Movie Box Review

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.  

According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the weekend is looking auspicious for Mark Wahlberg's CONTRABAND.  The modestly budgeted thriller (which, however, Universal has been expensively marketing for a solid month) is reporting a $7.7M Friday, which could mean $25-28M over the 4-day holiday weekend.

Disney's 3D re-release of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST is also looking strong, with about $25M over the long weekend.  Weinstein Company's expansion of IRON LADY, with Oscar hopeful Meryl Streep, should perform very well at only 800 theatres, with $6M or so over the holiday.  The early numbers for Warners' Dolly Parton/Queen Latifah vehicle JOYFUL NOISE are more low-key in a wider release, with perhaps $15M by Monday.

To no one's surprise, word of mouth caught up quickly with Paramount's THE DEVIL INSIDE, heading for a plunge of 75% or more that may not reach $9M for the long weekend.  The holiday holdovers, however, seem to be robust, with drops of less than 40% projected for Paramount's MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL, Warners' SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A GAME OF SHADOWS and Sony's THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO.  

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.