Oh, those Christians!
With reports of a Friday number ranging from $23 million to $27 million, The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe finding itself stuck at $65.7 million for the weekend is a small disappointment. Friday was great, Saturday was a little soft and Sunday is estimating low.
If Narnia’s number holds up, it
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| Friday | Screens | % Chg | Cume | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title | Gross | Thtr | % Chgn | Cume |
| Venom | 33 | 4250 | NEW | 33 |
| A Star is Born | 15.7 | 3686 | NEW | 15.7 |
| Smallfoot | 3.5 | 4131 | -46% | 31.3 |
| Night School | 3.5 | 3019 | -63% | 37.9 |
| The House Wirh a Clock in its Walls | 1.8 | 3463 | -43% | 49.5 |
| A Simple Favor | 1 | 2408 | -50% | 46.6 |
| The Nun | 0.75 | 2264 | -52% | 111.5 |
| Hell Fest | 0.6 | 2297 | -70% | 7.4 |
| Crazy Rich Asians | 0.6 | 1466 | -51% | 167.6 |
| The Predator | 0.25 | 1643 | -77% | 49.3 |
| Also Debuting | ||||
| The Hate U Give | 0.17 | 36 | ||
| Shine | 85,600 | 609 | ||
| Exes Baggage | 75,900 | 62 | ||
| NOTA | 71,300 | 138 | ||
| 96 | 61,600 | 62 | ||
| Andhadhun | 55,000 | 54 | ||
| Afsar | 45,400 | 33 | ||
| Project Gutenberg | 36,000 | 17 | ||
| Love Yatri | 22,300 | 41 | ||
| Hello, Mrs. Money | 22,200 | 37 | ||
| Studio 54 | 5,300 | 1 | ||
| Loving Pablo | 4,200 | 15 |
| 3-Day Estimates | Weekend | % Chg | Cume |
|---|---|---|---|
| No Good Dead | 24.4 (11,230) | NEW | 24.4 |
| Dolphin Tale 2 | 16.6 (4,540) | NEW | 16.6 |
| Guardians of the Galaxy | 7.9 (2,550) | -23% | 305.8 |
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | 4.8 (1,630) | -26% | 181.1 |
| The Drop | 4.4 (5,480) | NEW | 4.4 |
| Let's Be Cops | 4.3 (1,570) | -22% | 73 |
| If I Stay | 4.0 (1,320) | -28% | 44.9 |
| The November Man | 2.8 (1,030) | -36% | 22.5 |
| The Giver | 2.5 (1,120) | -26% | 41.2 |
| The Hundred-Foot Journey | 2.5 (1,270) | -21% | 49.4 |
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RE: Stephen Sommers’s inevitable “The Ten Commandments” remake opening in a few years.
Wouldn’t it be cool if when Moses (Brendan Fraser) throws the tablets at the Hebrews in disgust, there would be a cool Pearl Harbor CG shot as the camera is mounted on the “Thou Shall Not Kill” etching right as the stone explodes into the crowd.
I’m just saying.
DP, “Brokeback” was on 5 screens, not 6. Variety lists it as the highest PSA of the year and highest ever for an “adult drama.” Don’t know what’s meant by that designation…I saw it listed elsewhere as highest ever for a live-action film.
Variety also lists higher grosses for “Mrs. Henderson Presents” and a $9703 PSA. That’s actually not so bad. Not a massive start, but certainly one that can be built off of.
Walk the Line topping out at about $85 million…hmmm…what I thought might end up being a final two-way fight between Munich and Brokeback Mountain now becomes a three-way fight.
To set the record straight, I thought Walk the Line was a very ordinary film distinguished by two extraordinary performances. It is NOT Best Picture, but if the box office helps Phoenix and Witherspoon in their contending, I’ll be a happy man.
Now all that’s left to do is see those other two films…have become particularly excited about Brokeback due to mass acclaim and these numbers…would love to see it top $50 million.
And yes, you can serve me up some crow after saying Rent would do $40 million.
Walk the Line will probably finish up a bit over $100 once the Oscar noms are in. Munich is hardly the front-runner at this point, at least looking at the awards it has not gotten so far and a general lack of noms. Brokeback is in the lead, WTL and Good Night close behind. I’d even vaguely put Capote in front of Munich at this point, except the academy loves Spielberg so much they will go against the other awards groups.
I’m intrigued to see how “Yours, Mine & Ours” is holding up. I still think it’s the most attractive “consensus” movie out there right now — the one film that you can take your toddlers, your teens, your parents and your grandparents to, and feel reasonably safe that no one will be unduly offended or painfully bored. And since there are many family get-togethers this time of year, I think it may actually enjoy a slight uptick during the Xmas/New Year week (yes, even with “Cheaper By the Dozen 2” also in the marketplace).
So “Narnia” is “a small disappointment”? The AMC Essex Green in West Orange NJ got 2 prints — and neither sold out yesterday. This is a mall theater where Harry Potter 2 sold out on its opening weekend 3 years ago.
I attribute the soft “Narnia” opening to weather (especially in the East) and the NFL — not to mention the excessive hype. “King Kong” is gonna face the same fate.
The backlash against the “Oscar Bait” has begun. Sony expands “Memoirs of a Geisha” to NYC suburbs on Friday; this is to grab theaters that might otherwise play Xmas Day releases. “Brokeback Mountain” looks like a mainstream loser; the AMC Essex Green is running the trailer in front of “Rent” — when I saw “Rent” last night the teenagers in the audience laughed at that trailer.
Narnia’s hardly a small disappointment. It came in at the high end of expectations. The only way it could be considered a disappointment is because the Friday numbers were so high, but all that shows is that the film had a much higher “must see” factor than most people gave it credit for.
Just came back from Narnia. A fantastic film. Classy stuff with great performances from the kids and Tilda Swinton. If the Oscars weren’t as political as they have become it would have plenty of noms (tech, score, art direction, sound, Georgie Henley etc.). But they are…so it won’t.
Not as sweeping as Return of the King but certainly more human and emotional than the first two Rings installments and the first two Potters.
I think there will be many disappointments this Christmas, not because of the films themselves but because of the high expectations placed.
Narnia was a wild card with so many demos being courted it was hard to know who would show up. I suspect it will have great legs this holiday season and will go higher during Christmas week.
Kong as Titanic? Hardly. A huge hit but even my most hard core film friends have a sort of ‘been there done that’ attitude to it. I know no females that are interested.
Brokeback Mountain will fare well for its type, maybe even get to 40 million domestic but a breakthrough mainstream hit…no. They are trying to position it as a female film yet even my most liberal girlfriends have a ‘so what’ reaction to it. The notion that this will play to even the average ‘Blue Stater’ is a fantasy. It’s audience will not be gays and women, it will be gays and secular ‘enlightened’ white, left types. Not a huge demo. It’s the PC film you know you’re supposed to like but also know you won’t.
Syrianna will do similar business. No real shock value here. Oil bad. Real bad. Terrorists…not so bad. Just oppressed and need to catch a break. Even my conservative friends couldn’t care less about the impact. Perceived by most as more Hollywood ranting. Even if that’s not true…perception will win. My friends who are looking forward to this are also looking forward to Brokeback.
Munich I still maintain will not have the breakout appeal of a Schindler’s List. Too wishy washy. 50-70 tops…and that’s with plenty of awards. I look forward to seeing it although Kaminski’s work is starting to annoy me. I agree with Wells on this.
Geisha is off the radar for most.
The real question is will that real box office King Kong named Jim Carrey be able to hold his own?
Beware anyone who supports his or her opinions with “Well, my friends say…” or “no one I know…”
I don’t know that I won’t like Brokeback Mountain. So stop speaking for me.
Rob,
No one is speaking for you. I did not say ‘Rob’ won’t like…just what I hear from my own circle.
Not yours…mine. Which is why it is my opinion. Quit being so sensitive.
We should all know to take “my friends all say” stories with huge grains of salt. No reason to get upset when someone points it out, Nicol.
Jeffmcm,
I do not think I was the one who was upset Jeff. If you really believed what you wrote…you wouldn’t have wrote it at all.
We’ll have to agree to disagree then.
BTW, have you seen either Brokeback or Syriana personally?
anyone else annoyed by all this “Narnia 3rd biggest opener of the yr” headlines? Granted, it opened great and it sounds like it’s at least a decent film, but these # comparisons are misleading. Yes, I guess its the 3rd biggest 3-day, but many of the biggest films of the year have 5-day opening weekends – this should be mentioned when saying “Narnia is 3rd biggest”. At this point I can’t even recall what the 5-day openers were but I’m sure they would have done at least narnia #’s if not better were they 3-day’ers.
If you include Wed. and Thurs. numbers for the other big openers of ’05, you get this:
Star Wars 4-Day $158.4m
Harry Potter 3-Day $102.7m
War of the Worlds 5-Day $100.6m
Batman Begins 5-Day $72.9m
Narnia 3-Day $67.1m est
But you can’t analyze it like that, because Narnia would obviously received a higher gross if it had an extra day or two in theatres.
considering its subsequent fall-offs on sat. and sun, I don’t think it would have beaten WOTW’s 5-day. And that’s important to mention in these sorts of articles – Saying simply “Narnia best 3-day of yr” is not quite accurate. It’s frustrating that the party line consistently gets written in these “latest B.O.” stories. Same BS happening with this Kong budget story linked from Drudge. Inaccuracies all over the place, but “it’s just movies” so facts need not apply.
a 65$ million disappointment. That hurts.
^^ Narnia didn’t fall off on Saturday. Get your facts straight.
well i’m not getting paid to write this for an audience so I feel no remorse about mistakes. Secondly, it didn’t drop off on sat (correct) but it didn’t get the big 30-50% boost that many recent family films have gotten their sat. opening weekend, in fact it was practically flat fri to sat, which isn’t typically a good sign. Narnia making $200 mill – for a movie that cost $150 (at least). Is that a huge success?
“Well I’m not getting paid to write this for an audience so I feel no remorse about mistakes.”
Yes, but don’t you feel a certain sense of shame for appearing so, well, to use a polite word, careless?
Not in this case, since I saw $27 mill. posted on MCN for Fri and $25 mill. on Showbizdata for Sat. So more annoyed at the fact that one way or another we can’t get good data till end of day Sun.
I guess then that facts need not apply to your analysis, huh, Martin? 😉
Narnia was more frontloaded on Friday than expected, but that means nothing in terms of its longterm boxoffice. If it can withstand the Kong tidalwave, then it’ll do fine.
Even if it only gets $200m domestic, it’ll still be considered a major success, considering its production budget and P&A will be sufficiently covered by worldwide BO and ancillaries will be nothing but gravy.
Martin’s not Dave Poland or Len Klady. He’s just reacting to the numbers given him and is correct about the traditional family movie Saturday bump…however, Harry Potter also dropped between its opening Friday and Saturday, so there’s probably less reason for Disney to worry.
Martin it’s an innocent mistake. No worries.
If Narnia gets to 200$mill it just meets its budget. Which I guess is good considering it should make money worldwide and on dvd.
Narnia is a hit in the first week, where it goes from here is another thing altogether.
“The backlash against the “Oscar Bait” has begun. Sony expands “Memoirs of a Geisha” to NYC suburbs on Friday; this is to grab theaters that might otherwise play Xmas Day releases. “Brokeback Mountain” looks like a mainstream loser; the AMC Essex Green is running the trailer in front of “Rent” — when I saw “Rent” last night the teenagers in the audience laughed at that trailer.”
1. What backlash? Memoirs and Brokeback did blistering business this weekend. Longterm prospects are shaky, but that’s not what you’re discussing
2. Brokeback “looks like a mainstream loser”? What from this weekends numbers suggest that?
3. I don’t really think Brokeback is being targeted at teenagers who snicker at such things so I’m sure Focus won’t miss their patrionage.
I love the idea that there has been a “backlash against the Oscar bait.” Yes, because the whole country has SOOOO tired of our endless Oscar blog insularity! Man, I bet they can’t wait until these movies we’re dicussing make their way to their hometowns in January so they can FINALLY not see them!
hahah. Good one.
Like, ordinary people are sitting around going “Oh, lets not see Memoirs of a Geisha. It’s obviously just pandering to the Academy…”
blistering business? let them open wide before we say they’re blockbusters. a lot of films do well in limited runs. the key is when they expand if they can keep it up.
I knew “Memoirs of a Geisha” would come out of the gates strong. Even if it is only a few screens. The real challenge is coming up.
No-one seems to have mentioned or even noticed the most interesting stat from that chart – that Polar Express is STILL chugging away in IMAX theaters over a year from release and despite being released on DVD. With all the talk about whether DVD and theatrical day-and-date releases will happen, here is some evidence that at least the DVD and theatrical business aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. I read an interview with George Lucas recently where he accepted that home theater releases will happen concurrently with theatrical, but he thinks that the theatrical business will continue to thrive anyway (the analogy being that the NFL can still fill 100,000 seater stadia depsite every game being shown on TV). Maybe that’s why he’s so keen to push for digital exhibition – i saw Episode 3 in DLP and it was the most incredible presentation i’ve ever seen (i wasn’t born for the great 70mm Lean epics, ok?), and Polar’s continuing success in IMAX is evidence that the best theatrical experiences will still thrive even when DVD goes simultaneous with theatrical.
Kami said: “Memoirs and Brokeback did blistering business this weekend.”
Hollywood has gotten a blockbuster mentality when it comes to “Oscar Bait”. The Loews Village VII opened 4 prints of “Brokeback Mountain”; the Regal Union Square opened 3 prints of “Memoirs of a Geisha”. That’s the reason for those heavily inflated per-theater averages.
A lot of pinheads on this forum just blindly attack anything I say. With the ‘Net it’s not that hard to find out (1) who’s playing what and (2) how many prints.
The problem is this, Doc… exhibitors can’t stay in buisness if they lose another, say, 20% of their customers in a short period. Their margins are too small.
So while I agree that there will be interest in theatrical even in the face of day and date, the question is whether there will be movie theaters to accomodate the demand. Or will be a 5000 screen country?
Blistering on 8 screens really doesn’t interest me.
Poland is right, theaters are genuinely hurting right now and not because “business is down” but because the theatrical movie business just isn’t very good, and now they’re being asked to spend more to upgrade to digital? not gonna happen soon without major incentives.
Why should they upgrade if they’re not going to make more profits?
I was merely saying that Brokeback Mountain did great business this weekend and that it seems strange to immediately be calling it a “mainstream loser”. What exactly is wrong about that?
The Imax/Polar Express example doesn’t really mak much sense because isn’t Polar screening in 3D at the Imax venues . . . or is just a percentage of the locations?
The 3D presentation of this film is really quite spectacular and there’s no way currently that this exeprience can be even remotely duplicated in a home setting.