Movie Box Review

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.

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.

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.

Dateline has preliminary figures for Saturday and the weekend, and as expected, Paramount's THE DEVIL INSIDE took a significant 25+% hit in its second day, a trend that will no doubt continue as stories of audiences in open revolt at the movie's lack of an ending multiply.  Even so, it's looking at a $35M weekend at least, making next weekend's inevitable massive drop seem far, far away.

Otherwise the holdovers seem on target with Friday's numbers.  The kid-oriented movies like CHIPWRECKED, THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN and WE BOUGHT A ZOO got a big boost from matinee audiences and went up from 80% to more than double; pictures for older crowds like THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO and WAR HORSE had increases of 30-40% (although TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY looks to do a bit better than that); and big-tent franchises like MI4 and SHERLOCK HOLMES 2 should rise 40-50%.  

Everything will come down on Sunday, and action movies may drop a bit extra because the NFL playoff games start earlier than they did on Saturday.  Stay with SHOWBUZZDAILY for updated boxoffice numbers and analysis!

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.

As detailed in Mitch Metcalf's Weekend Boxoffice Report, New Year's Day wasn't the bonanza the studios were expecting it to be.

PARAMOUNT:  MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL's Sunday increase was less than half of the 33% projected, and it's likely to fall another 15-20% today, giving it a bit over $140M in total and diminishing chances to hit $200M in the end.  THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN was up only 6% on Sunday and is projecting negligible change today, which would put it just over $50M and unlikely to hit $75M.  YOUNG ADULT had only 2/3 of the 48% bump it was forecasting Sunday, and with a 20+% drop today, it'll be at $12M and in serious danger of never seeing $20M in total.

WARNERS:  SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A GAME OF SHADOWS was up only 7% Sunday (instead of the 23% forecast), and with at least a 20% drop today, it'll be at $137M and hoping to get above $170M total.  NEW YEAR'S EVE, as expected, is done, with a 20% fall on Sunday and more than that today for a $47M total that will be lucky to get above $50M.  EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE was one of the few titles with some good news--a 55% Sunday increase and a small projected 16% drop today--but still, an $18.5K 4-day holiday average in 6 theatres is nowhere near where this movie wanted to be.

FOX:  ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED really faltered--instead of gaining 32% on Sunday, it fell another 6%, and is projecting little increase today.  That'll get it to $98M, with little prospect of getting much higher than $120M (almost $100M less than its predecessors).  WE BOUGHT A ZOO had twin 14% drops yesterday and today, and is looking at $44M for now, and perhaps $65M in all.

DISNEY:  WAR HORSE didn't go up 19% on Sunday, as the studio projected--it went down 27%.  Nonetheless, the very bullish mouse-heads are predicting an 18% increase today.  If that comes true, the picture would have $45M in the bank and be headed to $75-80M (with Oscars as a wild card factor), but given the giant overestimate yesterday, all the numbers have to be in pencil at this point.  Disney is also predicting a huge 42% increase for THE MUPPETS despite an 8% decline yesterday, and we'll see about that one, too.

SONY:  The studio's projection of a 59% increase for THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO yesterday sounded overoptimistic to the point of being unbalanced, and it was--the picture went up less than half that amount, only 24%.  The 20% fall estimated for today may be more reasonable, and would leave the picture at $60M, with dwindling chances of seeing a $100M total.

FOX SEARCHLIGHT:  THE DESCENDANTS was hoping to hold even on Sunday, but it went down 17%, with another 19% expected today.  That'll leave it at $40M, with a $5600 average over the 4-day holiday that's nothing special.  SHAME, on the other hand, had a terrific 83% increase on Sunday, and should decline 25% today.  It's still struggling, though, with a $4900 average in only 55 theatres over the long weekend.

WEINSTEIN COMPANY:  THE ARTIST went down 2% instead of rising 20% on Sunday, and is forecasting another 20% drop today, giving it under a $10K average in only 167 theatres over the long weekend.  THE IRON LADY, though, held with an excellent $70K average in its 4-theatre launch.  MY WEEK WITH MARILYN continued to sag with a $1900 average in 630 theatres over 4 days.

FOCUS:  TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY wasn't quite where it looked to be (a $25K average over 4 days rather than $28K), but that's still enormously encouraging, a higher per-theatre number in 57 theatres than anything else has in more than 4.  PARIAH, in only 4 theatres, couldn't do better than $16K average over 4 days.

SONY CLASSICS:  The subtitled Iranian A SEPARATION is off to a very strong start with a $27K average in 3 theatres.  

With one startling exception and a couple of smaller ones, the holiday crop of movies declined on Saturday and are expected to recover on New Year's Day.

PARAMOUNT:  MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL went down 18% and is expected to rise 33% today.  It should hit $142M by the end of the 4-day holiday weekend.   THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN is up and down a more orderly 23%, and should be at about $52M with the extra day.  HUGO was a little more stable, down only 7% but also up only 15%.  It should be just a touch below $50M by the end of Monday.  YOUNG ADULT went down 24% Saturday but is looking for a very large 48% increase on Sunday--even if that happens, it won't hit $13M by the end of the holidays.

WARNERS:  SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A GAME OF SHADOWS was down 16% and up 23%, and should be just under $140M coming out of the holidays.  NEW YEAR'S EVE had its last burst of audience interest on Dec. 31, and is one of the only movies expected to decline on Sunday.  It still won't be at $50M after Monday, and its shelf-life is now done.  EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE went down 22% and may only rise 10% on Sunday, giving it an unimpressive $17K average in 6 theatres for the 3-day weekend that should rise a bit to $20K with Monday included.  

DISNEY:  What got into WAR HORSE's hay on Saturday?  With almost every other picture falling as per seasonal pattern, and after an unexciting week at the boxoffice, Steven Spielberg's epic weirdly went up 20%, and expects to rise another 19% on Sunday.  It's hard to know what happened, but no doubt Disney and DreamWorks are hoping it's a harbinger of things to come.  The studio's only other picture in the market is THE MUPPETS, nearing the end of its run with perhaps $85M in total.

FOX:  ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED lost 32% on Saturday and should make up most of it on Sunday.  It should just get to $100M with Monday included.  WE BOUGHT A ZOO had a less bumpy ride, down only 7% on Saturday but also expecting a much smaller increase today, on its way to perhaps $47M after Monday.  

SONY:  THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO went down a standard 21% on Saturday, but is anticipating, for no clear reason, a whopping 59% increase on Sunday.  If that actually happens, it could be at $62M after Monday, although an ultimate gross of $100M may still be a stretch without some awards attention.

FOX SEARCHLIGHT:  THE DESCENDANTS had a good Saturday with a 15% increase, and is expecting to simply hold steady on Sunday--it should hit $40M with Monday included, but its $6K average for the long weekend is still only so-so.  In limited release, SHAME fell a heavy 38% on Saturday but is projecting a huge 65% Sunday increase--even if it achieves that, a $5K average over the 4-day weekend in only 55 theatres is, well, flaccid.

WEINSTEIN COMPANY:  All its films are in limited release.  THE ARTIST, in 167 theatres, is still very mild, reporting a 13% increase on Saturday and 20% more Sunday, which makes for a 4-day average around $10K.  THE IRON LADY is off to a great start but in only 4 theatres--down 15% then up 20%, it could hit a per-theatre average of $70K over 4 days.  MY WEEK WITH MARILYN, the company's widest release at 630 theatres, is still a picture no one wants to see.  Even with a small 6% drop on Saturday and a 20% Sunday increase, its 4-day average will probably be around $2K.

FOCUS:  The likely $28K 4-day average for TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY in 55 theatres is very impressive for a 4th weekend--now the question is when and how far the studio will expand it.  PARIAH's likely $15K average in 4 days and 4 theatres doesn't show much promise.

SONY CLASSICS:  A SEPARATION is off to a good start, with what should be a $25+K average in 3 theatres.  

As detailed in Mitch Metcalf's Boxoffice Report, Friday's numbers were solid but lacking any breakout excitement.  First, let's take a quick look at the limited-run Oscar hopefuls:

THE IRON LADY (Weinstein):  Meryl-Streep-as-Margaret-Thatcher came roaring into the awards mix with a terrific $19K average in 4 theatres that should lead it to a $75-80K average over the 4 day holiday weekend.  The film's appeal outside big-city art houses is questionable, though, so here's one of several cases where Harvey Weinstein will have to play the expansion game very carefully.

A SEPARATION (Sony Classics):  This excellent Iranian import, a front-runner for the Foreign-Language Film Oscar, started with a very good $6K average in 3 theatres that should get it to around $25K per-theatre over the holiday weekend.

PARIAH (Focus):  Bounced back a bit from Thursday's slump, but its $3500 average in 4 theatres isn't a great start, and it may struggle to reach a $15K average for the weekend.

THE ARTIST (Weinstein):  Continues to be mediocre, with a $2400 average in 167 theatres that won't hit $10K by Jan 2.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Focus):  Continues to hold very well, with a $6K average on Friday in 55 theatres that should reach $25K over the holiday weekend.

SHAME (Fox Searchlight):  Not doing better than OK, with a $1500 average on Friday in 55 theatres that might reach $6K for the weekend.  

IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY (FilmDistrict)  The same numbers as Shame ($1500 average Friday for a $6K weekend), but much worse because it's only at 2 theatres.

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (Weinstein):  Harvey is 0-for-3 in the breakout hit category, with a dismal $500 average in 630 theatres that won't get past $2K for the weekend.

THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight):  The Oscar front-runner no one seems to care about.  It only had a $1500 average in 758 theatres on Friday, and won't get higher than a $6K average for the weekend.  That will put it at $40M, in serious danger of dropping screens by the time the Oscar nominations are announced in late January.  At that point, it's going to be difficult to spark widespread excitement over a picture that's already been playing as a presumptive nominee for 2 full months.

And at the major studios:

PARAMOUNT:  MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL is the one smash hit of the season, even though it won't be the highest-grossing of the series.  With even bigger numbers pouring in overseas ($200M already, with plenty more to come), announcement of a 5th chapter in the series should be coming any time.  However, THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (which Sony distributes overseas) is a major disappointment that will barely recoup its enormous US marketing cost, placing the planned franchise in jeopardy.  The very expensive HUGO, despite its critical adoration, is mostly done with $50M total gross--even an expected Oscar nomination probably won't get it much farther.  And YOUNG ADULT has found no traction at all--the reviews were weaker than expected, and with only $12.5M in the bank by the end of the holidays and an anticipated holiday average under $3K in only 987 theatres, even Charlize Theron's possible Best Actress nomination won't convince more theatres to play it.

WARNERS:  SHERLOCK HOLMES: A GAME OF SHADOWS will underperform its predecessor, but a $170-180M gross isn't bad (it might be more accurate to say the first picture overperformed, all things considered).  It's only played in a handful of foreign territories so far, and the results there will determine whether the expensive franchise is worth continuing.  NEW YEAR'S EVE is a flop, although not a very expensive one.  The big disappointment thus far is EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE, which hit a perfect storm of bitterly mixed reviews, some bad scheduling choices and a faltering awards campaign.  This weekend it's headed for a $25K average in 6 theatres, which is OK but not at all the event that the studio needed to propel the film into wide release later in January.

FOX:  ALVIN THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED will be the highest-grossing kids' movie of the season, turn a profit and very possibly justify another installment--but its almost 50% drop from the other films in the series is fairly disastrous, and turns what had been a cash cow into a risk.  WE BOUGHT A ZOO will need help from uncertain foreign revenues if it's to avoid red ink.

SONY:  THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO isn't the flop of the season, but it may be the biggest disappointment.  Was it the favorable-but-not-enthusiastic reviews?  The dour tone of the marketing?  An overdose of the franchise, after the successful Swedish films and months of publicity?  In any case, it's going to be hard to justify spending $100M on the sequel--and Fincher, who's perpetually in demand, may well decide to bow out.  ARTHUR CHRISTMAS, though--that's an (undeserved) flop.

DISNEY:  WAR HORSE is sparking very little interest, and at this point seems unlikely to reach $100M despite very aggressive marketing, even with the anticipated Oscar nominations.  It's ironic that since DreamWorks joined Disney, their one smash hit has been the completely unexpected The Help.  This also leads to what could be a very ticklish internal political issue:  does The Help now have a better chance at winning the Oscar than War Horse?  And will Spielberg allow his pet project to fall to second place in the campaigning strategy?  Meanwhile THE MUPPETS was a nice-sized hit due to its relatively modest budget, but it's far from clear that there's a franchise there.  The combined grosses of Disney's 2 holiday pictures won't reach the boxoffice for 2010's Tangled alone--combined with the disappointing US responses to Cars 2 and Pirates 4, it's been an off-year for the studio.

UNIVERSAL:  Sat out the holiday season entirely.  They've been spending a lot of money marketing the Mark Wahlberg action picture CONTRABAND all month, though, giving it the kind of weeks-long push that normally goes to much bigger pictures.  We'll find out in a couple of weeks if the strategy made sense.

Deadline has initial boxoffice figures for Friday, and if the numbers hold, the results seem to be a healthy amount higher than last year's Friday before New Year's, allowing the holiday period--and the year--to end on an up note. (Note, however, that overall comparisons to 2010's holidays are skewed by the fact that 2011 had more new films in release this week than was the case a year ago, increasing the 2011 numbers by sheer tonnage.)

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL (Paramount):  Leads the way, as it has all through the holidays, with a 30% increase from Thursday to $10.7M.  That should get it to around $140M by Monday, and a total gross somewhere between the finals of the first ($180M) and second ($215M) Mission movies.

SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A GAME OF SHADOWS (Warners): A 17% increase to $7.4M, which projects to around $135M at the end of the weekend and a final result around $160-170M, about 20% less than the first Sherlock.

ALVIN AND THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED (20th):  A smaller 7% hike from Thursday to $7M, meaning probably $100M by Jan 2 and a $130M total that's far lower than the $217-220M scored by the other Alvin pictures.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Sony):  The studio stopped reporting grosses mid-week (never a good sign), but its $5.3M on Friday is probably up around 15% from Thursday, and should mean around $60M by Monday and a very disappointing ultimate gross of $80M or so.  (Tattoo was supposed to be Fincher's "commercial" hit after the "art-house" Social Network,but at those numbers, it'll wind up 20% behind the far lower-budgeted film.)

WE BOUGHT A ZOO (20th):  Up 15% to around $4.7M, which means around $45M for the holidays and perhaps $70M in all.  That's a lot better than Crowe's flop Elizabethtown, but far from a hit.

WAR HORSE (DreamWorks/Disney):  A good 25+% increase to $4.6M, but that still puts it in the same neighborhood as We Bought A Zoo at a far higher budget, unless Oscar attention moves it up.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (Paramount):  Spielberg's other disappointment should have a modest 7% increase to $4.4M, giving it a soft $50M by Monday and another $70M total.

NEW YEAR'S EVE (Warners):  One day from its sell-through date, with another 25-30% increase to $2.3M.  It should collapse for good on Sunday and get little higher than $50M in all.

THE DARKEST HOUR (Summit):  Managed a 30% increase to $1.6M, but percentages don't matter much at those numbers.  Its final total may not even reach $20M.

Stay with SHOWBUZZDAILY for updated boxoffice numbers and analysis all holiday weekend!

The holiday celebrations at the studios may have been a bit premature.  

Traditionally, the Tuesday after Christmas sees a 10-20% drop from Monday, and that number becomes the template for the rest of the holiday period.  But yesterday, aside from the films aimed straight at the family crowd, the drops were much worse.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL (Paramount):  Fell 34% to $9.6M, which probably means around $145M by Jan 2 and a dwindling chance of reaching $200M.

SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A GAME OF SHADOWS (Warners):  Down 32% to $7.3M, meaning perhaps $140M by Jan. 2 and a final result 20% lower than the first Sherlock.

ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED (20th):  Thriving with a tiny 2% drop to $6.8M and should be over $100M by the end of the holidays, although that's still a huge drop from the earlier pictures in the series.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Sony):  31% down to $4.7M, so perhaps $60M by Jan 2 and $80M in total.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (Paramount):  Down an OK (for a family picture) 15% to $4.6M, which will still leave it with only around $60M at the end of the holidays and a very dour US total around $75-80M.

WE BOUGHT A ZOO (20th):  Off 18% to $4.3M, so probably under $50M for the holidays and not much upside afterward.

WAR HORSE (DreamWorks/Disney):  A whopping 40% plummet to $4.2M.  With probably $45M by Jan 2 and a likely domestic total not much better than Tintin's, it's time to wonder how much a mediocre boxoffice will affect the film's Oscar chances.

NEW YEAR'S EVE (Warners):  Continuing to reap the benefits of its upcoming holiday with a small 12% drop, but it's already so low ($1.7M) that the few days remaining till Dec 31 won't get it much closer to break-even.

THE DARKEST HOUR (Summit):  Continues to free-fall another 30% to $1.5M and a terrible $15-20M for the holidays.

THE ARTIST (Weinstein):  Finding no traction with another 31% drop, leaving its per-theatre at $1800.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Focus):  Also down 30%, but the per-theatre is a more robust $4300.

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (Weinstein):  Off 26% to a dreadful per-theatre of $390.

EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Warners):  Going nowhere with another 33% drop, leaving its per-theatre at $4700 in only 6 theatres.

IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY (FilmDistrict):  Also off 33% at 3 theatres, with a low $1500 average.

Anyone who thinks the boxoffice isn't in a slump needs a new prescription for bifocals.

Note:  since December 24 is a traditionally deadly day at the boxoffice (closed theatres, family plans)  that would make 3-day weekend estimates look even worse than they are, we'll use 4 day Friday-Monday weekend estimates below.

WE BOUGHT A ZOO (20th):  Its 6th place start with $3M in 3100 theatres (a lousy $952 average for the day) is terribly disappointing, and the picture is unlikely to have any impact at all on the holiday boxoffice.

THE ARTIST (Weinstein):  A crucially important first expansion for a movie that hopes to take the Best Picture Oscar, and it went horribly.  Moving from 17 theatres to 167, the film could only manage a $1400 average on Friday that will probably be around $7500 over all 4 days of the long weekend.  Will it ultimately matter to the Oscar race?  We'll see.

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (Weinstein):  Another disastrous expansion for an Oscar hopeful, this time from 358 to 602 moviehouses.  The Friday average was a pathetic $280, and it probably won't get to $1500 over the 4-day weekend.

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY (Focus):  Finally a glimmer of good news, as the expansion from 16 to 53 theatres went well:  Friday's average of $3900 should translate into close to $30K over 4 days.

ALBERT NOBBS (Roadside):  An awards hopeful for Glenn Close and Janet McTeer, this is playing a 1-week Oscar qualifying run in just 2 theatres, and its mediocre $3500 average start probably means less than $25K in each theatre over the long weekend.

IN THE LAND OF BLOOD AND HONEY (FilmDistrict):  Another Oscar hopeful (this one Angelina Jolie's parade of Bosnian wartime atrocities, already nominated for a Foreign-Language Golden Globe), another weak opening:  in 3 theatres, its $2200 average on Friday probably means $15K over the holiday weekend.

Back to the world of wide releases:

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - GHOST PROTOCOL (Paramount):  The one and only success story for Hollywood this season (Paramount gets credit for the 2 smartest distribution decisions of the year:  the IMAX "previews" of MI4, and pushing back the opening of Puss In Boots), and yet even this one carries some disappointment:  the picture is unlikely to make as much as MI2's $215M, and may end up only outgrossing the third chapter of the series.

SHERLOCK HOLMES:  A GAME OF SHADOWS (Warners);  Headed for a US gross 20-30% lower than the first in the series.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO (Sony):  Although with its hard-R rating and "The Feel-Bad Movie of the Holidays" spirit, this picture has excuses the other disappointments lack, the fact it it's just not doing the business that its pedigree (and $90-100M production budget) promised.  It may not even reach $100M total gross in the US.

THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN (Paramount):  It's very nice that the film did well overseas, but it was wildly expensive, and its likely $80M US gross won't even pay for its domestic marketing campaign, let alone any of the production cost.  With a global outlook little better than break-even, Spielberg and Jackson certainly have to do some thinking before launching the projected Jackson-directed 2d chapter in the planned franchise.

ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED (20th):  Another damaged franchise, with a total that could end up at half or even less of its predecessors.

OTHER HOLDOVERS:  Even with an extra holiday in the weekend, most will be lucky to break even from last weekend, and some (NEW YEAR'S EVE, HUGO) are falling considerably more.  YOUNG ADULT (Paramount) is in particularly dire straits, finding no audience at all with what may be a 40% slide despite the long weekend.  

And then there were 2, or really 1 1/2:  on Christmas Day, Steven Spielberg's WAR HORSE (DreamWorks/Disney) will attempt to ride in and save the holidays, while Summit's THE DEADLIEST HOUR gathers up what small change remains in the sofa cushions.  Also opening is the bizarrely controversial EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Warners), in an exclusive 6-theatre run.

Remember how lousy the last Indiana Jones movie was?  Remember watching it and wondering sadly what had become of Steven Spielberg, the magician who for decades had an irresistible, inexhaustible ability to spin action sequences into sight gags into satisfying storytelling?  Who now seemed tired and creaky, his heart in more serious material like Saving Private Ryan and Munich, a million miles away from the business proposition that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull became?

Well, that Steven Spielberg is back, at least to some extent, and in a guise that's both completely new and back to his roots.  THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN, which closed out the AFI Film Festival last night prior to a US opening on December 21 (it's already playing overseas), is a work of 3D motion-capture animation, in all of which Spielberg is a relative newcomer, but it's also, unofficially, the Indiana Jones movie he owed us.

Tintin, of course, is a literary character who predates Indiana Jones by some 50 years, having debuted in a comic book created by the Belgian artist Herge in 1929.  Not well known in the US, Tintin is a giant figure in European popular culture.  He's a young reporter who travels the world with his dog Snowy, solving mysteries and having adventures along the way as he hunts for stories to write.  

The movie, written by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish (a virtual Murderers Row of British fantasy geekdom, writers respectively of Doctor Who, Shaun of the Dead and Attack the Block) and produced by Peter Jackson (who is slated to direct the next film in the series, assuming there is one), takes off from the Herge story "The Secret of the Unicorn."  In it, Tintin ("played" via motion capture by Jamie Bell) comes into possession of a model replica of a 17th century ship (the Unicorn), which is also desired by the evil Ivanoviche Sakharine (Daniel Craig).  Tintin discovers that's it's because of a parchment hidden in the model, which when combined with the parchments in 2 other models will reveal the location of a long-lost pirate treasure.  Tintin goes in pursuit of the remaining clues, which puts him in partnership with the often-inebriated Captain Haddock (Andy Serkis), descendant of the treasure's original owner, and takes them all to the open seas and Arabian deserts.

Although the writers do a good job of propelling the action, the appeal of The Adventures of Tintin doesn't lie in its screenplay.  The plot is both complicated and meaningless, other than as a Maguffin, and characterization is virtually nonexistent.  Apparently (according to Wikipedia) Tintin, as a character, has been renowned and even admired for his utter blandness, and the script presents him as such, a figure without any particular traits other than spunk and enthusiasm (you'll badly miss Indy's dry wit and occasional romances).  Sakharine, too, is a colorless villain, and there's a particularly unfortunate pair of bumbling cops named Thompson and Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost) who are infinitely less funny than they're intended to be.  Captain Haddock and the dog Snowy are the only characters who manage to be worthy of the word.  The fact that the movie is intended as the first in a series also means it ends with an anticlimactic cliffhanger that's less than satisfying.

From beginning to end, though, Tintin is a visual treat.  Spielberg uses the motion-capture technology James Cameron utilized for Avatar, but the degree of difficulty is much higher here, because Tintin has to depict human beings and not Na'vi, in recognizable locations.  The result isn't perfect--sometimes the characters appear to have had too many facelifts--but it's mercifully much improved from the Robert Zemeckis House of Zombies that gave us a series of movies with characters whose dead eyes were more creepy than fanciful.  Those in Tintin can be quite expressive at times, not photo-reality but a heightened quasi-realism.

Even better, the technology allows Spielberg to create and perfect action set pieces that would be impossible with live action--not just in terms of scale, but more importantly with a fantastic fluidity.  Without concerns for the safety of live performers or the need to handle actual machinery or meld CG with humans, Spielberg can let characters leap and flow within long single shots that are enormously exciting.  (There's a chase scene through and around an Arabian city while a dam bursts around the characters that's amazing.)  Spielberg works with his usual editor, Michael Kahn, in this new medium, and the two of them bring snap and virtuosity to these sequences that would be the envy of any action movie.  In fact, the whole Spielberg team is on board, including cinematographer Janusz Kaminski (in a movie like this, it's not necessarily clear what was the work of the cinematographer as opposed to the animators, but the movie has a wonderful storybook look and one that stands up beautifully to the challenge of 3D and its dimming glasses) and, of course, John Williams, who contributes an opening credits theme that nods to his own Catch Me If You Can and rousing accompaniment to the action.  

It remains difficult to judge the acting that goes into motion-capture performances, but Serkis, who has more experience with this kind of work than anyone alive, thanks to the Lord of the Rings movies, King Kong and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, brings real personality to Haddock, and Daniel Craig seems to be having a good time as the villain.  Bell appears to be what was wanted as Tintin, but that's a limited order.  In the end, though, the only real star of Tintin is its director.

The Adventures of Tintin isn't Steven Spielberg at his most intellectually stimulating or challenging or even poetic. It's far from the most satisfying story he's told.  But for the first time, really, since Jurassic Park in 1993, it's Spielberg delivering--and seemingly having--a grand movie-movie time.

As schools close and vacations begin, a lot of money is about to flood into Hollywood for about 2 blissful weeks.  But not enough to make up for the rest of a doleful year.

SHERLOCK HOLMES:  GAME OF SHADOWS (Warners):  With a studio estimate that just barely managed to nudge above $40M--and needed an extraordinarily low 28% projected Sunday drop to get there--tomorrow's least surprising development would be an actual weekend number that starts with "39."  That cosmetic change aside, this is yet another big ($125M + $150M in worldwide marketing) budget Hollywood product that will need foreign aid.

ALVIN & THE CHIPMUNKS:  CHIPWRECKED (20th):  With 3 major family movies opening over the next week (Tintin, We Bought A Zoo and War Horse), Alvin may be chip out of luck.  The picture did manage an additional $14M overseas in a few markets.  (And Tintin is already done overseas, which could help beyond these shores.)

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE  GHOST PROTOCOL (Paramount):  The one success story of the weekend.  Paramount could hardly have hoped for a better start, and the idea of staging an "event" opening only at Imax and other large-format theatres was inspired (it didn't hurt that Warners gave the opening a Dark Night Rises boost).  Add to that a terrific $68M initial launch in 36 overseas territories.

YOUNG ADULT (Paramount):  On the other hand, the same studio was unable to create any excitement over its holiday movie for grown-ups, and the film is in serious danger of a quick fade.

CARNAGE (Sony Classics):  A $17K average in 5 NY/LA theatres just doesn't cut it in this, the most crowded season of the year for prestige titles.

EXPANSIONS:  TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (Focus) had a small but very successful push into 16 theatres, with a robust $28K average.  A DANGEROUS METHOD (Sony Classics) broadened its run to 17 theatres with a far less impressive $9K average result.  SHAME (Fox Searchlight) faltered to a $6K average in 51 theatres.  The most important expansion of the season will happen on Friday, though, when Weinstein finally moves THE ARTIST to 170 movie-houses (and also brings MY WEEK WITH MARILYN to around 400).

HOLDOVERS:  NEW YEAR'S EVE (Warners) held fairly well with a 43% drop from last week, but the opening was so low that it doesn't matter much.  The bottom dropped out of THE SITTER (20th) with an unsurprising 55% plummet.  BREAKING DAWN PART 1 (Summit) is pacing below New Moon, and will be the lowest grossing chapter of the saga since the original Twilight.  The family trio of HUGO (Paramount), ARTHUR CHRISTMAS (Sony) and THE MUPPETS (Disney) are tightly bunched in the $3.4-3.6M weekend area, and about to be assailed by new competition--even though Hugo is getting generous awards attention, that hasn't pulled the film above the crowd, although its likely Oscar nominations should keep it in the market deeper into 2012 than the others.  J. EDGAR (Warners) lost half its theatres and is essentially done with a $35M total.  MARGIN CALL (Roadside) passed the $5M mark, putting it ahead of most of the fall's higher-profile indie competition.

NEW YEAR'S EVE (Warners):  Hardly any bump from Saturday night couples meant about as low an opening as anyone could have reasonably imagined.  Even with some play during Christmas week, the picture may struggle to earn more than its $56M production budget (which is separate from a likely $100M+ worldwide marketing budget).  After J. Edgar and this, Warners has to hope Sherlock Holmes 2 opens big next week, and then wait for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close to arrive.

THE SITTER (Fox):  That $10M estimate may lose a digit tomorrow, but it could have been a lot worse, considering how bad the movie is.

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY (Focus):  A $75K average at 4 theatres is great news.  The question for Focus now is how quickly to expand.  They're going to be hoping for some attention, especially for Gary Oldman, from the Golden Globe nominations this week.

YOUNG ADULT (Paramount):  $40K average in 8 theatres is good, it's fine... but it's not quite what it should have been, for a movie with this accessible a sell.  If reviews can't drive audiences in the biggest cities, what's going to happen when it goes wide?  We'll find out soon enough, as next week's planned expansion is to 1000 houses.

BREAKING DAWN PART 1 (Summit):  4th weekend of $7.9M was virtually even with New Moon's, and it's on target to end up with a slightly lower total.  The difference:  because Summit had to renegotiate the actor deals on Breaking Dawn (because the original deals didn't allow for a 2-part finale), the budget was way higher this time, meaning that a slightly lower gross means much less profit.  Still, don't cry for Summit, they're doing just fine.

THE MUPPETS (Disney):  With Alvin & Those Chipmunks crawling into town on Friday, the family movie train is moving on, and its $7.1M weekend suggests the Muppets probably won't get near a $100M total.  The picture was made on a budget, but a franchise may not be in Disney's long-term plans.

HUGO (Paramount):  A 19% drop, when you've increased your theatre count by 30%, isn't encouraging.  And at 2600 theatres with a $2350 average, the release can't go too much wider.  Also not good:  Scorsese is picking up some directing honors, but Hugo didn't do too well in today's tally from the LA, Boston and NY Online critics.  (Although it was named to AFI's Top 10 list.)

THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight):  Although at 876 theatres, it still has plenty of room to grow, the $5500 per-theatre average could come steeply down as the film adds locations.  The movie increased its count by 50% this weekend, and basically could only hold even for its weekend total.

ARTHUR CHRISTMAS (Sony):  A really excellent drop of only 11% despite the loss of a few theatres, but with a $6.6M weekend, the movie is still going to struggle to get much past a total gross of $50M or so.

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (Weinstein):  Held steady at 244 theatres, managing only a $3200 average.  Since it's categorized as a "Comedy" for Golden Globe purposes, this should be a happy week for the film.

THE ARTIST (Weinstein):  An $18K average at 16 theatres just isn't all that great.  However, it won both the Boston and NY Online awards today, with more love to come this week from the Globes, etc, so still very much at the start of its campaign.

SHAME (Fox Searchlight):  A $13K average at 21 also isn't great, but Shame is a much more challenging film to market.  Fassbender won in LA and was runner-up at NY Online, which is the kind of attention the film crucially needs.

A DANGEROUS METHOD (Sony Classics): No real awards gold yet, and the picture is holding at 4 locations, still doing a good $20K in each.

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN (Oscilloscope):  Critical adoration of Tilda Swinton won this $24K in one NY theatre.

NEW YEAR'S EVE (Warner Bros):  So much for that franchise.  New Year's was expected to have a softer start than Valentine's Day, which opened on a holiday weekend that included the titular day itself.  But there's "soft" and then there's a 65% decline from Valentine's opening day.  New Year's will have a longer playing time than Valentine's did, probably hanging in a large number of theatres for 4 weeks.  The trouble is that by the time holiday moviegoing seriously begins, New Year's will already be out of gas, unless it gets a word-of-mouth Christmas miracle.  The picture should still turn a profit for Warners, but don't hold your breath for "Arbor Day."

THE SITTER (20th) :  And the answer to whether Jonah Hill can open a movie on his own is... no.  The picture was low-budget, so Fox won't get hurt by it, but the attempt to make some quick money by counterprogramming the season's franchises and family fare didn't work.  The good news for Hill is that his next pictures are the high-concept 21 Jump Street, and Neighborhood Watch, which puts him back into an ensemble where Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn will be doing the heavy lifting.

THE DESCENDANTS (Fox Searchlight):  Increasing theatre count by 50% didn't yield much payoff:  the likely $5K average for the weekend is lower than what Juno ($10.5K), Black Swan ($8700) and The King's Speech ($6500) did in parallel spots of their releases.  Descendants, and Searchlight, will be hoping for some big critical help next week, as the Los Angeles Film Critics, Golden Globes and American Film Institute all announce their choices.

HUGO (Paramount):  Very similarly, while a big 800-theatre increase will keep the weekend total fairly stable, the per-theatre number is crashing to a very mediocre $2300.  Things will only get tougher as major holiday competition starts to flood in, so the critics will again need to help out.

OTHER HOLDOVERS:  New Year's Eve hit BREAKING DAWN PART 1 (Summit) right in its target audience, and after running day-to-day ahead of New Moon all week, on Friday BD1 went back down to virtually even.  It now seems clear that the picture won't reach New Moon's $296M total.  Meanwhile, audiences finally discovered ARTHUR CHRISTMAS (Sony)... 3 weeks late.  It's heading for an excellent 15% drop, but the numbers are already so low that the final total will be more of a moral victory than a financial one.

TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER SPY (Focus):  Off to a great start, with a likely $80K average in 4 NY/LA theatres, one of the year's highest.  Of course, the question is how broad the appeal of the film's labyrinthine plot and low-key storytelling style can get.  

YOUNG ADULT (Paramount):  A somewhat less impressive likely $40K average at 8 theatres, particularly because the presence of Charlize Theron and the curdled comedy genre were supposed to make this one an easier sell.  The question isn't whether Theron will be nominated for Actress awards where as long as there are multiple nominees, but whether, in this year of Meryl Streep, Michelle Williams and Viola Davis, she can actually win anything.

SHAME (Fox Searchlight):  Almost doubled its theatre count to 21, and will still fall for the weekend, with a good but not great $13K average.  This film is the poster child for needing some award and nominations help.

THE ARTIST (Weinstein):  A very, very slow expansion boat for this speciality item.  It added 11 theatres for a total of 17, and should have a fairly solid $17K average.

MY WEEK WITH MARILYN (Weinstein):  Held at 244 theatres, and still not setting marquees on fire with a likely $3K average.  

Deadline has preliminary numbers for the Friday boxoffice, and if they hold, it looks to be a thoroughly terrible weekend for Hollywood.  NEW YEAR'S EVE appears to be under $6M for Friday, meaning a weekend of $15-17M, far below Mitch Metcalf's $25M projection.  Even with a longer playing period than Valentine's Day had last year, New Year's is unlikely to get anywhere near Valentine's $110M gross.  Even worse is Jonah Hill's THE SITTER, with a $3.5M Friday that may be under $9M for the weekend, again way below the $13.5M projection.

With New Year's Eve swiping chunks of its female audience, BREAKING DAWN PART 1 is headed for another 50+% decline.  The family movies, enjoying their final weekend without new competition, are faring better:  THE MUPPETS should fall around 40%, while ARTHUR CHRISTMAS has finally hit its stride now that it's too late to make much difference, down only around 10%.  HUGO and THE DESCENDANTS each added 40-50% more theatres to their counts, but didn't benefit much, as both declined from last Friday anyway and saw their per-theatre averages fall steeply.  

Early indications are that TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY should have a very strong per-theatre number in its limited opening, while YOUNG ADULT looks somewhat less impressive.  

John LeCarre is (I guess one should say "arguably") the greatest of all spy novelists, and his 1974 TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY is "arguably" his finest work.  Incredibly, the 1979 BBC miniseries adaptation lived up to the level of the novel, featuring an (please--this isn't even arguable) iconic performance by Alec Guinness that was legendary even in the context of his great career.

So, no pressure on the filmmakers determined to remake it... and squeeze an exceptionally labyrinthine plot into 128 screen minutes.  And yet, to a remarkable degree, those filmmakers, led by director Tomas Alfredson, screenwriters Peter Straughan and Bridget O'Connor, and with Gary Oldman in the Guinness role, have succeeded, making a cerebral thriller faithful to the spirit and much of the letter of LeCarre's novel. 

Oldman, like Guinness before him, plays George Smiley, the recessive and brilliant mandarin of the British Foreign Intelligence Service, known colloquially as the Circus.  Shortly after the story begins, the head of the Circus, known only as Control (John Hurt) and Smiley, his closest aide, have been forced into retirement after a mission in Budapest turned disastrous.  That mission was intended to unearth information about a mole at the highest level of the Circus, a double agent Control had narrowed down to his 5 closest aides:  Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), code-named "Tinker," Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), known as "Tailor," Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) or "Soldier," Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), the "Poor Man"... and Smiley himself, presumably the "Beggarman."  After the Budapest mission and Control's exit, the search for the mole went away.  But when the rumor of a mole arises again, and with the 4 main suspects now running the Circus themselves, a politician with oversight authority over the Service brings Smiley back to unofficially determine whether Control was, after all, correct.

This sets off a virtuoso set of ever-deepening complications, as Smiley and his (unseen) Soviet counterpart Karla, along with their respective minions, try to outmaneuver each other by crisscrossing false leads, cover-ups and intentional dead ends.  The recurring theme is betrayal, as everyone involved, on both a professional and very personal basis, ruthlessly undercuts whoever gets in their way, often taking from them what they most value in the world.  Ideology hardly figures into the game--as a traitor explains at one point, devastating choices can be made for reasons of aesthetics as much as for political convictions.  Everyone involved is brilliant, cunning and fully capable of making big-picture decisions under deadly pressure. 

Alfredson previously directed the vampire art movie Let the Right One In (remade in the US--not by him-- as Let Me In), and his commitment to LeCarre's exhausted, almost existential viewpoint is faithful almost to the point of fetishism.  Although Alfredson is more than able to deliver a suspenseful crescendo when one is called for, no one involved with Tinker, Tailor seems to have worried about hyping up the action component of the story to find a wide audience (and probably the film won't)--Hoyte van Hoytema's photography seems gray even in sunlit scenes, and Alberto Iglesias' score is uninsistently mournful. 

The wonderful supporting cast comports with the film's overall style, although here is where the novel's compression into 2 hours takes its toll.  In order to squeeze a comprehensible version of the plot into a feature running time, something had to go, and in this case it was the complexity of some of LeCarre's characterizations.  One of the film's real problems is that none of the prime suspects gets to establish a memorable presence, which makes the emotional component of the search for the spy less involving than it should be.  (The final confrontation between Smiley and the mole doesn't have nearly the fireworks that it did in the miniseries.)  Only Tom Hardy, as a Circus agent caught in the crossfire between Karla and Smiley, and Mark Strong, as the agent involved in the Budapest fiasco, really have the chance to develop backstories. 

As for Oldman, he gives several subtle nods to Guinness's definitive Smiley, from the shape of his eyeglasses to some of his inflections.  It can't be said that he displaces Guinness as the actor who will first come to mind when the character's name is mentioned--Oldman doesn't quite have Guinness' minimalist genius for suggesting waves of feeling under an impassive countenance (then again,who does?)--but as the story develops and gradually, almost imperceptibly, Smiley emerges from the shadows to take his place at center stage, Oldman's performance becomes increasingly more commanding and richer in shading.  

Tinker, Tailor isn't, frankly, for everyone--it's the anti-24 as spy stories go, offering satisfactions of the mind rather than the gut.  It takes its time, to an extent almost revolutionary in contemporary Hollywood entertainment, and forces the audience to think, and consider, along with its characters.  Like the technology of its 1970s setting, it's hand-crafted, a little slow, and quite marvelous to behold.