Weekend Estimates by Klady – 10/04/09
Not much to chew on here. Meatballs and the Toy Stories remind us all of why family films are the best business is Hollywood these days… making Disney’s move away from them ongoingly curious.
The Hangover got to $275 million… amazing… and its last 5/0 landmark.
Without anything else to do, Paramount’s gentle push-along of Paranormal Activity is both impressive and irrelevant at the same time. They are doing a really nice job of bringing out their niche core. But the notion that this film is going to turn into a bigger phenom seems less and less likely each week. People wanted to see Blair Witch because they didn’t know what it was. When they hear “it’s the next Blair Witch,” the response from many people is something to the effect of, “Really? Did they tape this one off of YouTube?”
The per-screen on A Serious Man is fine… tells us nothing… great film, but 6 theaters filled with Jews is not a telling achievement. (i was one of them yesterday)
Loved the Gervais film so much, may be my favorite live-action comedy since Groundhog Day. It’s hardly flawless, but a the reviews seem perplexed by both its tone and audacity. I don’t think people expected a gentle fable. Really stands out in an era of constant obnoxiousness. There will be a group of people who treasure this one beyond weekly box office reports.
You may be right about “Paranormal Activity,” Dave…and you’re definitely right about the Coen Bros. film. I’d be shocked if the latter ever makes it to my whitebread enclave of NE Ohio.
While “A Serious Man” will go down as one of the Coen’s most beloved films–at least among the hardcore fans who get the chance to see it–it’ll surely be one of their lowest-grossing releases to date, too.
Kind of surprised that Paramount hasn’t already made any major expansion plans re: “PA.”
I still think this upcoming Friday–or October 30th–would be their best bet to take their burgeoning grassroots mini-phenom nat’l.
Yeaah yeah yeah
get on with the Finke/New Yorker takedown
“6 theaters filled with Jews is not a telling achievement. (i was one of them yesterday)”
*gasp* Is Poland trying to tell us he’s secretly a…
…THEATER?!?!?
Did something today I haven’t done (outside of a film festival)in ages — saw three movies back to back at a megaplex: Julie & Julia, Whip It and Zombieland. Enjoyed all three, for different reasons. And was pleasantly surprised to see that, even after all these weeks, Julia still drew a decent crowd.
It’s “I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell,” not Heaven.
Unless that’s some kind of subtle commentary?
You sure seem obsessed with the box office of the Coens even though they’re filmmakers who do not pursue the box office, movieman. “Serious Man” is not going to be a smash — and was clearly never intended to be — but you might want to check some of those lowest-ever grosses. It’ll end up going fairly wide and it’s not going to be among them.
I think a round of applause is in order for Trailer Park Boys 2. $2.3 mil is a very impressive number for a Canadian film.
I’m hardly obsessed, Chris.
I was just commenting on the fact that “A Serious Man” will play more like (typical) Coen niche fare: “The Man Who Wasn’t There,” “Barton Fink,” etc., than one of their more recent “breakout” hits.
It will definitely separate the Coen-come-latelys from fans like me who were there from the beginning.
I guess it doesn’t amount to an obsession, but your early comments about “No Country,” as I recall, were about how it was going to fall short at the box office, as well. Just seems curious.
I’m just puzzled that some people think the Coens have to subscribe to the Hollywood norm by churning out all-demographic-friendly $100+ blockbuster franchises, or risk being perceived as “failures.”
I love that the Coens will never make a film that comes anywhere close to grossing $100-million; and yet still manage to find financing every turn at bat.
I wish there were more (American) filmmakers like them.
me too
Yet their last two pictures were both box-office hits. And NCFOM still made 74 million here, 162 million world-wide, which is amazing. And hopeful.
hey movieman, ‘no country’ made well over 100 mil! (162 mil is pretty damn spiffy)
this is NOT a dig at movieman whom i adore but just in general:
why is the box office take from ‘the rest of the world’ even still afforded such ‘separate’ status from the US domestic take (and often even omitted altogether when discussing a film’s ‘success’)?
after all, it’s all cash in the coffers at the end of the day, no matter where it came from. very often films released world-wide make more $ outside of the US than within, thereby making the ‘domestic total’ figure provided by sites such as ‘box office mojo’ as the first and only prominently displayed ‘total’ hugely misleading. unless you scroll down to find the REAL box office total, you are basically being misinformed.
particularly in our new-fangled era of globalisation it seems silly to even differentiate/separate the two sources of cash in any meaningful way. i can understand keeping a separate tally in an anal retentive way but when it comes to the box office ‘TOTAL’, the ONLY total that counts is the ACTUAL BOX OFFIC TOTAL, which includes the cash from ‘the rest of the world’, any way you slice it.
Leah, this is not a dig at you and the rest of the world, but you are the rest of the world. What matters is what happens here. The Harry Potter movies are even more successful overseas, but here they do pretty good. What matters more at the end of the day? Both totals combine, but stating a European character does real well in Europe. Sort of makes no sense, and no one really cares about it here.
It’s like soccer. The rest of the world decided to accept that game. What did we do? We created 3 sports leagues worth billions of dollars and auto racing. So, yeah, we are very centric to our totals. That’s just how we roll, and why we will never win a world cup.
geeze io, that makes no sense
“What matters is what happens here”
uh, no. what matters is the ACTUAL money a movie makes, not some weird geographical ‘separate but equal’ policy. $ is $. saying ‘because we are one-eyed, illogical and stubborn’ is not an explanation, nor is it a valid defence
IO, if you think studios don’t count the rest of the world when it comes to box office…yeah, okay.
Well, if we’re talking TOTAL, then why limit it to just theatrical, since it’s no longer a film’s principal source of revenue?
well, theatrical release is a completely separate entity from DVD sales/rentals, etc, so i can certainly see the rationale behind separately tracking the $ a movie makes from cinemas.
what i can’t see the rationale behind using the ‘domestic total’ like many popular web sites and industry commenters do as if it were the actual take from theatrical release, because it’s just plain inaccurate and silly. what purpose does it serve?
To keep Americans further insulated? And for IO to use that as a claim when he’s always skooling people on not keeping up…
“what i can’t see the rationale behind using the ‘domestic total’ like many popular web sites and industry commenters do as if it were the actual take from theatrical release, because it’s just plain inaccurate and silly. what purpose does it serve?”
It harkens back to a time when financial success in the United States was all-important and making it here meant everything to a movie. How many years ago this sentiment reached its expiration date, I couldn’t tell you.
IOIOIOI is right if you’re only talking purely about spectators and outsiders as opposed to the people that actually work and invest in the movie business. American moviegoers may not be into the global game, but the studios sure as hell are.
IO, what matters overseas does affect things, even though in your ignorance you pretend that it doesn’t. Many of your funnybook movies wouldn’t be produced at the lavish budgets they get if the studios couldn’t depend on overseas markets to bring in cash. Without overseas markets, does The Dark Knight get a 250 million budget?