavailable, but it took the #1 spot and £1.67M/$2.71M in the UK after five weeks). Old Dogs took $6.89M at #5, closely followed by 2012 with $6.77M (worldwide total of $600.25M).
Armored opened with a weak $6.51M, although its $20M budget can probably handle that. Ninja Assassin also failed to impress in its second weekend, dropping 62% from a poor opening with $5.06M ($29.82M total against a $40M budget). Planet 51 is at #9, down 57% with $3.85M (a total of $34.05M, marking the halfway point to its $70M budget). Robert De Niro failed to find an audience with Everybody's Fine at #10, pulling in only $3.85M in 2,133 theaters.
At #11 Fantastic Mr Fox looks unlikely to take hold as a family holiday hit, down $58% with $2.91M, for a disappointing $14.08M after 10 days on wide release. Meanwhile at #15 The Road dropped 57%, despite expanding to 126 screens, adding $749,535 for a 10-day total of $3.19M.
This week's biggest flop however is Transylmania, which debuted in 1,007 theaters, managing a paltry $262 per screen for a total of $263,941. This makes it the worst ever opening for a film playing in more than 1,000 cinemas and hopefully, after this and Stan Helsing, we'll see a hiatus for the unfunny horror spoof – the distributors of UK flop Lesbian Vampire Killers are presumably not looking forward to the holidays, as this opens in the US on 12/29.
Friday sees the following openings: Disney's The Princess and the Frog, Clint Eastwood's Rugby-themed, post-apartheid Invictus, Peter Jackson's eagerly awaited The Lovely Bones, fashion designer Tom Ford's directorial debut A Single Man, and the latest from Broken Lizard, The Slammin' Salmon.
