Box-Office Wrap-Up: Dec. 31 – Jan. 2, 2011
'Fockers' edge out 'Grit' once again
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| Laremy is sad as he has missed the number one spot for two weeks in a row. This time due to the hope True Grit would be able to withstand Little Fockers, but it was not to be, though I think we can all join him in hoping that would be the way things turned out. The bright side to the story is Fockers suffered the largest drop of all the films on the board with a 14.7% dip from last weekend's Christmas weekend #1. But it is now the #1 film two weeks in a row, which is sure to inspire a massive television campaign over the next sven days quoting whatever critics were willing to give this film a pass. It has already crossed the $100 million mark for Universal, which tells me a Focker Fourthquel has got to be in the works. Best user prediction on the board goes to Colin and his $27 million guess. Result: $26.3 million Laremy's rank: Laremy picked it to finish #2 and his prediction of $21.97 million was $4.33m off for a percentage error of 16.46%. | |
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With this weekend's numbers it has now crossed $86.7 million. I guess the question now is just how high will it go?
Laremy's rank: Laremy picked it to finish #1 with $29.54 million, which is $5.04m off for a 20.57% error.
It's made over $65 million in the foreign market, but that $170 million price tag looms large.
Laremy's rank: Laremy picked it to finish #3 with $11.94 million, which is $6.36m off for a 34.75% error.
Laremy's rank: Laremy picked it to finish #9 with $5.64 million, which is $7.36m off for a 56.62% error.
Laremy's rank: Laremy picked it to finish #4 with $8.71 million, which is $1.79m off for a 17.05% error.
Laremy's rank: Laremy picked it to finish #8 with $5.65 million, which is $4.358m off for a 43.55% error.
Laremy's rank: Laremy picked it to finish #5 with $7.4 million, which is $2.6m off for a 26% error.
Laremy's rank: Laremy picked it to finish #10 with $4.51 million, which is $4.59m off for a 50.44% error.
Laremy's rank: Laremy picked it to finish #6 with $6.07 million, which is $2.43m off for a 28.59% error.
Laremy's rank: Laremy picked it to finish #7 with $5.91 million, which is $1.69m off for a 22.24% error.
Blue Valentine enjoyed a lengthy bit of promotion recently thanks to a controversial NC-17 rating that ultimately resulted in an R-rating and now $180,000 in its opening weekend from four theaters for a $45,000 average. The film opened on Wednesday and has now managed $278,000 in five days. Is it enough to entertain a dark horse Best Picture slot?
The other film worth discussing in limite release is Sofia Coppola's Somewhere, which remains in only eight theaters where it made $143,000, a $17,875 per theater average.
This weekend the only upcoming new release is Relativity's Season of the Witch, a film I have not been invited to a press screening for and have heard is not a film you would rush to call "good". Will it take the box-office #1 or will the battle remain between Fockers and Grit?
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do you think that True Grit has a chance of winning next weekend ( against season of the witch)? it is so unfair for that good movie to place 2nd.
I think next weekend will be when True Grit triumphs with a large decline from Fockers and no one wanting to see Season of the Witch.
Hope so. I want True Grit to reach number one. Regards
Pretty FOCKING good for LITTLE FOCKERS. Told you guys it would be big!
BTW, 700 theaters is not a limited release. $7.6 mil. is excellent for being in only 700.
Food for Thought: It is interesting that Little Fockers won the weekend, but True Grit has the higher PTA.
The King's Speech is behaving almost like Slumdog Millionaire. That too was raking money throughout late December and early January without ever playing in more than 600 theaters. Then Oscar nominations hit and the movie increased the theater count to 1500+, and continued to have a wonderful run.
Almost everything performed close to what I thought, except Yogi which had a pretty damn insane increase. Same with Tangled, except this time I can only be happy.
I really thought Fockers would fall off more than it did. But of course they did overestimate it by $4 million last weekend so I suppose there's a small chance that happened again. But either way, next weekend should be True Grit's for the taking. Season of the Witch looks like some kind of medieval fantasy with a truly terrible performance from Nic Cage, and those together sound like box office poison to me. Country Strong isn't getting enough theatres to compete.
As far as how high True Grit will climb…I think $150 million is now a reasonable target. After that it would be the $184 or whatever million that Dances With Wolves did, which is the highest grossing western ever. But it would take some pretty significant Oscar buzz to push it that high, and it didn't get much help from the other awards circles. I'd love to see it catch on and really get into the race but without any help from the Globes, CCs, SAGs, etc. it's probably a longshot.
Narnia being over is possible. However, one should take into consideration that Eragon had very mixed and somewhat poor critical reception from critics and fans alike. While not the biggest fantasy franchise, Narnia and Narnia3: Voyage have been recieved well and gotten much better reviews.
If they do Silver Chair, they could also cut the budget down to $100 million and still cover the entire book with ease.
So far, Walden media, which co-financed Dawn Treader, has been resistent to cutting the films budget too much. They want the films to maintain an epic vibe. I don't see a studio wanting to continue funding Narnia sequels; because, putting a lot of money at risk with a film that may surprise on the downside, but not on the upside, is not the best business plan. Most studios would probably want to invest in a new property that has a chance of surprising on the upside and becomming the next big thing.
That said, Walden Media is wholly owned by a multi-billionaire who likes making family films. So Walden could possibly fully finance the sequels, and just have a studio distribute them.
Reread my post and realized that I assumed people would know that Walden Media holds the rights to the Narnia books, not the studio.
The film has already made 274 million worldwide, and its gonna end up possibly with 340? I think thats a pretty good result, and considering this was made for 140 million, after the DVD sales and the merchandise this will turn out a good profit for Walden and Fox…Now if the next movie has a budget of 110 million they will do even better in terms of profit
The audience for Narnia films is clearly eroding with each film, if not as much internationally,though clearly so there as well – then definitely in the US.
That will have to be a factor in their decision over making a fourth.
It could depend on wherther or not Subtle Knife (The sequel to Golden Compass gets made) actually gets made. Golden Compass made around $372 million worldwide, which is impressive for a fantasy film that doesn't emunate from certain franchises (Potter or Rings).
When it's all said and done, a sequel to Dawn Treader is more likely to happen than a sequel to say Sorcerer's Apprentice or Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. The real unkown is The Last Airbender.
I've not read all of the Narnia books, but I keep hearing people say that the next couple would be hard to adapt as the types of stories they tell and the characters involved don't make them fit as well with what has already been done.
If true, I wonder… Could Walden Media just skip to the end? Do one final film, based mostly on the last book, and market it as the final Narnia film? That seems the best bet to hold onto or maybe reclaim part of the eroding audience. At the rate they're falling off, there's not much chance of them making all of the remaining novels without drastically cutting the budgets. Would fans accept them skipping ahead a bit, if the other option was that they wouldn't ever make it to the end at all?
People also need to realize that ticket price inflation is hiding the true decline of Narnia. I just read that while Fockers is actually down an estimated 50% of the actual number of people going to see that movie, even though the dollars are only down around 37%. This matters for word of mouth.
Well, some of the next books really aren't that "epic." Silver Chair has it's moments but it is much less big than 1-3. The one after that "Horse And His Boy" is low-key and more of an adventure than a huge epic. They could probably make that one on 75 mil and nothing would suffer.
After borrowing elements of Silver Chair in 3, I think it would be best to go and make "Chronicles Of Narnia: The Silver Chair And The Final Battle," and combine Silver Chair with book 7 and make it into one, final film.
Personally I think we will see one more film, and the budget will definitely go down. DVD sales are big factors.
Big weekend with no new releases, but a wide range on movies where offered. People wanted to see something on the three day weekend. Now next weekend could be a very poor weekend.
Nice. Now 12 weeks straight……
And as far as Season Of The Witch goes, I dont think its gonna take over the no1 spot from either Little Fockers or True Grit, i think its gonna do about 15 million or less
I see a lot of you guys not just here, but all over the place, complaining that the "best" movie didn't make it to the #1 spot. Who decides what movie is the best? Over here we didn't want to see Fockers go #1 either… But what we/you want is pretty much irrelevant. Stone cold analysis is all that really matters. Hell – some of the best critically reviews movies (often political POS) have wonderful reviews – and totally bomb. I doubt they even make enough money back to cover catering costs. It is time for Hollywood to wake up and bring back the days of awesome movies whose sole intention was to entertain. No more of this political soapbox crap. To quote the late Pete Postlethwaite in 'Clash of the Titans' "One day someone's gonna have to take a stand, one day someone's gonna have to say ENOUGH."
The difference between Narnia and Eragon was that Narnia was decent and Eragon was an abomination.
Hopefully, Narnia gets a sequel.
I agree about Eragon. It may be the worst fantasy film I have ever seen. I couldn't even finish it.