Movie Box Review

John Carter traveled to Mars; the movie with his name also looks beyond the US for some help.

OPENINGS:  JOHN CARTER (Disney) may or may not have grossed over $30M this weekend--we'll find out for sure tomorrow.  (Disney is claiming a not-unreasonable 31% Sunday drop, but it would take only a small slip to push the number below that threshold.)  The more important number, though, in terms of whether it'll be remembered as a historic flop or a mere financial disappointment, is the $71M (which includes pre-Friday grosses in certain territories) being reported overseas.  $17M of that was from Russia alone, but apparently Europe was generally not strong.  On the other hand, the picture is doing well in Asia, and has yet to open in China and Japan.  If Carter can get to a global total of $300M, it won't reach breakeven, but would avoid the embarrassment of a total failure.

A THOUSAND WORDS (Paramount), playing as a family comedy (which it really isn't), also had a good Saturday, but that only got it to a pitiful $6.4M.  However, that did beat Meet Dave and Imagine This, so this studio, as well, dodged complete ignominy.  SILENT HOUSE held even on Saturday despite the dreadful CinemaScore grade and is claiming (for now) slightly over $7M for the weekend.

HOLDOVERS:  THE LORAX (Universal) ended up with a Saturday that, while huge, wasn't quite up to the initial report (an 80% bump rather than 100%), so it's down 44% for the weekend, still extremely good.  More remarkably, PROJECT X (Warners) was almost in the same place with a 45% drop, excellent for a picture aiming at the teen-male demo.  SAFE HOUSE (Universal), THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony) and THIS MEANS WAR (20th) continued to have very low drops in the low 30% range, while WANDERLUST (Universal) and GONE (Summit/Lionsgate) were heaved out of theatres as quickly as contracts allowed.

OSCAR WINNERS:  THE ARTIST (Weinstein) is claiming a mediocre 37% drop that, as with last week, relies on an very high Sunday estimate (a drop of only 25%)--last weekend's total was reduced on Monday, and the same may well happen tomorrow.  THE IRON LADY (Weinstein), with a more reasonable 35% estimated Sunday drop, is holding well, down only 31% for the weekend.  THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight) and HUGO (Paramount) are both on their way out of theatres.  A SEPARATION (Sony Classics) widened again to 281 theatres, and while it still dropped for the weekend as its per-theatre number fell, it's at $4.8M, a superb total for a subtitled Iranian film.  

LIMITED RELEASES:  For an R-rated comedy, FRIENDS WITH KIDS (Roadside Attractions) had a terrific Saturday bump of 53%, suggesting very strong word of mouth.  That pushed it to $2.2M in 374 theatres, with a per-theatre number that was below only The Lorax and John Carter in the top 20.  Roadside will widen the run next weekend to 600 theatres.  SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN (CBS) had a $13K average. but that was in only 18 theatres, which is only mildly promising.  FOOTNOTE (Sony Classics) and JIRO DREAMS OF SUSHI (Magnolia) had strong NY openings, averaging over $20K per theatre each.  WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Oscilloscope) went from 40 to 60 theatres, and had a decent $2600 per-theatre average.  BEING FLYNN (Focus), though, tripled its theatre count to 12 and still fell for the weekend, as its per-theatre number collapsed.

Moral of the weekend:  If you're going to spend $250M+ on a movie, check first whether anyone wants to see it.

OPENINGS:  With a probable $27-28M opening, just how big a flop is JOHN CARTER (Disney) going to be?  Hard to tell until full weekend and international numbers are in.  But its sheer cost--probably at least $400M when worldwide marketing is included, and very possibly $500M--dwarfs such famous flops of the past as Ishtar and Heaven's Gate, both made in the 1980s when marketing costs were a fraction of what they are now, and even last year's huge bomb Mars Needs Moms, which cost around $100M less.  The movie is mediocre; the decision to green-light it at that budget was insane.  

At a far lesser level of failure (financially, at least), SILENT HOUSE (Open Road) is headed for a $6-7M weekend and probably won't crack $20M in total (especially with an ugly "F" from CinemaScore), but with a tiny budget and limited marketing, it won't cause anyone much damage.  A THOUSAND WORDS (Paramount/DreamWorks) is only hitting theatres after 3 years because Paramount would have had accounting consequences had it been held off the market any longer.  It's heading for a similar total to Silent House at a much higher cost.  The amazing factoid is that if it can manage to scrape together a weekend above $5.5M, it'll still be higher than 2 of Eddie Murphy's last 5 openings, beating both Meet Dave and Imagine That.  And this:  with the exception of the Shrek movies and Dreamgirls, Murphy's last $100M grosser was Dr. Dolittle 2 in 2001.

HOLDOVERS:  With no direct competition, THE LORAX (Universal) is having a strong 2d weekend, down only 40-45% from its giant opening (and easily winning the weekend).  More surprisingly, PROJECT X (Warners) is holding up fine, with a similar percentage drop.  SAFE HOUSE (Universal), THE VOW (Screen Gems.  /Sony) and THIS MEANS WAR (20th) continue to hold up best, with drops of only around 30%, while GOOD DEEDS (Lionsgate/Summit), WANDERLUST (Universal) and GONE (Summit/Lionsgate) are collapsing as they get dumped by theatres.

OSCAR WINNERS:  THE ARTIST (Weinstein)'s post-Oscar bump didn't last long, as word-of-mouth and a wide audience continue to elude the film (permanently, we can now say).  A 40% weekend drop puts it in line for around $45M in total.  THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight), in its final pre-homevideo weekend, and HUGO (Paramount), already available at home, face similar declines.  THE IRON LADY (Weinstein), though, is holding on well with only a 25% fall.

LIMITED RELEASE:  FRIENDS WITH KIDS (Roadside Attractions) is trying a quasi-limited opening at 374 theatres, with fairly decent results for that kind of release, probably close to a $5K average per theatre that should give it around a $2M start.  On a much smaller scale, SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN (CBS) should have an OK average of around $10K in only 18 big-city theatres.  The Israeli FOOTNOTE (Sony Classics), with rave reviews, is headed for a very nice $20K average in 2 NY theatres.  BEING FLYNN (Focus) tripled its theatre count to 12, and will be lucky to hold even for the weekend, as its per-theatre average plummeted.

NEXT WEEKEND:  The big arrival is the Channing Tatum/Jonah Hill comedy revamp of 21 JUMP STREET (Sony), which is garnering remarkably strong early reviews.  2 more offbeat comedies will open in smaller releases;  JEFF WHO LIVES AT HOME (Paramount Vantage) and Will Ferrell's Spanish-language CASA DE MI PADRE (Lionsgate).  

Now the only question is when they announce the start of  pre-production on LORAX 2.

OPENINGS:  It turned out THE LORAX (Universal) wasn't frontloaded at all.  Quite the contrary, its 80% Saturday bump put the movie through the roof, a triumph of great marketing over cruddy filmmaking.  Lorax is currently the 3d highest March opening ever, but only $185K behind 300 at #2, so even a slight overperformance on Sunday could lift it up.  PROJECT X (Warners) slipped a bit on Saturday, but even if its Sunday is overestimated, it should still be safely over $20M for the weekend, a very good score for a relatively low-budget studio release.  (The result, unfortunately, will be more lousy "found-footage" movies.)

HOLDOVERS:  Thanks to a nice spread of genres in the Top 10, most of the older movies are holding quite well.  The only 3 movies in the Top 12 to dip more than 45% were JOURNEY 2 (Warners), which was direct competition for Lorax, GOOD DEEDS (Lionsgate/Summit) with a 55% drop that was in keeping with Tyler Perry's pictures, and GHOST RIDER 2 (Sony), which was already mid-collapse.  Particularly notable were the tiny respective drops for SAFE HOUSE (Universal) - 34%, THIS MEANS WAR (20th) - 33%, and the (deservedly) much-maligned GONE (Summit/Lionsgate) - 36%.

OSCAR WINNERS:  THE ARTIST (Weinstein), the 2d least popular Best Picture winner of the last quarter-century (and the lowest among films still in theatrical release when the awards were given out) raised its post-awards theatre count by 80% and could only manage a 34% bump.  And even that number is shaky, because Artist is claiming by far the lowest Sunday decline of the weekend's top movies, so it may well slipi down (and fall out of the Top 10) tomorrow.  Similarly, its stablemate THE IRON LADY (Weinstein) is claiming a 30% weekend increase that relies on a tiny estimated Sunday drop.  Back in the non-Weinstein world, THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight) lost many of its theatres and fell 36%, and HUGO (Paramount) dropped 14%.  A SEPARATION (Sony Classics) tripled its theatres off its Foreign Language Film win, and gratifyingly went over the $1M mark for the weekend in 243 houses.  

LIMITED RELEASES:  BEING FLYNN (Focus) created little excitement with a $11K average at only 4 theatres, and TIM & ERIC'S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE (Magnolia) could only get to a $4K average in 24.    IN DARKNESS (Sony Classics) lost the Foreign-Language Oscar but tried increasing its theatre count by 50% anyway--the result was a 17% drop for the weekend.  WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Oscilloscope), another picture that was hoping for Oscar love it didn't get, more than doubled its theatres to 40, and averaged a decent $3300.  

There are good movies and there are hits, and given the choice, there's never been any doubt which Hollywood prefers.

OPENINGS:  A March filled to the brim with wannabe blockbusters is off to a big start.  THE LORAX (Universal) may be a bad movie (spoiler alert--it is), but the studio sold the hell out of it, and the result looks to be the all-quadrant hit Universal dreamed of.  The opening day for Lorax was almost 25% higher than the Friday for Horton Hears A Who! in March 2008, and that one got to $154M, so $200M is certainly in reach (Horton happened to be a better movie, but we'll see if that means much).  Also helping:  no real competition until Mirror Mirror and Wrath of the Titans open on March 30.

Also opening well (and at least as bad) is PROJECT X (Warner Bros), the latest "found-footage" contraption.  Its $8.1M Friday is only slightly behind the $8.6M for Chronicle, February's found-footage picture, and while Project's trajectory downward may be faster (Chronicle rose 18% on Saturday on good word-of-mouth, which Project will be hard pressed to match), that could still put it in the neighborhood of a $20M weekend and $50M total, not bad for a picture that has a $12M budget and lower-than-usual reliance on expensive TV marketing.

HOLDOVERS:  ACT OF VALOR (Relativity) and WANDERLUST (Universal) should go down a standard 45-50% in their second weekends, but oddly enough, the given-up-for-dead GONE (Summit/Lionsgate) is holding extremely well and may decline less than 40%.  Amanda Seyfried fans?  GOOD DEEDS (Lionsgate/Summit) will fall the heavy 60% or so that's typical for Tyler Perry's movies.  Also collapsing this weekend is JOURNEY 2 (Warners), which held like a champ for several weeks but got poleaxed by The Lorax.  SAFE HOUSE (Universal), THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony) and THIS MEANS WAR (20th) continue to hold well, although in the case of the latter, that will still only get it to around $50M.  Worth noting farther down the list is that PHANTOM MENACE 3D (20th) is now headed for only around $45M, which means with the cost of 3D conversion and marketing, the re-release may remarkably have to scrape just to break even--we'll see how quickly Attack of the Clones 3D hits theatres after this.

OSCAR WINNERS:  Even with the Best Picture Oscar and the giant publicity that comes with it, THE ARTIST (Weinstein) managed only a mild bump at the box-office.  Its theatre count increased by over 80%, but it's headed for only a 20-25% higher gross this weekend.  Artist now seems unlikely to reach $50M at the US boxoffice, which would make it the first Best Picture winner in current theatrical release (unlike The Hurt Locker, which was already on homevideo when the awards were presented) not to hit that mark since The Last Emperor in 1987, a film that made $44M at a time when those dollars had 25 years worth of higher value.  (For a real, inflation-adjusted equivalent, you'd have to go back to the pre-homevideo era.)  Meanwhile THE IRON LADY (Weinstein) rode its Best Actress Oscar to a 10-15% increase.  Winners in the lesser categories had no Oscar benefit:  THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight) dropped 20% of its theatres and will decline 40-45%, and HUGO (Paramount), now out on homevideo, lost about 15% of its theatres and will fall 20-25%.

LIMITED RELEASES:  The first major indie of 2012, BEING FLYNN (Focus) didn't muster much enthusiasm at the boxoffice (sadly, for good reason) and may only get to around an $11K average at 4 theatres.  TIM AND ERIC'S BILLION DOLLAR MOVIE (Magnolia), also available on VOD, is headed for perhaps a $5K average at 24.

NEXT WEEK:  The knives have been sharpening for weeks, but is JOHN CARTER (Disney) really as bad as the buzz suggests?  It will, at least, have the weekend almost to itself, as the "single-take" (not really) SILENT HOUSE (Open Road) and the long-delayed Eddie Murphy vehicle A THOUSAND WORDS (Paramount) are only opening in roughly half as many theatres.  2 romantic comedies also arrive in limited release:  FRIENDS WITH KIDS (Roadside Attractions), which has a terrific cast that includes Jon Hamm, Kristin Wiig, Adam Scott and Maya Rudolph, and SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN (CBS), with the somewhat less marketable Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt. 

Well, that didn't last long.

After an Oscars+1 day where Best Picture winner THE ARTIST had the smallest Monday decline of any movie in the Top 10,  by Tuesday the glow was gone.  On a day when almost every Top 10 film was significantly up, ccording to Box Office Mojo, Artist had an increase of only 13%.  This made it 8th in the Top 10, behind THE VOW (38%), THIS MEANS WAR (21%), WANDERLUST (21%),  and even the disastrous GONE (35%), among others.

Fellow Oscar winners THE IRON LADY (17%) and THE DESCENDANTS (14%) were in a similar boat, and HUGO was up only 7%, although the latter has the excuse of also being released on homevideo yesterday.

The Weinstein Company will of course be expanding Artist's theatre count on Friday, so its overall weekend gross may very well be its highest to date.  But there's little sign, even with its Oscar wins, that Artist will ever become any kind of popular hit.

It's a measure of how desperately this year's Oscar needed some kind of surprise that the closest thing to a thrill all evening was Meryl Streep's win as Best Actress.  Streep has been winning Academy Awards since 1979, and she'd been touted for her performance as Margaret Thatcher since months before THE IRON LADY even opened.  By virtually every measure, she'd been a close 2d to Viola Davis as favorite all along.  One could even make the argument that choosing Streep over Davis was actually the more conservative move in the category.  (And a bittersweet one, because although Streep--despite her protestations--will almost certainly have more chances at the prize before she's done, it might not be so easy for Davis to climb that hill again.)  And yet, when Streep's name was announced, it was the night's only jolt of electricity:  Something Finally Happened!

Streep's victory also underscored, for anyone who doubted, that Harvey Weinstein is the master of his era's (maybe any era's) Oscar gamesmanship.  Streep had been a strong contender for THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA and for JULIE AND JULIA, and both times she'd been denied.  Iron Lady was the least successful, least-seen and least-liked of Streep's recent vehicles, but Weinstein's absolutely unapologetic willingness to play the card of "winning 29 years ago is like not winning at all," stressed in every Streep-for-Best-Actress ad, did the trick.  

Weinstein was also behind another surprise, the victory of UNDEFEATED for Best Feature Documentary over the favored PINA and PARADISE LOST 3.  (He can't claim the night's below-the-line shocker when THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO took Best Editing.)  And of course, he was the architect of the night's most inevitable set of victories, as THE ARTIST marched to the podium every time it really counted.

Apart from the Weinstein brigade, the Oscars were mostly widely scattered, as THE DESCENDANTS, THE HELP and MIDNIGHT IN PARIS each won a single award, Christopher Plummer took his unofficial lifetime achievement prize, and HUGO went home with all the awards no one cares about.

Ironically, 2012 will probably be the wrong year to be Harvey Weinstein's touted entry for Best Picture:  after THE KING'S SPEECH and The Artist in consecutive years, the Academy may go out of its way to show its independence from his hegemony.  But if there's any certainty in the Oscar universe, it's that he'll be back.

Here's your complete set of Oscar winners:

As Hollywood prepares to honor its best (well, this year... maybe not so much), an undistinguished group of arrivals dominate the boxoffice.

OPENINGS:  ACT OF VALOR (Relativity) is claiming the lowest Sunday decline for any adult-skewing picture in the Top 10, ignoring the usual Oscar Day decline (even though the film had the lowest Saturday bump of any of them).  That means the weekend's final number may be closer to $24M.  There's probably not much gas in the tank for future weeks, but a $60M total for a picture that cost $13M (albeit with much more expensive marketing) is clearly a win.  GOOD DEEDS (Lionsgate/Summit)  is Tyler Perry's lowest opening ever (excluding Daddy's Little Girls, which opened on a Wednesday).  That probably doesn't mean much in terms of his overall franchise (especially since he has a Madea movie coming out next), but may give concern to his bid for a non-franchise (well, new franchise) success playing a detective in I, Alex Cross later this year.

Bad news for Jennifer Aniston, too:  WANDERLUST (Universal) is her lowest-ever opening for a starring vehicle.  (Paul Rudd isn't really seen as someone whose name alone opens movies--his hits have either been concept-driven (Role Models) or buddy movies with strong co-stars (Dinner For Schmucks)--but this certainly doesn't move him up in the ranks.)  Another couple of losers and it may be time for Aniston to take a hard look at returning to TV.  The best news for Amanda Seyfried is that in a couple of weeks, GONE (Summit/Lionsgate) will be a dim memory--but even though it's ridiculous to put her in direct competition with Rachel McAdams or any other particular actress, she does need another Dear John-sized hit in the near future if she's not going to fall onto the heap of lovely ex-TV actresses who couldn't hack it on the big screen.

HOLDOVERS:  JOURNEY 2 (Warners) and THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY (Disney) have real legs, although in Arrietty's case, that won't translate to much of a total gross.  SAFE HOUSE (Universal), THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony) (which went over $100M, the first-ever for Screen Gems) and THIS MEANS WAR (20th) all held well.  GHOST RIDER 2 (Sony), of course collapsed.  So did PHANTOM MENACE 3D (20th), which now seems unlikely to reach $50M--presumably Fox will do anything George Lucas tells them to, but one has to wonder about the enthusiasm for re-releasing the rest of the prequel trilogy in 3D when 3D TV and homevideo are still in their infancy and there's little ancillary value to be had.

OSCAR NOMINEES:  Only a few of the major nominees are still in wide release.  THE ARTIST (Weinstein), in anticipation of its big wins tonight, was the only one to add theatres, and had a nice weekend bump.  THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight) and HUGO (Paramount), in anticipation of their big losses, dropped theatres and had modest declines.  (Hugo is being released on homevideo in a few days.)  Sony Classics widened a couple of their Best Foreign Film nominees:  probable winner A SEPARATION did very well, increasing theatre count by around 50% and boxoffice by 36%, while IN DARKNESS wasn't quite as strong, with a similar rise in theatre count but only a 11% boost at the boxoffice.

Enjoy the Sacha Baron Cohen Publicity Tour Oscars tonight, everyone!  We'll have plenty of coverage on The Artist's anointment after the fact.

Navy SEALs shoot up the Friday boxoffice.

OPENINGS:  The very aggressive marketing for ACT OF VALOR (Relativity) made it seem like it was a patriotic duty to see the film, and successfully hid the fact that it's mostly a sub-par B action movie.  The question now is whether its quality will catch up with it (or not).  GOOD DEEDS (Lionsgate/Summit) is Tyler Perry's lowest wide-release opening Friday ever at $5.6M (Daddy's Little Girls opened on a Wednesday), but not to worry--Perry will have a new Madea comedy out later this year.

Although daily numbers aren't available for her earliest vehicles, WANDERLUST (Universal), with a 2.2M Friday, also seems to be the biggest flop of Jennifer Aniston's starring career, let alone for one that pairs her with another big name like Paul Rudd.  Aniston has had something of a charmed movie career, considering the low quality of many of her pictures, but her luck may be running out.  GONE (Summit/Lionsgate) is just sad at $1.7M, and should send Amanda Seyfried on a search for the next half-decent rom-com or soap opera script that comes her way.

HOLDOVERS:  THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony), SAFE HOUSE (Universal) and SECRET WORLD OF ARIETTY (Disney) are all sustaining well, but nothing is holding like JOURNEY 2:  THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (Warners), which is clearly pleasing its target audiences. The only thing that could keep it from beating the $102M US gross of the first Journey is next weekend's increased competition.  GHOST RIDER:  SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE (Sony) collapsed, and STAR WARS EPISODE I:  THE PHANTOM MENACE 3D (20th) continued to do so as well--it's starting to look like Phantom Menace may not even get to $50M, although it'll still put plenty of midichlorians in George Lucas's pocket.  

OSCAR NOMINEES:  As THE ARTIST (Weinstein) prepares for its coronation, it added about 20% more theatres and took a nice tick upward.  HUGO (Paramount) lost about 10% of its screens, but also went up a bit.  THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight), on the other hand, lost about a third of its theatres, and was somewhat down.

LIMITED RELEASES:  No notable openings or expansions this weekend, as the art-house audience is presumably occupied with Oscar Day.

NEXT WEEKEND:  March is unusually packed with event movies this year, and first up is THE LORAX (Universal), which the studio has been marketing as an all-quadrant tentpole, with spots aiming at kids (Dr. Seuss), teens (Zac Efron and Taylor Swift) and adults (Danny DeVito and Betty White)--including a fairly heavy ESPN push--and all of that doesn't even count the giant promo deals with a car company and restaurant chain.  A different sort of event is PROJECT X (Warners), an R-rated  "found footage" version of The Hangover (and produced by its director, as every promo is happy to tell you) about a teen party that goes very wild.  Also arriving is the year's first substantial limited release, Paul Weitz's BEING FLYNN (Focus), which is riding some good early buzz for its performances from Robert DeNiro and Paul Dano.

Hollywood Hearts this weekend.

OPENINGS:   It turned out that THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony) was indeed slightly more frontloaded than SAFE HOUSE (Universal), but not by enough to rob it of 1st place.  Vow's massive $41.7M haul was higher than any opening weekend for a Julia Roberts, Sandra Bullock or Katherine Heigl vehicle--ever.  (Cut to the board room at Screen Gems, where they're trying to figure out just how to do a Vow 2.)  Sony has another reason to be thrilled, too--they have Channing Tatum's 21 Jump Street opening next month.  Normally, one would say that Vow might get hurt by the similarly-aimed This Means War next weekend, but War has such bad buzz that it may not be much of a threat.  Meanwhile, Safe House's $39.3M is the 2d highest opening of Denzel Washington's career, and since its genre hits an international sweet spot, there's nothing but upside (and another sequel that seemingly can't happen, although never discount the inspiration--and desperation--of Hollywood execs).  Also celebrating today:  Ryan Reynolds, whose career was heading for life support after 2011's flops; the Safe House tally probably isn't much due to him, but in Hollywood, if you're in a hit, it's your hit.

Over in the 2d tier, the one genuinely frontloaded movie of the weekend was STAR WARS EPISODE I:  THE PHANTOM MENACE 3D (20th), as audiences, depending on their ages, either remembered or discovered just how bad it was.  (Even though Phantom Menace was the only opening to go down on Saturday, Fox is predicting it to have Sunday's lowest drop--so look for that $23M weekend number to be reduced tomorrow.)  JOURNEY 2:  THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (Warners), on the other hand, had a wonderfully robust 94% hike on Saturday, its $27.6M weekend total almost 25% higher than the $21M opening for the first Journey picture.  With the semi-arty The Secret World of Arrietty as the only family movie opening for Presidents Day weekend, Journey should hold up pretty well.

HOLDOVERS:  As noted yesterday, last Sunday's depressed Super Bowl Sunday grosses make this weekend's comparisons look artificially strong.  In a normal weekend, CHRONICLE (20th), THE WOMAN IN BLACK (CBS) and BIG MIRACLE (Universal) would all be down over 50%, but only Woman (just barely) crossed that line this weekend.  Those 3, along with THE GREY (Open Road), RED TAILS (20th) and UNDERWORLD AWAKENING (Screen Gems/Sony) are all headed for $50-65M totals.

OSCAR NOMINEES:  Generally good holds for the pictures in general release, as THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight), THE ARTIST (Weinstein) and HUGO (Paramount) all lost 20-30% of their theatres and went down under 25%.  The only big hit was for EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Warners), which shed almost half its theatres and plummeted 60%.  A couple of nominees in smaller categories had modest expansions:  A SEPARATION (Sony Classics) added 5 theatres for a total of 45 and went up a couple of percentage points, and PINA (IFC) almost doubled its theatres to 67 and had a nice 35% bump.  The bare 22% increase for W.E. (Weinstein), though, meant a big reduction in per-screen as it went from 4 to 17 theatres. IN DARKNESS (Sony Classics) had an OK start with a $9700 at 3, and surprise Best Animated Film nominee CHICO & RITA (GK) got a lot of curious eyeballs with a $27K opening in 1 NY theatre.j

LIMITED RELEASE:  Not much going on, apart from the Oscar nominees above.  RAMPART (Millenium) had a decent start with a $13K average in 5 theatres, and RETURN (Dada), a very tiny movie with excellent performances by Linda Cardellini as a returning Iraq vet and Michael Shannon (for once playing a normal human being) as her husband, had a $3500 average at 2. 

You're frontloaded!  No, you're frontloaded!

OPENINGS:  The movie audience has 3 main components--men, women, kids--and a weekend that offers a strong title for each one has a good chance of being successful.  The relatively low-budget THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony) got off to a great start (too bad it's not a great movie), with $15.4M on Friday.  That's higher than the entire opening weekend for Rachel McAdams' last soap The Notebook (which ended up grossing $81M) and higher than opening day for Channing Tatum's last dip in the soap pool Dear John (also an $80M grosser).  Meanwhile, for the guys there was the (more expensive) SAFE HOUSE (Universal), also very strong with a $13.8M Friday.  Safe House looks like it'll be the 2d highest opener of Denzel Washington's entire career (behind only American Gangster), and even though we won't know until tomorrow (or Monday) which picture edged out the other for the weekend crown, they're both big hits.

Meanwhile, the kids weren't neglected.  STAR WARS EPISODE I:  THE PHANTOM MENACE 3D (20th) scored $8.7M on Friday, and JOURNEY 2:  THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND (Warners) wasn't far behind with $6.6M.  The consensus seems to be that Phantom will be more frontloaded with fanboys, but again this won't be determined for another day or two.

HOLDOVERS:  Note:  because of Super Bowl Sunday, all weekend-to-weekend drops will be artificially low this week.  Thanks to that, CHRONICLE (20th) and THE WOMAN IN BLACK (CBS) are both likely to be down under 50% this weekend, although BIG MIRACLE (Universal), which just couldn't find a reason to exist, may cross that mark.  Longer-running titles are dropping theatres due to all the new product in the market, so they're mostly down 50+%.

OSCAR NOMINEES:  With the rush of the nomination announcements done, these pictures are losing theatres, but otherwise holding fairly well.  THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight) lost about 22% of its theatres and should be down around 30% for the weekend, THE ARTIST (Weinstein) also shed 20% of its theatres and should drop about an equal amount at the boxoffice, and HUGO (Paramount) actually had the best hold, ejected from 30% of its theatres but down only around 20%.  The exception is EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Warners), which lost almost half its theatres but is looking an ugly weekend drop of over 60%.

LIMITED RELEASES:  No major arrivals this week.  RAMPART (Millenium), which was unable to get a Best Actor nomination for Woody Harrelson, is headed for a mild $12K average in 5 theatres.  IN DARKNESS (Sony Classics), nominated for Foreign Film, should average around $7500 in 3.  Madonna's W.E. (Weinstein) tried an expansion to little avail, and may not even get to a $3500 average in 17.

Next weekend the studios aren't offering much for the long Presidents Day holiday:  THIS MEANS WAR (20th), which had to postpone its Valentine's Day opening because it would have been crushed by The Vow (it's also the target of one of the most brutal Hollywood Reporter reviews in recent memory), and GHOST RIDER:  SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE (Columbia/Sony) with Nicolas Cage, that eternal mark of high quality.  Also in a mid-level release is Disney's release of the Japanese (dubbed) animation THE SECRET WORLD OF ARRIETTY.  

This year's Academy Awards have so far engendered the kind of enthusiasm and excitement usually associated with a suburban DMV office on a Tuesday afternoon.  People seem to be sullenly resigned to the inevitability of THE ARTIST's victory, even though it would be unlikely to get anything like a majority of the Academy's estimated 5000 votes--but with the Best Picture vote split 9 ways, it doesn't need to come anywhere near that (the winning movie could theoretically take the award with only around 556 votes).  In any case, no unified opposition has formed in favor of any particular competing film, and the same apathy exists in almost every other major category.  At this rate, we might as well be talking about presidential politics.  

Are the Oscars really doomed to be this dull?  (ABC certainly hopes not, or this could be the lowest-rated ceremony in history.)  Is there no possibility for any unexpected moments of shock or even mild surprise?  Let's take a look.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY:  As Mitch Metcalf noted in his survey of Oscar wagering odds, this is one category where The Artist is at a disadvantage (odds of 2:1), probably because as a silent movie, its intertitles don't provide much in the way of sparkling dialogue.  There are many who would like to see Woody Allen get some recognition for his late-career renaissance with MIDNIGHT IN PARIS, and that's currently the 2:5 favorite.  The other nominees MARGIN CALL, A SEPARATION and BRIDESMAIDS are all likely of the "be happy you're nominated" variety, although lovers of longshots might want to consider a wager on Bridesmaids at 23:1--it's by far the biggest hit of the group, and somewhat trendy after its critics' awards.  CHOICE:  Margin Call.  PREDICTION:  Midnight In Paris.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY:  No one particularly cares about this category this year, but it's one of the very few to be fairly wide open.  THE DESCENDANTS is the favorite at 2:5 because of its perceived stature in the Best Picture race, and because with its polished dialogue it feels "written," but strictly as a work of adaptation, MONEYBALL, at 4:1, probably deserves to win, and its script is by the all-star team of Aaron Sorkin and Steven Zaillian.  There's also increasing sentiment pointing to HUGO at 5:1, another tough adaptation from a children's picture book.  TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, which deserves its place, and THE IDES OF MARCH, which doesn't (it's actually weaker than its source material), are probably just along for the ride.  CHOICE AND PREDICTION:  Moneyball.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS:  Here's where things get easy, and thus somewhat tedious.  Octavia Spencer is an overwhelming 1:20 favorite for THE HELP, and no other nominee seems to have a prayer of catching her.  Those who believe the Academy will utterly genuflect to The Artist may want to take a chance on 2d choice Berenice Bejo at 9:1, but 2011 It Girl Jessica Chastain will be back again to win in some future year, and Melissa McCarthy and Janet McTeer, with 2 of the year's most distinctive performances, will have to be content with their nomination certificates.  CHOICE:  Jessica Chastain.  PREDICTION:  Octavia Spencer.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR:  Did the Academy bother to nominate anyone besides Christopher Plummer?  Oh, they did?  At 1:25, Plummer is the biggest favorite in any major category, and since unlike racehorses, actors can't be disqualified from a race for bumping another nominee or falling down and breaking their leg, he's pretty much unbeatable.  In another year, he and  Max Von Sydow (at 19:1) might have split the lovable old codger vote, but Plummer's accumulated industry goodwill just outweighs Von Sydow.'s  That leaves Kenneth Branagh (9:1) out of luck. Nick Nolte, while no longer young, isn't yet at the old codger stage of his career, and Jonah Hill is just in the promising newcomer stage of his.  CHOICE:  Max Von Sydow.  PREDICTION:  Christopher Plummer.

BEST ACTRESS:  There was a time when this looked like a real race between Meryl Streep and Viola Davis, but Davis has plunged ahead like Secretariat at the Belmont.  The current odds of 5:6 for Davis and 1:1 for Streep are misleadingly close, although one can never count out Harvey Weinstein and his none-too-subtle campaign bellowing the 29 years since Streep last won.  Michelle Williams might as well have gone lame down the stretch, Glenn Close picked the wrong year to seek a lifetime achievement award, and Rooney Mara is this category's Promising Newcomer.  CHOICE:  Michelle Williams.  PREDICTION:  Viola Davis.

BEST ACTOR:  The closest we're going to come to an exciting result this year.  George Clooney (1:2) is, well, George Clooney, as well-loved as anyone in Hollywood and with a solid stack of critics' awards to back him up this year.  Jean Dujardin (6:4) is the star of the probable Best Picture winner, and quite a charmer himself, plus he has the added degree of difficulty of performing silently (if there's one thing the Academy loves, it's degree of difficulty).  The fact that Dujardin shockingly won the SAG award means that either he has this sewn up, or that it was a reality check for Clooney's supporters, who realized they'd better get their votes in or risk blowing it.  Could Brad Pitt sneak in there at 18:1 for a universally-respected performance in a lower-profile film?  Probably not, but if this were a horserace, you'd want to include him on your exacta tickets.  Gary Oldman is a less likely sleeper at 22:1, especially because Tinker Tailor never really took off at the boxoffice.  Demian Bechir, while no newcomer, gets the Hey, We Just Noticed You slot.  CHOICE:  Brad Pitt.  PREDICTION:  George Clooney.

BEST DIRECTOR:  The smart money at 1:6 says that as Best Picture goes, so does Best Director, and that's probably right, clearing the way for Michel Hazanavicius to make his triumphant way to the podium.  If Martin Scorsese hadn't won just 6 years ago, this year would certainly be his, but he did, making his 4:1 odds probably overly optimistic.  Alexander Payne isn't the kind of showy director likely to win if his movie doesn't, so 13:1 sounds about right for him.  Terrence Malick, on the other hand, is both adored and disdained by passionate viewers on each side, and THE TREE OF LIFE wasn't enough of a hit to break him out of his art-house cell.  Those with some spare cash might want to consider Woody Allen, a huge longshot at 35:1 who's coming off the biggest hit of his career.  CHOICE:  Martin Scorsese.  PREDICTION:  Michel Hazanavicius.

BEST PICTURE:  Well, here we are.  Harvey Weinstein has, as is his wont, run an absolutely brilliant campaign for The Artist, successfully obscuring the fact that audiences in general haven't been taken by it, and playing up every conceivable voter-friendly angle.  (My favorites:  the ad emphasizing that Artist was the only Best Picture nominee to be shot in Los Angeles, and the screening hosted by producer Thomas Langmann strictly so Langmann could couple the film with The Two Of Us, the 1967 Best Foreign Film winner directed by Langmann's father Claude Berri, so that The Artist could magically be linked in voter minds with the older film's storyline of a Jewish boy rescued from the Nazis by an elderly gentile--Jews, children, the Holocaust and a lovable old codger, all in one neat package!)  The movie's 1:6 odds are well-earned.  Could anything beat it?  The 2d choice is The Descendants at 6:1, a movie that has gathered no head of steam whatsoever, and after that is the huge money-loser Hugo at 14:1 (remember, Scorsese had his victory lap 6 years ago).  Those looking for something, anything, to take the prize should probably concentrate on The Help at 18:1, the only genuine boxoffice hit of the nominees and winner of the SAG ensemble award (but the fact that the picture couldn't even get nominated for Best Director or Adapted Screenplay shows how tenuous its support probably is).  War Horse, a disappointment in every way, is somewhat puzzlingly next at 26:1.  Then the unlikely Midnight In Paris, Moneyball and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close follow at 55-59:1, and at the rear is the aesthete's dream, The Tree of Life at 73:1.  CHOICE:  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.  PREDICTION (reluctantly):  The Artist.

Sigh.  Yawn.  We'll look in on the Oscar race again as we get closer to the big night... if we can find the energy.

A surprisingly strong start for 2 low-budget arrivals, although the upside is limited by tomorrow's Super Bowl.

OPENINGS:  CHRONICLE (20th) had a slight $350K edge over THE WOMAN IN BLACK (CBS Films) on Friday, and both are in frontloaded genres, appealing to young men and young women, respectively.  Young men are more likely to be otherwise occupied on Super Bowl Sunday, so Woman may have a small edge for the weekend, but both movies are success stories, with modest budgets (in the case of Woman, a modest acquisition cost) and minimal marketing by big-studio standards.  Chronicle will put director Josh Trank and screenwriter Max Landis (son of National Lampoon's Animal House/American Werewolf in London director John Landis) on the map; Woman proves that Daniel Radcliffe hasn't lost his place on that map, even without Ron and Hermoine.  The news was less good for Universal's BIG MIRACLE, a more costly production that didn't spark with audiences, and is unlikely to get anywhere near its $40M (not including marketing) budget.

HOLDOVERS:  Because of Super Sunday, THE GREY (Open Road) will probably fall around 50%, to $9-10M.  ONE FOR THE MONEY (Lionsgate/Summit) will likely take a bigger hit, although with its female audience, it may be less affected by football--it doesn't matter much, though, since percentage points aside, the movie is a flop.  (Katherine Heigl's people were quick to announce 2 new projects for her this week, albeit notably wacky ones:  a thriller where she plays someone who can't distinguish people's faces, and thus doesn't know when a murderer is standing in front of her, and a detective story in which puppets are alive and co-exist with humans, and a puppet murder has to be solved.  Uhhh... okay.)  MAN ON A LEDGE (Summit/Lionsgate) actually had the best Friday hold of last week's openings, but the movie opened so low that the good word of mouth will make little difference.  Meanwhile, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Sony) should hit its (still somewhat disappointing) $100M milestone on Sunday or early next week.

OSCAR NOMINEES:  The Weinstein Company continues to play its shell game with THE ARTIST, expanding again this weekend to counteract its shrinking per-theatre number:  this week, although the theatre count rose about 10%, the Friday gross was down 15%, translating into a 25% fall per-theatre.  The movie is unlikely to have a total gross much over $30M when the Oscars are awarded at the end of the month, despite what will be 3 months in theatres.  THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight) held well and should be over $75M by Oscar time.  EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Warners) fared less well, and may fall 40% this weekend.  THE IRON LADY (Weinstein) lost about 20% of its theatres and will hope to still be meaningfully in the market in 3 weeks time.

LIMITED RELEASE:  A slow week:  the only significant arrival was the "real" opening (it played a week for Oscar consideration in December) of Madonna's W.E. (Weinstein), which should do around an OK $13K in each of 4 NY/LA theatres.

Next weekend brings the R-rated Denzel Washington thriller SAFE HOUSE (Universal) and the pre-Valentine's Day weepie THE VOW (Screen Gems/Sony).  Also arriving is Warners' 3D JOURNEY 2:  THE MYSTERIOUS ISLAND, which will have the challenge of facing off with the 3D return of 20th/Lucasfilm's STAR WARS EPISODE 1:  THE PHANTOM MENACE, which despite the fact that many have less-than-fond memories of it, is still an event.

Beware the round-number weekend estimate.

OPENINGS:  THE GREY (Open Road) is claiming an even $20M gross for the weekend, which would make tomorrow's adjusted number starting with "19" no surprise at all.  In any case, it's a bit lower than Liam Neeson's other starts in his new career as an action star, but Grey is the toughest sell of those pictures, so everyone should be happy.  ONE FOR THE MONEY (Lionsgate/Summit) wasn't quite as frontloaded as the worst-case scenarios threatened, but its $11.8M is still the worst opening of Katherine Heigl's starring career.  No one at all was interested in seeing Sam Worthington on a ledge, and MAN ON A LEDGE (Summit/Lionsgate) will be a memory in 2 weeks.

HOLDOVERS:  UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING (Screen Gems/Sony) is claiming a 21% drop on Sunday when every other picture in the market is reporting a more normal 35-50%, so either Kate Beckinsale has special powers or the number will come down tomorrow (possibly to 3rd place for the weekend, below One For the Money--unless, of course, that number comes down too).  MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 4 (Paramount) crossed the $200M mark domestically, and if Paramount wants the bragging rights enough, they may be able to push it past the original MI as the most successful of the franchise.  CONTRABAND should give Universal a tidy profit, but no such luck for HAYWIRE and Relativity.  And despite the hype, unless RED TAILS (20th) cleans up overseas, it won't do more than break even for George Lucas (who financed it out of his own capacious pocket).  

OSCAR NOMINEES:  Here's an extraordinary fact:  THE ARTIST (Weinstein), in only 897 theatres this weekend, will have a lower per-theatre average (around $3700) than the despised One For The Money will have in 2737 theatres (around $4300).  Ladies and gentleman, your winner of the 2011 Academy Award!  Really, none of the prominent nominees are exciting audiences:  EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Warners) in the widest release at 2630 theatres, is looking at a $2700 average, THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight), expanded to 2001 theatres, is at around $3300.  Meanwhile,  HUGO (Paramount), TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Focus) and THE IRON LADY (Weinstein) are hovering around $2500.  And avert your eyes from WAR HORSE (DreamWorks/Disney), with a terrible $1100 average despite its Best Picture nomination. 

LIMITED RELEASES:  A DANGEROUS METHOD (Sony Classics), which may have expanded (to 365 theatres) in hopes of nominations that didn't come, saw its per-theatre number slump to $1600.  A SEPARATION (Sony Classics), which did get its (well-deserved) nominations, fared better, with around a $9K average at an expanded 31 theatres.  The 3D dance documentary PINA (IFC) also expanded to 35 theatres, with a milder $5300 average.  WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Oscilloscope), another loser in the Oscar lottery, expanded to 10 theatres and held with a fairly good $6600 average.

Behold Liam Neeson, King of January.

OPENINGS:  THE GREY (Open Road) will easily take the weekend, albeit at a lower level than prior Neeson early-year thrillers.  Given that this one features killer wolves and hypothermia rather than gunfights and car chases, that's not unexpected, and the picture should hit a decent profit.  ONE FOR THE MONEY (Lionsgate/Summit) may have outperformed pre-opening predictions, but its $11-12M opening is still pretty dismal (the lowest of Katherine Heigl's starring career), and because of online discount ticket offers keyed to opening day, its Friday number may prove to be unusually frontloaded.  MAN ON A LEDGE (Summit/Lionsgate) is an out-and-out flop, and yet more proof that "stars" from special-effects-laden franchises can't necessarily open movies outside those franchises.

HOLDOVERS:  Everything is headed for a 45-55% normal range drop, with BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 3D (Disney) and MI4 (Paramount) on the low end, and HAYWIRE (Relativity) on the high.

OSCAR NOMINEES:  It was the week for the anointed films to expand their runs (except for Warners' EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, which had opened wide last week and dropped only 30% in its 2d weekend).  None of the expansions were particularly impressive:  THE ARTIST (Weinstein), still in just 897 theatres, will barely top a $3500 per-theatre average, while THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight), upped to 2001 houses, won't go much higher than a $3K average.   THE IRON LADY (Weinstein) is similarly unimpressive with a $2500 average at 1244, and HUGO (Paramount) didn't find much interest in its expansion back to 965 theatres with a $2300 average.  Despite Gary Oldman's Best Actor nomination, TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Focus) lost almost half of its theatres and could manage only a $2500 average at 410, and ALBERT NOBBS (Roadside) didn't get much mileage out of its nominations for Glenn Close and Janet McTeer, expanding to 246 theatres for a $2800 average.

LIMITED RELEASES:  No major openings.  WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Oscilloscope), which couldn't land a nomination for Tilda Swinton, added 3 theatres for a decent $6K average in 10, while PARIAH (Focus) lost a third of its theatres and won't do much more than a $3K average in 14.

Next weekend is the Super Bowl, traditionally a weak moviegoing weekend, so the pickings will be lean.  Fox will pursue teens with the "found footage" sci-fi CHRONICLE, Universal targets kids with the save-the-whaler BIG MIRACLE, and CBS Films will try to gather what's left with the old-fashioned ghost story WOMAN IN BLACK, starring Daniel Radcliffe.

Deadline has early figures for Friday, and they indicate that Open Road's THE GREY will, as expected, win the day and weekend.  If the early estimate of $6.2M for Friday holds, it could gross around $15M for the weekend.  That's less than previous Liam Neeson vehicles Taken ($25M) and Unknown ($22M), but still impressive for a more old-fashioned man-against-the-elements adventure.

Lionsgate/Summit's ONE FOR THE MONEY seems to be headed for about $12M over the weekend, a bit better than projected, but still the lowest opening of Katherine Heigl's starring career.  Even worse is the same studio's (now that Lionsgate and Summit have merged) MAN ON A LEDGE, which may only make $6-7M for the weekend in what will be a short theatrical run.

Holdovers UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING (Screen Gems/Sony), RED TAILS (Fox) and CONTRABAND (Universal) are all looking at declines in the 50% neighborhood, but Relativity's HAYWIRE may take an over 60% hit.

Among the newly-minted Oscar nominees, Warners's EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE didn't add any theatres and should fall only 30-35%.  Fox Searchlight's THE DESCENDANTS almost quadrupled its theatres to 2000, and will increase sharply from last weekend, but with a per-theatre average of only around $3K.  Meanwhile, Weinstein Company's THE ARTIST continues to excite critics and Academy members far more than audiences, as its expansion to 900 theaters only yields around a $3500 average.

Even though the Oscar race has had clear favorites in THE DESCENDANTS, THE ARTIST and THE HELP since last fall, the first 2 haven't sparked any huge enthusiasm among the general public, where after almost 2 months, Descendants has yet to gross $50M, and Artist, which Harvey Weinstein hasn't dared put into general release, hasn't even made $9M.  And The Help is still battling against its so-so critical reception.  So despite the fact that we all know the Golden Globes shouldn't mean anything, being the choices of around 85 obscure international writers whose opinions, for 364 days of the year, are of no interest to anyone, we've nevertheless looked to the Globes to provide some clarity.  

That being the case, what did we learn tonight?

10.  Ben Kingsley Has A Very Affectionate Wife.  When NBC cut to a woman seemingly giving Sir Ben Kingsley a lap-dance, Twitter exploded with snarky theories about who his companion was.  It turned out to be his wife, an actress who's probably entertaining offers from Starz and Cinemax for original series right now.

9.  Harvey Weinstein Could Win Awards For a Ham Sandwich.  The old joke is that any decent prosecutor could get a grand jury to indict one, but Harvey makes his hold on the Hollywood Foreign Press Associaiton pay off in gold.  In the 10 categories in which The Weinstein Company had a nominee, TWC won 6:  3 for The Artist and 1 each for MY WEEK WITH MARILYN, THE IRON LADY and--most remarkably-- a Best Song award for Madonna's dreadful W.E.

8.  Jean Dujardin's Appearances Probably Won Him Some Oscar Votes.  First there's his silent Douglas Fairbanks bit to end his acceptance speech, then he leaps into a little dance as the telecast cuts to commercial, and in case all that wasn't cute enough, when The Artist wins Comedy/Musical, he's the one with the adorable dog.  If you're vying against George Clooney, Hollywood's King of Charm, you need every trick you can get...

7.  Stars Count At the Globes.  Exhibit A:  Madonna.  Exhibit B:  Steven Spielberg, taking Best Animated Film for THE ADVENTURES OF TININ just because he wasn't going to win anything for WAR HORSE.  (But at least A SEPARATION managed to win Best Foreign Film over Angelina Jolie's picture.)

6.  The HFPA Isn't Thrilled With The Artist Either.  3 of the 4 categories The Weinstein Company lost were defeats for Artist:  Director (Martin Scorsese for HUGO), Screenplay (Woody Allen for MIDNIGHT IN PARIS), and Supporting Actress (Octavia Spencer for The Help), with Supporting Actor going to Christopher Plummer for BEGINNERS rather than Kenneth Branagh for My Week With Marilyn.  And 2 of the 3 awards Artist won (Picture and Actor) were in Comedy/Musical, where under Globe rules, it didn't have to face off with any of the heavier Dramatic competition.  (The only exception was the meaningless category of Best Score.)  The message:  they liked Artist a lot--but they didn't love it.

5.  The HFPA Might Want to Keep Its Earlier Awards Quiet.  Jessica Lange won Best Actress for King Kong?  Really?  It might be a good rule of thumb not to mention any Globe winners from the pre-Pia Zadora erea.

4.  Brad Pitt's Loss Was Meaningful.  Pitt has his work cut out for him trying to get the Oscar against Clooney and Dujardin, especially because MONEYBALL, although it might get nominated, isn't a serious contender for Best Picture, and its director Bennett Miller didn't get a DGA nomination and may not do better with the Oscars.  A Globe win would have been extremely helpful.

3.  Ricky Gervais Can Be As Bland A Host As Anyone.  For all his and NBC's hype of how outrageous he was going to be, Gervais didn't say anything remotely shocking or insulting in the entire telecast, and his "A" material was at the level of mentioning "Jodie Foster's Beaver."  Even what would have been his one sharp bit of asking Johnny Depp if he'd ever actually seen The Tourist was undercut by the fact that he'd just said that his buddy Depp guest stars on his new HBO series.  Given Gervais's limp material, Madonna's shot at his bow that likened kissing him to kissing a woman seemed nastier than anything Gervais had to say.  (The best zinger of the night actually came from Seth Rogen, noting as he read the Best Comedy/Musical Actress nominees that Michelle Williams was in "that hysterical comedy" My Week With Marilyn.)

2.  The Help's Loss At the Globes Doesn't Mean Much.  With the HFPA's foreign sensibilities, The Help isn't exactly their style.  (A loss for The Descendants, though, would have been crippling for that film.)  Much more important will be the SAG and PGA Awards. 

1.  The Oscar Race Is Still Open.  At this point, The Artist, The Help, The Descendants, Hugo and even Midnight In Paris could all still have a legitimate shot at Oscar, as could Clooney, Dujardin and Pitt for Actor, and Streep, Williams and Viola Davis for Actress.  Consider the Globes tonight's equivalent of the New Hampshire primary:  it confirmed most of what we already knew, but didn't resolve much.

Next up:  the Producers Guild Awards on January 21.

Due to the Martin Luther King holiday on Monday, all studios are estimating low Sunday drops, although some are projecting more aggressively than others.

UNIVERSAL:  CONTRABAND held almost even on Saturday, which is good for an action movie, and is projecting a reasonable (given the holiday) 21% drop on Sunday.  It should get to $28-29M for the full holiday weekend, and then hope to withstand the flurry of new action pictures arriving on Friday.

DISNEY:  BEAUTY & THE BEAST 3D went up 20% on Saturday, not a huge increase for a family movie that should be getting the benefit of the matinee audience.  The studio is estimating only an 8% drop on Sunday, by far the lowest in the Top 10, and we'll see if that holds.  Meanwhile, WAR HORSE is projecting a weekend drop of only 35%, but even if that's accurate, the picture's waning Oscar hopes mean that it will have to look for enormous international overperformance to have a hope of seeing profit.

WARNERS:  JOYFUL NOISE had a very strong 38% increase on Saturday, and the 25% estimated drop for Sunday makes sense.  The likely $14M 4-day total isn't impressive, but with no family competition hitting the market until Big Miracle on February 3, it has a chance to stay in theatres for a while.  The studio's holdover SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A GAME OF SHADOWS had a good weekend hold, and while the picture still won't match the performance of the first in the series, it'll be in the neighborhood.  EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE hung in there in 6 theatres, dropping only 11% for the 3-day weekend.

WEINSTEIN COMPANY:  THE IRON LADY had a solid $6700 average in 802 theatres over Fri-Sun, although that was less than Contraband and Beauty averaged in triple as many theatres.  Since Meryl Streep is guaranteed an Oscar nomination (and could win a Golden Globe tonight), the picture should have several solid weeks of playing time.  The studio got what it wanted from the limited expansion of THE ARTIST, able to report a 4% weekend increase by upping the theatre count 20%.  Its other awards season player MY WEEK WITH MARILYN is out of steam with a big (considering the holiday) 45% drop from last weekend.

SONY CLASSICS:  CARNAGE tried an expansion this weekend to 494 theatres, but found no audience interest with a $1500 per-theatre average (over 3 days).  A DANGEROUS METHOD had a smaller expansion to 104 theatres, and fared better, with a $5500 average (virtually even with THE ARTIST).  A SEPARATION is holding well, with only a 14% drop in 6 theatres.

PARAMOUNT:  The ranking may well change once actual numbers are in for Sunday, but as of now, THE DEVIL INSIDE has the 19th biggest 2d weekend drop in movie history (12th if you limit the count to movies in over 1000 theatres)--and it's only holding that well because of the low Sunday drop due to the holiday weekend.  On a happier note, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL continues to hold very well, and now looks like it will be the only holiday release to earn over $200M in the US (and much more overseas), and could challenge the $215M earned by MI2, so far the most successful of the franchise.  THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, though, is losing theatres and heading south--it will do OK overall because of the huge foreign overperformance, but we'll see if the promised sequels are ever produced.  YOUNG ADULT lost more than half its theatres this weekend and is officially a (moderate budget-sized) disaster.

SONY:  THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO continues to show surprising resilience at the boxoffice, with the best hold of any holiday release.  The fact that it now looks certain to make over $100M in the US should help David Fincher decide to stay with the franchise.  (And his DGA nomination won't hurt either.)

FOX SEARCHLIGHT:  THE DESCENDANTS performs as it has been for weeks, quietly making its way to almost $50M at the boxoffice with barely a ripple.  SHAME is at a $3500 average in 41 theatres and will need awards help if it's not to fade away.

FOCUS:  TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY took a bigger hit in its 2d wide weekend than the studio would have liked, with a 42% drop over 3 days that was one of the heaviest in the Top 15 (and that was despite increasing the theatre count by about 10%).  The cerebral, complicated thriller may be hitting mainstream audience resistence.  PARIAH expanded a bit to 24 theatres and had a mediocre $4000 average over 3 days.

FOX:  ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED and WE BOUGHT A ZOO both jogged in place, neither one an outright flop, but each a disappointment.

INDIES:  The acclaimed 3D PINA (IFC) had a very nice $18K average in 6 theatres.  In 2 NY theatres, WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Oscilloscope) reached its art-house audience with a $22K average. Angelina Jolie's  IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY (FilmDistrict) has already hit a wall, with only a $2200 average as it expanded to 18 theatres.

The Martin Luther King holiday weekend, a relatively small one for Hollywood because many people work on Monday, begins.

UNIVERSAL: The studio made the fairly extraordinary decision to sit out the holiday movie season entirely, presumably because they didn't think any of their product could compete.  They did, however, spend a lot of money marketing CONTRABAND, which wouldn't open for a month.  The effort paid off with an extremely solid Friday that could lead to a 4-day weekend approaching $30M.  But all that advertising was pricey, and the picture will have to achieve a substantial total to make it worthwhile.  It should help that the movie is quite entertaining, leading to good word-of-mouth (although there are quite a few action movies arriving as competition in the coming weeks).

DISNEY:  The studio's 3D re-release of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST had a well-chosen release date, a holiday when the holiday family movies (including Disney's own War Horse) are running out of steam but the other studios aren't getting involved.  The result is a $25M+ 4-day weekend that will pay for the minimal cost of the 3D transfer and also feed sales of the new homevideo edition.  

WARNERS:  JOYFUL NOISE was hoping to hit the holiday's family audience too, but so far it's not working out so well.  With a 4-day weekend unlikely to reach $15M, the picture will have to hope for good word-of-mouth (which the faith-based audience sometimes provides) to stay in theatres for a while.  And the studio has stuck doggedly to its strategy on EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, which will finally expand next week, and which is still earning a very good $15K in each of the 6 theatres where it started on Christmas Day.

WEINSTEIN COMPANY:  THE IRON LADY expanded well to 800 theatres, and should have a per-theatre number for Friday-Sunday (plus a little extra for the Monday holiday) comparable to the one Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy had when it did the same expansion a week ago.  The picture will be hoping, of course, for a Meryl Streep victory at the Golden Globes on Sunday.  Meanwhile, the studio is playing a bit of a shell game with THE ARTIST, increasing the theatre count (to 216) just enough so that the weekend total (around $1.1-1.2M) stays steady, even as the per-theatre figure falls by 20%.  MY WEEK WITH MARILYN, which lost almost one-third of its theatres this week, badly needs Michelle Williams to win the Comedy Actress Golden Globe.  (Don't ask how that movie is a "comedy".)

SONY CLASSICS:  CARNAGE expanded to 494 theatres, but will need major Golden Globe help to keep those screens very long.  It's headed for a $1500 per-theatre average.  

HOLDOVERS:  Nobody who saw THE DEVIL INSIDE (Paramount) last weekend could look at themselves in the mirror this week, and the result should be one of the 10-15 largest 2d weekend drops in history (and it would have been worse if Sunday hadn't been part of a holiday weekend).  That was by far the most dramatic drop, with the holiday movies aimed at adults looking at 30-40% declines, and the family movies getting a Sunday advanrage from the holiday for a 10-25% fall.  YOUNG ADULT (Paramount), though, gave up the ghost (unless Charlize Theron pulls out an upset Globe win), losing more than half its theatres. 

LIMITED RELEASES:    PARIAH (Focus) expanded to 24 theatres and should do an OK $5K average.  IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY (FilmDistrict) expanded to 18 and should do a less OK $3K in each.  WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Oscilloscope) returned from its holiday-week awards-eligibility run to 1 NY theatre, where the buzz on Tilda Swinton's performance and local raves should get it to $50K over the long weekend.  

Live by Cinemascore, die by Cinemascore.

THE DEVIL INSIDE:  The most hilarious studio event of the last 24 hours has been Paramount's frantic attempt to argue that an "F" Cinemascore for THE DEVIL INSIDE, making it one of the half-dozen worst exit-polled movies of the past several years, isn't really that bad if you take out your abacus and do their version of the math.  The studio's spin has blanketed Deadline, The Hollywood Reporter, and no doubt other industry mouthpieces.  At SHOWBUZZDAILY, we don't put much stock in Cinemascore to begin with, but the studios normally cling to every B+ and A- like guarantees of Oscar glory, so the ego involved in arguing that the lowest possible score is not-so-bad is much like a parent insisting their kid's getting expelled from school is some kind of triumph.  Spin aside, Devil Inside had a remarkably strong, if predictably front-loaded, $34.5M weekend, with a 30% drop on Saturday and another 50% (which may end up being low) projected for Sunday.  Paramount would be best advised to shut up and count its money.  

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Focus):  A very fine expansion with $5.8M in 809 theatres (the studio is currently projecting a very low Sunday drop, so that number could end up slightly lower), with the best per-screen average (other than Devil Inside) for any picture this weekend in more than 11 theatres.

WIDE HOLDOVERS:  The smallest drop in the Top 10 was for THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Sony), with a mere 24% fall as it tries to hack its way to $100M.  Then MI4 (Paramount) and SHERLOCK HOLMES 2 (Warners) continued to hold well with declines in the 30-35% area.  Sherlock also won the weekend internationally, with $43M in 50 territories that Warners says puts the film almost 20% above its predecessor at the same point in its release overseas, while MI4 was in 3rd place overseas with $28M.  This was followed by the more family-oriented CHIPWRECKED (Fox) (which was in 2d place overseas with $30M), TINTIN (Paramount), WAR HORSE (Disney) and WE BOUGHT A ZOO (Fox), which all fell 36-42%.  Bringing up the rear of the top 10 was NEW YEAR'S EVE (Warners), with a 49% drop.  

LIMITED RELEASES:  THE IRON LADY (Weinstein) managed to keep its per-theatre number at $34K by adding a theatre (that's a 25% increase when you only start with 4).  CARNAGE (Sony Classics) went from 12 to 15 theatres and had a $7500 average.  PARIAH (Focus) increased from 4 to 11 theatres, with a $10K average.  A SEPARATION (Sony Classics) doubled its theatres to 6, with an excellent $16K average.  EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Warners) also had a $16K average in 6, which was a tiny 13% decrease from last week.  IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY (FilmDistrict) went from 2 theatres to 7, with only a $4500 average.  SHAME (Fox Searchlight), meanwhile, lost a few theatres, and had a $4500 average at 45.  MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (Weinstein) also lost some houses, and is at a dismal $1400 average in 584, while stable-mate THE ARTIST (Weinstein) had an OK $6500 average at 172 (the latter number includes a projected miniscule 7% decline on Sunday).  A DANGEROUS METHOD (Sony Classics) had a $4800 average at 64.

Everyone wanted to go to the movies on the first full weekend of 2012.

PARAMOUNT:  The studio went straight to its Paranormal Activity playbook to launch THE DEVIL INSIDE (pre-release screenings, months of buzz), and it all worked:  the picture should gross at least $30M in its opening weekend, and with a $1M production cost and relatively minimal marketing, that means serious profit.  No one expects the movie to last long (from all accounts, its abrupt non-ending has patrons all but storming the concession stands), but at those prices, who cares?  Meanwhile, MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL held very well (as did virtually everything in the week's Top 10) and could bully its way to $200M in the US.  THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN had a so-so hold and its US result will be negligible compared to its international success.  HUGO and YOUNG ADULT, though, were on the low end of the weekend's holdovers and are shedding theatres and boxoffice potential.

FOCUS:  TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY expanded to 809 theatres and made its way into the week's Top 10, with a likely $5.5M and the highest per-theatre gross in the group (other than Devil Inside).  For a cerebral thriller, these are great numbers--if the Academy can just see fit to bless it with some nominations, the movie could become a mainstream success.  PARIAH expanded slightly to 11 theatres, and should get to a decent $10-12K per theatre for the weekend.

WEINSTEIN:  THE IRON LADY added a theatre for a total of 5, and that cushioned its Weekend 2 fall to a somewhat misleadingly low 25%.  THE ARTIST held well with only a 22% decline, but its likely $6K average at 172 theatres (adding 5) continues to be underwhelming, and eventually the studio is going to have to expand it beyond a tiny number of art-houses.  The perils of that are shown by MY WEEK WITH MARILYN, in 584 theaters (a loss of 46) with a lousy per-theatre average that won't hit $1500 for the weekend.

FILMDISTRICT:  Angelina Jolie's IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY expanded a bit to 7 theatres, and held pretty well on a per-theatre basis.  Unfortunately, it's holding at a low $4K per theatre.

SONY:  THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO had the lowest drop in the Top 10, but that still means a hold at a much lower level than the studio was hoping:  with perhaps $11M for the weekend, the picture will still struggle to get to $100M in the US.

WARNERS:  SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A GAME OF SHADOWS held fine, and continues on its pace to approach but not match its predecessor's boxoffice.  NEW YEAR'S EVE, not surprisingly, crashed now that its holiday is over, and won't reach $60M.  EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE is still 2 weeks from national expansion--word of mouth is clearly good, as it had the lowest drop on the board while remaining in 6 theatres.  But its $15K or so per-theatre number is unexciting, and the strategy to keep it out of wide release for a full month is looking like a disaster in the making, unless the Academy notices that it exists.

FOX:  ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED had a fine enough hold, and still won't get within $85M of either of the franchise's other entries.  WE BOUGHT A ZOO could make it to $75M in the US, which while far from great, could allow it to hit profit if the picture finds an audience overseas. 

DISNEY:  WAR HORSE isn't looking at much more than $75M in the US unless its probable Oscar nominations can lift it up.  (Wins are considerably less likely.).  THE MUPPETS took a big hit for the weekend, and won't get to $90M.

FOX SEARCHLIGHT:  THE DESCENDANTS continued as it has been, with a mediocre $3500 average in 737 theatres despite all the buzz and awards attention.  It may well win the Golden Globe (it won't face The Artist because of the way the Globes are structured), and the question is whether that and Oscar nominations will spur the film to break out later in the month.  SHAME dropped a few theatres, and is headed for a $4-5K average in 45.

Next week, the Martin Luther King Day holiday weekend brings out a few relatively major releases:  Universal's Mark Wahlberg thriller CONTRABAND (which it's been marketing for months), Fox's Tuskegee Airmen story RED TAILS (from producer George Lucas), and Warners' Dolly Parton/Queen Latifah family music drama JOYFUL NOISE, as well as Disney's 3D wide re-release of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.