'Four Christmases' Owns the Holiday While 'Twilight' Tries to Hang On
Front loaded weekends are hard to follow-up
I know I am late with the numbers, but Fantasy Moguls didn't do their normal update and I am only a box-office regurgitator, not much of a prognosticator. I leave the guessing business to Laremy, and as it turns out it looks like he may have overestimated Twilight this holiday season as it is looking at a larger drop than some expected while the Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn comedy is doing better than expected.
First to Four Christmases, which was projected to take somewhere in the $38.5 million range for the five-day Thanksgiving weekend, and ended up raking in just over $15 million on Wednesday and Thursday and is now expected to finish somewhere in the $46 million range. It appears bad reviews aren't holding this one back, and for what it's worth, at 80 minutes I would say it is a solid 60 minute film; it just suffers from a terrible third act. For a comedy that isn't a bad pay-off. As for the three-day total it appears Laremy really underestimated its chances by going for an $18.2 million weekend as it is expected to hit around $31 million, which I am sure most of you figured out already due to the simple math involved.
As for Twilight, well, Laremy's $30.7 million three-day projection isn't too far off as it expects to hit $27.4 or so after bringing in $13.2 million over the holidays, but that is almost a 61% drop from last weekend. What does this say? Not a whole lot outside of the fact that most people saw it opening weekend, which is too be expected. The film is now expected to hit somewhere in the $150 million range once its theatrical run comes to a close. However, it won't be long before you see Edward and Bella again as Kristen Stewart told Ryan Seacrest production on New Moon will begin in March and they even expect to go to Italy. So, yeah, I think this flick is a hit.
Trouble is gone down under as it appears a lot of people stayed away from Baz Luhrmann's Australia. I have seen reports the film carried a budget of $100 million and over the two-day holiday its take was a meager $5.1 million. On Friday it managed $5.7, which would lead me to believe a three-day total of $17-19 million at best. It's been a troubling year for 20th Century Fox and it all now lay in the hands of The Day the Earth Stood Still as the studio's last chance for a live-action film to wow the critics and the audiences as well. Fox has had box-office hits this year with the likes of Horton Hears a Who ($154m), What Happens in Vegas ($80m) and 27 Dresses ($76m) but I think we can all safely say this year has not been kind to the studio.
The other big new release this week was Transporter 3, which managed $6.1 million over the two-day and is looking at $12 million or so after bringing in another $4.8 million on Friday. I can't believe they spent much money on this film so I guess this isn't too bad, but I am not expecting a Transporter 4 anytime soon.
The big race is at the bottom of the charts as Milk and Slumdog Millionaire will battle for the #10 spot. Milk is playing in 34 theaters while Slumdog has 49. On Friday Milk managed $500,000 and Slumdog $485,000. One would assume Milk will probably win out, but by only the smallest of margins I would say. Nice to see per theater averages such as both of these flicks had on Friday; $14,706 for Milk and $9,898 for Slumdog is certainly impressive.
Featured below are Friday's top ten, Laremy will be here on Sunday for a complete recap.
- Four Christmases (Warner Bros.) – $13.2 million
- Twilight (Summit) – $11.0 million
- Bolt (Disney) – $10.9 million
- Quantum of Solace (Sony) – $8.2 million
- Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $5.75 million
- Australia (Fox) – $5.73 million
- Transporter 3 (Lionsgate) – $4.8 million
- Role Models (Universal) – $2.1 million
- The Boy in the Striped Pajamas (Miramax) – $630,000
- Milk (Focus) – $500,000
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