Box Office, 12/2 - 12/4 weekend
 

Dec 2 - 4 weekend
This Wk Last Wk Title Dist. Weekend Gross Cumulative Gross Rlse Wks # ofTheaters

1 1 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Warner Bros. Pictures International, Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution $20,450,000 $229,839,000 3 3858
2 - Aeon Flux
Paramount Pictures $13,100,000 $13,100,000 1 2608
3 2 Walk the Line
20th Century Fox, Sony Pictures Releasing $10,000,000 $68,766,000 3 3160
4 3 Yours, Mine & Ours
MGM Distribution Company, Paramount Pictures $8,400,000 $34,565,000 2 3210
5 6 Just Friends
New Line Cinema $5,600,000 $21,108,000 2 2505
6 7 Pride and Prejudice
United International Pictures, Focus Features $4,624,000 $22,633,000 4 1327
7 5 Rent
Sony Pictures Releasing $4,600,000 $23,902,000 2 2437
8 4 Chicken Little
Buena Vista Pictures Distribution $4,512,000 $124,224,000 5 3021
9 8 Derailed
The Weinstein Company $2,417,000 $32,829,000 4 1702
10 9 In the Mix
Lions Gate Films $1,900,000 $8,657,000 2 1608
11 10 The Ice Harvest
Focus Features $1,713,000 $7,736,000 2 1555
13 12 Jarhead
Universal Pictures Distribution $1,200,000 $61,207,000 5 1246

Aeon Flux is bombing even harder than Harry Potter! -eek- Considering all the marketing they did for this movie (I saw a commercial about ever 30 seconds for this movie during the last three weeks) they can't be too happy with those numbers.

Within the last couple weeks, I don't think they really could've expected much. Bad tracking numbers, the decision not to screen for critics, a relatively low screen count (2600). I doubt Paramount expected a whole lot higher than that.

I didn't care for Aeon Flux when it was on MTV and I don't care about it now, this movie has always been a rental for me. I expected much better as like you said they were promoting the crap out of it. Looks like it cost 62 mil to make and probalby as much to promote it. ;) I'm still surprised how good Walk the Line is doing.


-- Not screening for critics is pretty much always a bad sign.

yeah $230mil (only Domestic gross) for a movie in 3 weeks is a total bomb. too bad there won't be any more Potter movies :(

Yeah, it's one of those that didn't scream all that great potential. Though I'm a little worried about Narnia next week. I haven't seen much of an ad blitz for it and it's opening this friday. I'm rather surprised it doesn't have more push towards it. Can it have a Harry Potter style opening of 80-90 million for the weekend?

I sincerely hope (pray?) that you are joking about Potter.

I just think it's great to see a movie number one for three weeks in a row that is rare these days.

Ok ... I'm not trying to be a jerk ...

But unless you are in the film industry or rooting for a beloved franchise ... who cares about BO numbers?

Partly the second reason. People simply like to see that the films they enjoy succeed.

with the internet and the massive flood of information it seems that BO numbers are huge but for all the wrong reasons. It's just a way to say "My movie made a lot of cash" and really, Box Office numbers aren't really that much of an issue that everyone makes them out to be unless they are to one extreme or the other.

I can think of two reasons why I would care:

1. If a movie does well, it's more likely to get better DVD treatment. Although there are lots of cases where that isn't true, in general successes get better treatment than failures.

2. A movie's BO performance determines how long it will stick around in theaters. If something does well, you have plenty of time to see it (or see it again if you want), but if it bombs, you know you'd better get your ass to the theater soon.

Yeah, but if it does poorly it just means it'll be out on DVD much faster for quicker return of profit.

As for the treatment, either case will venture good treatment. If it's successful you also get the backlash of having it double dipped and getting the wave of "Fucks shouldn't rap me for my enjoyment of their product" sot of comments.



I think this is a moot point. Movies will stick around for a while regardless of stinking up or not based on the contracts they have signed. Especially if the theatre wants to actually make anything off the film. There's not a situation I can think of a movie bombing and then not being able to go see it if I wanted to five weeks later. Hell, even if it does bomb it still gets the bargin theatres to fall back to. There's no rush to get your ass to the theatre any quicker.. especially if it's not good. You might aswell wait for DVD because it will be on DVD faster.

Not always ... Polanski's <i>Oliver Twist</i> disappeared within 3 weeks, and that's here in NYC. Some friends had seen it opening week and liked it a lot, but I was busy going to NY Film Festival stuff so figured I'd catch it later - wrong!

I still think the only fair way is "number of tickets sold" -- that shows popularity without me hearing about some company's finances -- and also evens the playing field to account for matinee pricing and inflation (which keeps older movies off box office lists).

Bottom line, I want to know what movie was most-seen

I care because
1. If it is a film that lends itself to a franchise there is more of a chance for a sequel if the film does well.
2. I play on HSX and box office is important there.

That's bullshit. Movie theaters, with 80-90% of the films released theatrically, only sign two week agreements with studios to show their films. After those two weeks, if your movie isn't making any money -- it's gone. Now unless you live in the top ten markets where there could be a movie theater every few blocks and there's a wide variety of films being played, you're safe. However, for those of us who don't live in those cities, you better make it to the theater fast if you want to see a film that is doing poorly theatrically.

Now since I live in Las Vegas, I am going to use Las Vegas as my example in this situation. Now my city has over fifteen multiplexes located within the city, with the average theater having 14 screens to play films on. The smallest screens in Vegas hold 100 seats whereas the largest screens hold around 700. The theaters in Vegas are able to show both films that are doing well and those that are doing poorly with no problem, but that's not the case.

The Girl Next Door and Club Dread are two films that I can recently think of that were major releases that were both out of Las Vegas theaters within two weeks due to their poor reception. While Club Dread was nowhere to be found after the second week of release, The Girl Next Door went from eight theaters to one after it's second week (and that theater stopped playing it the week later). Serenity, which did "decent" numbers for the type of film it was, was out of most theaters in Las Vegas by it's third week of it's release. It went from ten theaters to two, both on completely different sides of Las Vegas. Before November, it was out of the city -- and it just came to the dollar theater last week, but it's only plays one showtime a day.

Other films that I can remember being out of Vegas in two to three weeks include -- Oliver Twist, High Tension, The Great Raid, Domino, Roll Bounce, North Country, Cursed, and a few others.

I care about box office because I want to see good movies make money and bad movies lose money. It means more good movies for me in the future.

But then they cancelled advanced previews which pretty much tells people what they are getting.

Rent has fallen to 5th already. Guess it could have been worse. I went during a matinee this weekend and the theatre was pretty full.