Wow… where did all the money go? This looks like a historically bad box office weekend.

earth to everyone:
yesterday was halloween so not many teenagers would turn out to trhe movies. anyone could have seen this one coming. it will all pick up for today and sunday

I agree with disneyfreak* but that's only part of the story. Yes Halloween fell on a Friday this year, and there will be some more parties Saturday as well. But for older audiences, I think the "struggling" economy and some uncertainty about the upcoming election is keeping people at home. They just are not in the mood for movies right now. I believe box-office numbers should improve next week after the election, unless we have recounts going on.

As I mentioned over at /Film, I think only people who run movie sites and those who read them regularly were surprised by Zack & Miri's box office returns. I think most people just aren't interested in seeing a movie about two people trying to make a porn film.

Of course maybe the logic here was "look at how much money porn sites make online… we can't lose!"

Vic

Screen Rant said: As I mentioned over at /Film, I think only people who run movie sites and those who read them regularly were surprised by Zack & Miri's box office returns. I think most people just aren't interested in seeing a movie about two people trying to make a porn film.

Of course maybe the logic here was "look at how much money porn sites make online… we can't lose!"

It's hard for me to wrap my head around either one of those possibilities because they both make sense. People probably aren't interested in seeing two people make a porn, but porn is a huge part of the culture so where does the balance lay?

Very good point.

And yeah, Halloween is part of it, but Halloween was expected and I believe hurt the majority of films equally, even Changeling since the majority of the people seeing that one will have kids that are going trick-or-treating.

Halloween is definitely the correct answer. Two people having sex is in quite a few movies that make money. If your claim that the word "porn" is what kept all the people then the internet, or 50% of it, shouldn't exist.

Knocked Up made $219m.
40-Year-Old Virgin $177m
Superbad $169
American Pie $235m

All were highly sexual films. C'mon.

I still think Zack and Miri might rally to win. A million down after Halloween is nothing. Although I cede it won't make money for the after church crowd.

Laremy said: Two people having sex is in quite a few movies that make money. If your claim that the word "porn" is what kept all the people then the internet, or 50% of it, shouldn't exist.

Knocked Up made $219m.
40-Year-Old Virgin $177m
Superbad $169
American Pie $235m

All were highly sexual films. C'mon.

The difference here is browsing porn on the Internet is for a much different purpose than going to see it in a general movie theater. The four films mentioned aren't about making a porn or even the level of sex shown in Zack and Miri so I would argue that there may be some relevance to the argument.

Okay, so then only three million people saw Fireproof because everyone else is "not interested" in God and marriage.

What makes a movie gain traction with an audience is never going to be as easy as Vic's explanation. All the movies suffered together, which means that Halloween is much more likely as a major contributor.

Also, evidently almost 40 million people "were interested" in people having sex with pies at some point in our history.

See how silly that is?

Final nail in the coffin of the "porn" argument. The last Friday Halloween was in 2003.

Here are Friday's numbers from that year:
Scary Movie 3 – $4.4m
Chainsaw Massacre – $3.7m
Radio – $1.9m

Final numbers:
Scary Movie – $20m
Chainsaw Massacre – $10.7m
Radio – $9.5m

On friday of 2003 we would have said "no one cares about the learning disabled." But the film jumped up and made 80% of it's income in the next two days. Same with Scary Movie, you would have said it would make $13m given Friday – but it hit $20m.

Halloween sunk each film. Miri will make double digits this weekend, though of course it won't hit my way too high prediction.

I think you are missing the point, the argument is not as much as why didn't Zack and Miri make money on Halloween? It's why did Zack and Miri make so little money compared to Apatow comedies?

If you are arguing a movie like Knocked Up, 40 Year-Old Virgin, etc. would have suffered the same fate as Zack and Miri then we are talking about the same thing. However, that doesn't seem to be what you are arguing.

I'm arguing against:

"I think most people just aren't interested in seeing a movie about two people trying to make a porn film. "

Because it's an illogical statement. In fact, I'll go one further:

"Most people aren't interested in seeing ANY movie about anything."

How do I know? Because no movie has ever made 150 million people (half of Ameica, or Most) x $8 domestically.

So my Miri projection wasn't off because most people didn't want to see it. It was off because no one saw anything on Friday night.

Why would I have to argue against Apatow comedies? Clearly it was never going to hit Sarah Marshall / Knocked Up numbers.

I don't see how it is illogical but your "one further" is definitely illogical and I guess I am just lost in your argument.

You really don't think it is possible some people didn't go see Zack and Miri because it involves making a porno? I don't know, it makes some sense to me.

Vic swooped in a cherry picked based on only Friday's numbers, and then you said "both arguments make sense."

But that's not true. One argument (Halloween) makes much more sense than the other (Porn). Do you think the arguments are of equal value?

Also do you really think the film will make $6.9m for the weekend, as you wrote? If so, what can we bet on this?

You just didn't want to pick a fight with Vic, which is fine. But Halloween is the reason Friday's numbers look weird, not people's sudden displeasure with porn.

Laremy said: You just didn't want to pick a fight with Vic, which is fine. But Halloween is the reason Friday's numbers look weird, not people's sudden displeasure with porn.

I am not defending anyone, I just never thought of it that way. I don't look at a title and think, "Why would I want to see two people make a porn?" However, that doesn't mean other people didn't. I am not arguing degrees of which one is more likely to be the culprit, just saying, "Hmmm, perhaps some people didn't go because of that."