Movie Box Review

Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), the total box office for this weekend is now looking like $151 million, up 2% from last year.  Saturday business (impacted by New Year's Eve) was not as rough as expected and the studio projections are now fairly rosy, as they are expecting a very strong Sunday (more on that below).  Projected weekend grosses for each film (summarized after the jump) are generally much stronger than reported yesterday.

ABC was once again king of New Year's Eve, averaging a 3.0 rating with Adults 18-49 from 8-11 pm.  The evening began with New Year's Rockin' Eve: 40th Anniversary Party from 8-10 pm and a very solid 2.4 rating.  The special, hosted by the combination of Jenny McCarthy in Times Square and Fergie in a Hollywood studio, looked back at past musical performances from the Rockin' Eve show, as well as new live performances.  But then at 10 pm, ABC scored a 4.1 rating from 10-11 pm with Dick Clark's Primetime New Year's Rockin' Eve with Ryan Seacrest.  Ratings from the 11:30 pm Rockin' Eve special itself (featuring the Lady Gaga, the dropping of the ball at midnight, and of course the now traditionally odd and sad appearances by Dick Clark himself) are not yet available, but they surely dominated the competition.  The 40th anniversary all-primetime strategy worked like a charm.  Last year on this night: ABC started with a low-rated movie from 8-10 pm and a 1.4 rating, followed by a 2.8 rating for the 10 pm Rockin' Eve primetime special.

NBC was the only network to try to take on ABC...with little success.  The 10-11 pm NBC's New Year's Eve with Carson Daly averaged a melancholy 0.9 rating.  While Carson Daly was live in Times Square, most of the music performances appeared to be taped and far from the action (Rockefeller Center and the top of a building on Fifth Avenue).  The special was not helped by its lead-in: two Grimm repeats (0.5 at 8 pm and 0.4 at 9 pm).  NBC's New Year's took a pretty big drop from last year.  Minute to Win It repeats averaged a 0.9 from 8-10 pm last year on this night, while the Carson Daly special turned in a 1.2 rating.

The only good news for NBC was that the giant billboard for Smash was in full view of many ABC cameras.  No one watched Carson Daly, but there were millions of exposures of the Smash title and the "Monday after the Super Bowl on NBC" tagline. 

CBS averaged a 0.6 last night (the same as NBC's average) with a play of the movie The Bourne Ultimatum and a How I Met Your Mother repeat.  Last year CBS was more successful, scoring a 0.9 for the night with crime drama repeats.

FOX averaged a 0.5 rating from 8-10 pm with two Terra Nova repeats, a touch lower than it did last year with a movie repeat (0.6 rating).

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Another very slow week at the nation's movie theaters, with high double-digit declines compared to similar weeks the past few years.  The year to date box office total is now down 3.8% from last year -- it was -3.7% last week.  Box office should perk up as it always does between Christmas and New Year's, but it will be up to the new late-December movies to generate excitement as there will be little business to count on from the movies already in release.      

Based on Friday and Saturday box office (and estimated Sunday numbers), the box office slump continues.  Only $70 million in volume for the top 12 films, down from the $82-87 million range the last three years for the comparable weekend.  The #1 movie, New Year's Eve, collected less than $14 million in its opening weekend, and the other opener, The Sitter, was the only other film to hit $10 million.  Neither film will be a factor in coming weeks, as their estimated domestic totals are in the $25-31 million range.