Box Office 12/21/09: Cameron King Again
The prevailing critical opinion: clichéd, predictable – and really quite wonderful, either didn't matter, or worked in Avatar's favor and swept it to $77.02M at the weekend box office, beating even its own studio's estimates (see my review here). Heavy snow on the East Coast held it back from breaking too many records, but it stands as the highest grossing original work (not a sequel or a remake) in history, the second highest December release (just beaten by I Am Legend's still bewildering $77.20M), and the highest ever 3D release, earning $55M from 3,129 screens, beating Up's $35.4M by quite some margin. Of those 3D screens, 178 were IMAX, and the film earned $9.5M in those theaters for the second highest IMAX opening, behind Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen's $11.70M.
Overseas, Avatar brought in an additional $164.54M, bringing its worldwide total to $241.57M, the largest ever for an original work, but ninth overall – Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince holds the record with $394M, and this year's The Twilight Saga: New Moon, at #6 with $274.9M, means that three of this year's releases are in the all-time Top 10.
At #2, Disney's The Princess and the Frog hopped down a predictable 50%, with $12.18M, for a running total of $44.71M, while The Blind Side continues to hold on with $10.02M for a running total of $164.72M, making it the most successful film of Sandra Bullock's career.
Did You See the Morgans failed to overcome the "Seen it all before, on TV" feeling exuded by its trailer and earned a meagre $6.61M at #4, a disappointment given its $58M budget. The Twilight Saga: New Moon, continues to descend, falling 45% with $4.40M, its US total now standing at $274.59M ($634.69M worldwide).
Invictus is at #6 with $4.20M, while A Christmas Carol fell 50% and 332 screens (including relinquishing all its IMAX locations to Avatar), bringing in $3.44M for a US total of $130.81M ($249.01M worldwide). The Top 10 is rounded out by Up in the Air ($3.21M), Brothers ($2.88M), and Old Dogs ($2.34M), while 2012 sits at #11, with $2.20M for the weekend, a US tally of $159.02M, and an astonishing worldwide total of $714.21M, making it the fourth biggest earner of the year, behind the Harry Potter ($929.40M), Ice Age ($883,70M), and Transformers ($835M) sequels.
Christmas weekend sees the opening of Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes, Terry Gilliam's The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, It's Complicated, and expansions for Up in the Air and Nine.
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 11/30/09: Moon Sinks, Carol Sings
An inauspicious opening for Viggo Mortensen in The Road, at this week's #10
The astonishing performance of The Twilight Saga: New Moon came to something of a halt over the Thanksgiving weekend, recording the largest dollar decline on record for a film in its second weekend. Of course, all things being equal it still won the holiday, with $42.90M for a 10 day total of $230.90M, becoming the most successful vampire film ever released.
Sports-themed heart-tugger The Blind Side added 30 theaters and $40.11M, for a 10 day total of $100.23M (not bad for an investment of $29M), while 2012 sank 33.2% after adding 36 theaters, bringing in $17.65M for a not too disastrous $138.45M in its third week of release. At #4, Travolta and Williams showed no new tricks and Old Dogs launched with $16.89M ($24.22M for the full five days), while A Christmas Carol dropped 565 theaters but increased by 28.4%, pulling in $15.75M for a total of $104.92M - it has a hold on the IMAX screens until December 18th when James Cameron's Avatar will no doubt leave all other films weeping in its wake.
At #6, Ninja Assassin opened with $13.31M ($21.19 in five days), followed by Planet 51, which held on well, down just 16.8% with $10.21M, but a running total of $28.48 is still a long way shy of its $70M budget. Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire, declined steeply with $7.08 at #8 and this week's big disappointment is Fantastic Mr Fox at #9, which added 2,029 theaters, but only managed to pull in $6.95M for a total of $10,024.
At #10, The Road debuted on 111 screens, but post-apocalyptic art-house didn't strike a holiday chord and it could only scare up $1.50M ($1.97M over five days), though it did have the highest per-screen average ($13,534) of films playing over 100 theaters.
Disney's return to old-school animation, The Princess and the Frog opened in two theaters and received the highest per screen rating, with $393,095, for a total of $786,190 and the #18 slot.
This coming weekend sees a dearth of genre releases, with heist thriller Armored, from Vacancy (and upcoming Predators) director Nimród Antal, Jim Sheridan's drama Brothers, Robert DeNiro family holiday film Everybody's Fine, Jason Reitman's eagerly awaited Up in the Air, and the final screenplay of Waitress writer Adrienne Shelley, Serious Moonlight. The sole genre release is horror 'comedy' Transylmania from National Lampoon's Hillenbrand brothers, which arrives just in time to appear on the year's Top 10 lists.
Keep an eye on the UK also, as The Descent: Part 2 opens against Paranormal Activity in its second week (it took £3.59M/$5.98M this weekend) and New Moon in its third (total so far of £20.32M/$33.80M).
