Has Fox lost its gamble to bring the Narnia franchise back to life? If the opening weekend box office numbers are anything to go by, quite possibly...
This has been a pretty below average holiday season so far, hasn't it? Last weekend's only new release, The Warrior's Way, barely broke the top ten with only $3 million at the US box office. This weekend's releases have performed significantly better than last weekend, but they're still disappointing.
The Chronicles Of Narnia: The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader topped the new releases this weekend, and topped the box office overall. However, the $155 million picture stumbled upon release, taking in an incredibly weak $24.5 million. This is in spite of 3D and in spite of significant marketing push. The first two Narnia flicks opened to $65 million and $55 million, respectively, and neither of those had 3D to bump the prices. If I had to hazard a guess, and I do, then the Narnia flicks might be grinding to a halt with this one, or at least cutting way back on the expenses.
The second place release this weekend features two of the biggest stars on the planet, Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie. While Jolie is overexposed, and Depp is mostly popular as a pirate, the two together should do all right at the box office, and The Tourist showed a pretty strong, but not incredibly so, debut of $17 million. I would have expected more, but perhaps the massive snowstorm that's currently crushing the entire Midwest, Southeast, and East coast of the United States had driven all the box office numbers down.
Last weekend's top flick, Tangled, dropped to third on $14.55 million. Still, that's a pretty strong performance, and boosts the movie's total to $115 in three weeks. Of course, the listed budget is $260 million, which has to be a mistake, because there's no way this movie cost that much to make. Even if it was in development for seven years, you could make the movie twice for that amount. Yeesh.
Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1 doesn't have a released budget number, but whatever they spent to crank out the last two movies, it's not a big deal. After all, Harry Potter has made $257 million this weekend, thanks to another $8.5 million, and it doesn't seem to be slowing down any, unlike Unstoppable, which dropped to fifth.
Unstoppable took in only $3.75 million this weekend, and it has stalled at just under $74 million. It looks like it won't make back the $100 million in the US, but internationally and on home video it'll probably do very well.
Here's where things get interesting. Black Swan, a movie I really really want to see, isn't here. It's at 90 screens in the entire United States, and the closest one to me is in Chicago. I'd love to see this. I want to see it, because it reminds me of Suspiria but with better everything. Still, despite the limited screenings, Black Swan picked up $3.33 million. That's $37,000 per screen! That's Twilight money!
Burlesque also dropped quite a bit, from third last weekend to seventh this weekend, picking up 3.2 million bucks. It's picked up $32.5 million, based mostly on the strength of Cher, since Christina Aguilera has basically no box office clout to her name. Either that or people are just drawn to these kind of stories where someone gets taken under someone else's wing and rises to become a star. Either way, I liked the movie better when it was called Showgirls.
Love And Other Drugs drops out of the top five this weekend, sinking to eighth on $3 million. Ths movie's taken in $27 million thus far, and will make a pretty minor profit when all is said and done, but profit is good. Given Anne Hathaway's star-making nudity in the role, I imagine the DVD and Blu-ray sales will be through the roof.
Due Date (ninth place, $2.54 million) and Megamind (tenth place, $2.51 million) are wrapping up some pretty successful runs. Due Date ($94.8 million) will probably break $100 million before all is is said and done. Megamind ($140 million) also has an outside shot at $150 million, but will probably fall just short. Still, it's pretty good for both of those flicks
What's coming out next weekend? Well, Christmas is getting closer, so that means the movies are going to get better. Next weekend is Tron Legacy, the James L. Brooks comedy How Do You Know, the CGI comedy Yogi Bear, and, of course, The Fighter is getting a wider release. Black Swan is being held back until Christmas. Either way, there's two movies I really want to check out, and that's Tron Legacy and The Fighter. I also, and I'm slightly ashamed to admit this, might be talked into seeing Yogi Bear. I can't help it. I loved the cartoons as a kid and want to see how badly they screwed it up bringing him to the big screen.
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