Box-Office Wrap-Up: Oct. 2 – Oct. 4, 2009
COMMENTS
Zombieland conquers the field, is the zomcom a legit genre now?
Zombieland did even better than my bullish projection, evidence that the time of the horror comedy has come.
#1 movie predicted correctly: 1 Week In A Row
1. Zombieland
Only alert commenters Nick and John joined in picking Zombieland. The final tally on the most recent R Rated films goes: Inglourious, Final Destination, and Zombieland with wins. Jennifer's Body and Sorority Row with losses. No real lessons there.
Result: 25.0 million (My rank: #1, $3.7m off)
Zombieland also took the per theater average crown, leaving the smallest dip consolation for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. It's now in the top ten of 3-D all time, passing Beowulf this weekend.
Result: 16.7 million (My rank: #2, $1.2m off)
As per normal, Pixar defies the rules. They release films with no real talking (Wall-E), with an older fella hero (Up) and then they conquer the re-release demons. I thought the three hour running time would hurt them; with this level of demand I wonder if they could have split them up and made even more money?
Result: 12.5 million (My rank: #6, $5.6m off)
The budget was only $18.5m, so they aren't that doomed just yet. The bad news is that the word of mouth is probably going to slay them.
Result: 7.3 million (My rank: #4, $0.3m off)
5. Surrogates
You won't see it reported anywhere, but this is still over $100m away from making a dollar. It's looking a bit like a money laundering scheme.
Result: 7.3 million (My rank: #5, $0.3m off)
Next week will be the the tell-tale sign on this film. Will the early adopters be able to convince folks it's a fairly scathing indictment of all political parties? Or will middle America stay away because of the Michael Moore involvement?
Result: 4.85 million (My rank: #7, $1.85m off)
7. Whip It!
I figured Ellen Page and Drew Barrymore might have a little box office heat. I was wrong.
Result: 4.85 million (My rank: #3, $2.85m off)
8. Fame
It somehow gained 37 theaters this weekend, and to answer Steve"s question, getting distribution in theaters is a purely financial equation. Opening in 2,000 theaters will cost you around $6m in distribution fees, film reels, and marketing within each market, so you've got to believe your film has a shot at at least $20m over its production budget to justify the cost of releasing wide. Otherwise you shoot for DVD.
I should note that this equation is for smaller budget films. Once you crack the $100m level of production budget you've got to spend monstrous amounts of marketing cash to get awareness up, so that $6m isn't nearly enough.
Result: 4.7 million (My rank: #8, $0.2m off)
Trivia: it was only the second weekend of the year the top 12 films grossed in the $90m – $99m range.
Result: 3.8 million (My rank: #9, $0.5m off)
10. Love Happens
Six of the films in the top ten (including Love Happens) have production budgets listed under $25m. The fall pre-Oscar/holiday season is all about castaways and hedging your bets, eh?
Result: 2.7 million (My rank: #10, $0.1m off)
How say you? Surprised the horror comedy is a legitimate genre now? A little taken aback Drew Barrymore's directorial debut didn't thrive? More interested in Toy Story 3-D now? Comment early, comment often.
Previous Post
Showing 22 Comments
~ PLEASE NOTE ~
If, in any way, your comment is an attack on the author of this post or a previous commenter, your comment will be deleted without question.
Add a New CommentNOTE: The Facebook login option has been disabled. We apologize for any inconvenience. |
DON'T WANT YOUR COMMENT DELETED?
Click to Read Our Commenting Rules & Guidelines
Click to Read Our Commenting Rules & Guidelines
Want an avatar for your comments? Click here to sign up with Gravatar.
Nah, not surprised the least bit :) with awesome WOM and great promotion, what else can you expect. Opens Oct 8 here in Russia, and I'm 99% sure it's gonna be great…
Pleasantly surprised at both Cloudy's 33% drop (I was the real pessimist, thought it'd drop 50%), and TS double feature gross. And I don't believe they will just end the run after two weeks, more like it'll play in all those theaters till Oct. 23 and then, when Astroboy and Nightmare re-release come out, it loses like a HUGE amount of theaters and drops really, really hard… but it still plays in limited release for the next couple of weeks. Well, that's the way I see it.
Coming back to Zombieland, though, I was thinking about one thing for several days now… does anybody think that with such great word-of-mouth, 90-minute length and all, Zombieland could actually pull The Hangover on us? I'm not talking $280 million final gross here, of course, I'm talking like 15-30% drops in the next weekends. With almost no competition and all, I can't think of a reason why it couldn't pull that off.
@Nick: It's true, Zombieland does have many qualities that Hangover did, but Hangover did have a lot better word of mouth than Zombieland, and also it was released at a time where there were virtually no adult movies out. R-rated movies have been coming out by the dozen at this time in year, so that means a lot more competition for Zombieland.I think it might drop in the 40-45% area next weekend, and then ease up on the percentage slides from then on until Saw VI, where all of the horror fans will abandon it and it will have to make do with the comedy demographic. It should end up in the $80-$90 million territory, which is still exceptional looking at its cast and premise. Early weekend predics:
1. Couple's Retreat- $20 million
2. Zombieland- $14 million
3. Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs- $13 million
4. Toy Story & Toy Story 2 re-release in 3D- $8 million
5. Surrogates- $4 million
Shutter Island definitely should have stayed in October. Whip It! should have not gone against such stiff competition. And yes, Couples Retreat will be the #1 movie next week.
Look at "Paranormal Activty." It's doing only midnight showings right now. Last weekend, in 12 theaters, it made $77,873 ($6489 PTA). This weekend it played in 33 theaters and made $535,000 ($16,212 PTA). Did you see that huge PTA jump? And that's with only 2 or 3 showings a weekend (depending on whether or not the theater plays Sunday on midnight; the one near me wasn't). I went to watch it yesterday and got there an hour early, only to learn the tickets had sold out at 5:00!
I know it's a couple weeks away still, but i was just wondering what everyone thinks about Where the Wild Things Are's chances. With one of the best marketing campaigns i've ever seen, the "must see" status it seems to have with everyone under the age of 30 and their parents, could we be looking at a new October opening weekend record? Scary Movie 3 currently has the highest grossing weekend in October with $48 million, but i gotta say Wild Things could be looking to get at least $50 million it's first weekend out there…any thoughts?
@JAB: Very true, it has a superb campaign, and it appeals to kids and adults. It also has a built-in audience thanks to the picture book being a huge success. As long as none of its competition do much damage at the box office, it could look at a weekend of 45-50 million, and possibly even cross the 200 million mark by the end of its run.
Zombieland won big. I was wrong about it. Paranormal Activity and Serious Man made a lot of money in limited release. Cloudy also have a good result and Toy Story 3D too. Whip It deserve better. Next weekend, Couples Retreat looks like it will win big too. $25M-$35M is my early prediction.
@Nick: While Zombieland's WOM is solid I don't see it having Hangover legs because of the other horror films coming (Saw, The Box, Stepfather) out and the future blockbuster that is Where The Wild Things. It should still have a solid $90-$100 million final gross and with a $23 million budget that is going to equal a lot of cash.
Shame about Whip It!, surprisingly strong film from Drew Barrymore and would have loved to see it do well over the HSM crap but what can you do?
Here's hoping that Jesse Eisenberg can now steal some roles from Shia.
HSM3 was a little lame, but so was Star Wars III. Most people are going to finish out seeing a trilogy. Did anyone see Lord of the Rings I & II but not III ?
I believe the Horror Comedies don't do well theory is still operative. Zombieland seems to be perceived as a comedy with Zombies in it (Lesson learned Hollywood?). Even the sometimes blase movie theater employees want to see it. I agree with @Nick: that it could have smallish drops. I'm thinkiing horror movie competiition won't hurt it and may actuall help it a bit. If you're going to laugh at some cheesy horror movie, why not just go for the laughs on purpose? It's not going to be an EVENT film, though.
I agree I really hope Zombieland has strong enough legs to gross around 80 to 90mill domestic, but I'm not expecting a Hangover type of success since that movie was released in the Summer. Strangely enough I still can't believe that movie made so much money. Am I really the only one who thinks it's a little overrated and don't think I'm a hater or anything because I did really like the movie, but cmon people calling it the best comedy ever is a bit ridicoulous. Also, I wouldn't be too suprised if WTWTA made over 40mill opening weekend. Theres alot of anticiapation behind that flick and the book is a childhood classic. Even though I was hestitating to see in theatres becuase of all the annoying kids that would be in the audience I'm seriously starting to rethink that after seeing all those awesome tv. spots. They are really hard to ignore.
Laremy, How do we get avatars for our posted comments? :)
@Disneywatcher:
I still haven't seen "The Return of the King". Shame on me.
Not sure I agree with "Zombieland" hitting triple digits, but I could see it taking around $70 million in total, which is not only excellent for this film but also that'll make it the highest grossing zombie movie ever (unadjusted of course).
"Couples Retreat" will easily take next weekend with an opening in the mid to high 20s, though it won't be the next "Proposal" or even "The Break Up" for that matter.
@Disneywatcher: Visit this site and set up an account under the email address you use to post comments and it is automatic.
@wrongturn687: People want a champion, or something they can get behind. Entrepreneur types admire Bill Gates or Google, golfers admire Tiger Woods, badketball fans like Michael Jordan, Screaming young girls admire Miley Cyrus. The Hangover was the first widely supported 'R' rated film for some time, and after all the punditry that 'R' rated movies were DOA, the film became a sort of champion for the 'R' rated crowd. And after reaching a certain amount of buzz, curiosity seekers went to see it to see what the buzz was all about. That's my opinion, but I would be happy to consider anyone elses.
Also I'm suprsied no one has brought up the massive B.O potential of Michael Jackson's This Is It. That movie has had some HUGE advance ticket sales and if WWTA doesn'tt have the biggest opening weekend in October that thing could deffentially give it a run for it's money eventhough the Wednesday opening will take alot out of it. What do you guys think ?
@wrongturn687: I feel you are somewhat falling for the hype. "This is it" simply cannot beat Hannah Montana's record for per screen average. And while it it doing well in Urban Music strongholds, the word for this wide release film in the rest of the country is sketchy. The rational thing for casual fans to do would be to but the DVD. It should break the concert film total gross record, since it is in wide release. Internationally, it's going to break all kinds of records. I am not cynical enough to feel they are releasing it for two weeks only (ostensibly) to pump up their numbers. I believe they are being cautious with Michael's reputation. That might indicate they know something about a downside to the situation that we don't know e.g. polling, tracking, etc.
Well to be honest it's kind of hard not get into the hype when there reporting tons of sellouts for that flick almost everyday. But, I agree the two week only release is ridicoulouss especially considering how easy of a money maker it will be only after opening weekend. I expect a pretty big opening still, but nothing AMAZING like the media is making it out to be. It would be pretty awesome though if we had two films in October make over 40mill in the same year. I don't think thats ever happend before , but came pretty close to happenig when The Grudge And Sharktale came out back in 2004.
I got back from toy story a little while ago and despite the running time of almost 3 hours (I sat so long towards the end of #2 i came close to falling asleep on accident) me and my little 7 year old sister who had never seen either one both loved it really brought back some great memories and judging by the new trailer which tells the main plot of the story #3 looks great.
Talking about "This is It", I might do well. Batman is not the #2 box office movie of all time is Heath is . So with that in mind, it might be an event film in the large cities.
@Steve: @Steve: @Steve:
Sorry, if Ledger is alive.
Don't get me wrong. "This is it" is going to do very well. I just wonder about it's legs. I wonder if Michael fans will see it multiple times? Now that Michael is no longer with us, I've let the controversies go, too. But, will people who remember them be willing to spend $$$ on his concert movie? Fandango (and what's the other site?) always puts the best spin on what's happening in advance ticket sales. You have to read their information/news releases critically, because they are trying to sell tickets. The Jonas Brothers concert movie had news of ticket sellouts & their total gross was $19 million. I'm also not seeing "This is it" show up on web search traffic topper lists. While the movie "2012" is getting huge search volume.
1. Zombieland – 15 million
2. Couples Retreat – 14 million
3. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs – 12 million
4. Toy Story 3D – 9 million
5. Surrogates – 4 million
This is my first try & I know I can't be right because the overall box office of the top 12 should be in the low $80 millions range – Still this is how I feel.