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Weekend Box Office Overview 11-28
By Vince Palomarez | Images property of respective holders.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
November 28 Box Office Overview
1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire $54.9 million ($201 million total): Despite a number of new releases over the holidays, I’m pretty sure no one expected Goblet of Fire to drop from the top spot. The biggest question mark was going to be if it would continue the recent trend of films dropping big in their second week of release. Some people might consider a 46% drop to be a fairly large one, but if you look at the amount of money Goblet of Fire made last week ($101 million), a 46% drop isn’t all that bad. Add in the fact that Goblet of Fire reached the $200 million mark in only 10 days of release and it’s easy to assume that this film is going to do huge numbers this holiday season. With only one major release this week as well as another week before the release of Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, expect Goblet of Fire to rule the top spot for at least another week.
2. Walk the Line $19.7 million ($54.7 million): Take one appealing biopic centered on a recently passed away musician, add in a actor whose career ahs never broken into the big time, make sure he can do a good impersonation, create some Oscar buzz and BAM…..you got yourself a hit. It worked for Ray and it’s definitely working for Walk the Line which had another huge week at the box office. In only its second week of release and going against a slew of big releases, Walk the Line dropped only 12% from last week. Unless it’s a film with a very low screen count that is opening up in wider release, you rarely see films drop that little week to week. Again, just like Goblet of Fire, with no major releases to compete with Walk the Line should continue the small drops week to week and could be on its way to a $100 million dollar gross depending on how it performs in the next two weeks.
3. Yours, Mine and Ours $17.5 million ($24.5 million total): This one had me scratching my head. There was next to no advertising for this film leading up to its release, it was slammed by the critics (only a 6% approval rating according to rottentomatoes.com) and it still managed to make $17 million this weekend. Either the family audience had nothing else to see or people were looking for anything to do besides Christmas shopping, because this is a fluke. I guarantee that this film will drop big next week, because there is no logical explanation for it to be here. Yeah I know that was a little harsh, but c’mon….did you expect this film to make $17 million? Didn’t think so.
4. Chicken Little I thought by its fourth week Chicken Little would finally hit the downturn in its run in the top 5. Even though it did drop a spot last week, the 15% drop from last week shows that there is still an audience out there that wants to see this film. With a total gross of $118 million so far, Chicken Little is box office hit and with Zathura tanking and Yours, Mine and Ours ready to take a big fall next week, Chicken Little may last another week in the top 5.
5. Rent $10.7 million ($18 million total): To say that the opening totals for Rent were a disappointment would be a sever understatement. The folks at Sony were hoping to cash in on the recent success musicals have had at the box office and with the established success Rent had on Broadway, they thought this was going to be a slam dunk. You can look at Rent's opening numbers, compare them Chicago’s ($8 million) and Moulin Rouge ($13 million) and see that their fairly similar. The big test will be next week’s totals. With fairly favorable reviews will the word of mouth be good enough to keep its weekend totals steady or are audiences tired of musicals?
Just Friends
6. Just Friends $9 million ($13.6 million total)
7. Pride and Prejudice $7 million ($15.9 million total)
8. Derailed $4.7 million ($29.4 million total)
9. In the Mix $4.5 million ($6 million total)
10. The Ice Harvest $3.7 million ($5 million total)
I think the biggest shocker here is that three of the five films in the bottom five all debuted this week. I was expecting at least one of the three (Just Friends, In the Mix, The Ice Harvest) to finish in the top 5, but none of them could bring in the crowds. This is especially disappointing for both Just Friends and The Ice Harvest. Just Friends should’ve been able to capitalize on the success of recent films Wedding Crashers and The 40-Year Old Virgin, yet despite a fairly big release and a lot of advertising it only managed to bring in $9 million. It’s not a bad total and with good word of mouth it can probably hold steady for a few weeks, but it should’ve made a bit more. The same goes for The Ice Harvest. With an all-star cast (Billy Bob Thorton, John Cusak) and director (Harold Ramis), I expected this to perform better than it did. These types of black comedies tend to do fairly well at the box office and even though it was screened in only 1,500 theaters; Ice Harvest should’ve done better than $3.7 million.
The other two films in the bottom 5 remained strong despite a ton of new competition this week. Pride and Prejudice continued to bring in audiences as it increases its theater count. The film opened up on an additional 1,000 screens and saw its gross shoot up 200% for a $7 million total. Pride and Prejudice should show no signs of slowing down in the coming weeks as it slowly increases its theater count and lets the positive word of mouth continue to bring audiences in. Derailed on the other hand dropped a few spots from last week, but with only a 27% drop from last week continues to be fairly productive at the box office. With only a $22 million dollar production budget, Derailed has already recouped that and then some. This is good news for the Weinstein brothers, which had a lot riding on this film seeing as how it is the first release for their new production company.
Aeon Flux
1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire $29 million
2. Aeon Flux $25 million
3. Walk the Line $13 million
4. Chicken Little $8 million
5. Rent $7 million
I want to hear from you guys what you think the totals are. Agree with me?
Disagree? E-mail (vince@canmag.com)
me your totals and I'll post the person who comes closest to the actual
totals.
Stay tuned for updates.
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Vince Palomarez
Sources: Images property of respective holders.
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