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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Friday Estimates by Klady (Werewolf)

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Klady’s Friday estimate for New Moon is a few million lower than others, but still a new record. The number is about double the Friday for the first film.
That said, the big question here will be the multiple. The box office is getting more and more front-loaded. Twilight did 2.9x opening. You have to figure that this one is looking at around $130m for the 3-day. At the first multiple,that would be about $375 million domestic. But I am thinking more a 2.2x multiple and $286m domestic. That would put it in the realm of other 2009 movies Watchmen, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Fast and Furious, and Tyler Perry’s Madea Goes to Jail. This is not a doubt of the quality of the film itself, though it seems to be – to others, I wasn’t invited to see it – a less thrilling experience than the first film of the series. It is the nature of having such intense must-see response to a film that is niche… albeit a big niche.
New Moon so skews everything this weekend that it is hard to read the opening for The Blind Side… except to note that this will be Sandra Bullock’s #2 opening of all time, right after The Proposal. What confuses me about opening opposite “the girl movie of the year” is that even though Blind Side has a giant football player at its core, I haven’t seen a very hard push for the film with men, who would seem to be a key demo, especially this weekend. Still, a good start, even if it is in the shadow of the vamps.
This is less true of Sony’s Planet 51. Thing is, even though this number is crap when compared to the big studio animated releases, it’s pretty good for a group of films that now needs a name… say, B-Animation. This is made of up films that majors acquire but which are not up to the standards that audiences expect from in-house, more expensively produced product. In this case, Sony picked up domestic theatrical only for this film made with UK financing.
By that standard, an opening of $7m – $9m is not so bad. TWC’s Hoodwinked is the king of this genre. Here’s a list…
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As you can plainly see, the holdovers all got slammed yesterday by New Moon‘s opening, though that should ease up over the weekend, in part because of less tickets sold for the vamps and in part because many of these films probably lost screening times to multiplexes stealing every screen they could for the big opening of the month.
It looks like 2012 will come up well short of The Day After Tomorrow, but $450 million still seems inevitable as a worldwide number, which is about enough for this one to break even.

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41 Responses to “Friday Estimates by Klady (Werewolf)”

  1. marychan says:

    Among the films that were looking for US distribution at TIFF 2009, “Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans” was generally regarded as the most commercial film…. Unlucky, it gets hurt by Avi Lerner’s decision of self-releasing the film through First Look. (Its opening result isn’t bad for a First Look release, though)….
    Now, I think “Mother and Child” would have chance to become the highest-grossing 2009 TIFF sales….

  2. CleanSteve says:

    I weep for our nation.
    4 times the total domestic gross of HURT LOCKER….in one day.
    I weep.

  3. IOIOIOI says:

    Oh stuff your weeping up your butt. Hurt Locker would not have got what it got with out Ed Cullen. Seriously, hating on Twilight is so lame, and it has to be due to you and others using beards as chins. Shame on you. SHAME I SAY… FIGURATIVELY!

  4. David Poland says:

    5.4x the total domestic gross of The Hurt Locker.

  5. Joe Leydon says:

    “I haven’t seen a very hard push for the film with men, who would seem to be a key demo, especially this weekend.”
    David, do you watch ESPN very much? Or regional college football games? Basketball games? Do you go to sports websites? Trust me: The male audience has been made aware of Blind Side.

  6. martin says:

    Everyone is all excited about Twilight doing $70 mill on opening day, but when Kenny Chesney 3D comes out next April, this opening will seem like a mere drip in the box office bucket. KC3D – $100 mill. opening day.

  7. mutinyco says:

    Jackass 3D…

  8. EOTW says:

    Looks like LexG was right on the money. Bring ’em back, DP. He makes this site even more worth coming too.

  9. I think you meant Twilight had a 1.9x multiplier over opening weekend.

  10. Oh wait, if you meant multipliers regarding opening-weekend to total than my correction was in error. Carry on with apologies.

  11. EthanG says:

    Interesting question that I haven’t seen raised: is this film in the black by the end of the day today based on worldwide BO?? Even if they increased the budget by 50% from the last film, that’s only a $55 million production budget. They’ve marketed the film to death but a lot of that marketing has been self-perpetuated by gossip sites.

  12. EthanG says:

    Also, I’d be surprised if “2012” doesn’t manage $525 million.
    Boffo numbers for “Broken Embraces…good numbers for “Bad Lieutenant”…..terrible numbers for “Red Cliff.”=(

  13. movieman says:

    Considering how poorly most Magnollia films have fared at the box-office this year (“Two Lovers” was probably their only sizable hit), I’m beginning to wonder if the “free previews” on the Hi-Def movie channel–and making them available as a pay-per-view item on most cable syndicates–might be a contributing factor to their b.o. ignominy.
    Consider: “Burning Plain,” “House of the Devil,” “World’s Greatest Dad,” “Girlfriend Experience,” “The Great Buck Howard,” etc. have all pretty much tanked theatrically. While none of those films would have ever been a blockbuster (not even a “specialized” blockbuster), perhaps their domestic theatrical cumes would have been substantially higher without ppv (and the accompanying freebie exposure).
    Don’t get me wrong. I love being able to watch some of these films at the same time they’re opening in big city arthouses (I’m planning to watch “Red Cliff” off my dvr tonight), but maybe it’s not the best business decision.
    Or is PPV the new theatrical for this type of release? And does anyone have stats on how, say, IFC–which, unfortunately, isn’t available on my local cable supplier–is faring (PPV versus theatrical dollars)?

  14. raskimono says:

    Point of note by vested interests. Planet 51 is a Spanish financed and also animated by a Spanish animation studio. (Not the UK). It is one of the more awaited movies of the year in Spain.

  15. Deathtongue_Groupie says:

    It’s very telling how guy-centric this site is that there is not a single linked story on the MCN front page about the box office explosion for this film. Yet when DARK KNIGHT started topping records….
    Just sayin’

  16. David Poland says:

    Thank you, Raskimono… I read somewhere that it was funded by the Brits… pleased to be corrected.
    And Deathtoungue… oy… I know everything these days is a conspiracy, but Ray, who does the majority of the headlines these days, is in Greece and is probably not focused on this morning’s burst of news.
    And as far as actual coverage by MCN staff, that is 100% the responsibility of Summit, which failed to make it available for screening or the cast and crew available for interviews. I have been told by other, bigger outlets that the studio was saying, weeks ago, that they “didn’t need anymore coverage” than they had. Kim Voynar, who went to the junket for us last year, ended up seeing it this time at the midnight opening in Seattle.

  17. bulldog68 says:

    The good news/bad news for A CHRISTMAS CAROL is that it is holding well, but on comparison with THE POLAR EXPRESS its falling. As of Friday its only $1M ahead of TPE, and will fall behind this weekend. TPE actually rose to a $19M weekend on its third weekend, but it was thanksgiving, so I guess the same might happen to ACC next weekend. But in the meantime, ACC begins to fall behind.

  18. CleanSteve says:

    I remain unrepentant in my weeping, regardless of it’s lameosity. It’s far less lame than TWILIGHT.
    5.4. I didn’t do the math. Just went just estimated. My bad. Thanks David.
    But hey. Who am I to begrudge anyone something that brings joy into their dreary lives. Even if it’s the equally vapid soap opera equal of TRANFORMERS 2.
    Oh, well. Life goes on. Good on ya, Summit.

  19. IOIOIOI says:

    Vapid to you. Geeks always have to throw a jab in there. Seriously, it’s just a love story. If that’s vapid, then good for you. GOOD FOR YOU. Here’s hoping it breaks TDK’s record for one reason and one reason only: TO STICK TO EVERY GEEK IN THERE WHO HAS A PROBLEM WITH ED CULLEN!

  20. Joe Leydon says:

    So the next Batman movie will be something like this?
    http://www2.warnerbros.com/video/batmanvsdracula/

  21. IOIOIOI says:

    That’s an awesome movie. Bats has to go through a lot to take Dracula down. If they remade that into a live-action film. I would have to change my underpants due to all of the awesomeness.

  22. It’s not a terrible film (the show was actually pretty good in seasons 2 and 4). I was shocked by the sheer amount of blood in the movie. There’s a scene where a vampire-ed Joker literally bathes in blood at a local blood bank.

  23. This pays for Summit’s Hurt Locker Oscar campaign quite handsomely, I would imagine.
    Sandra Bullock will (probably) have two $30m+ openers this year (and, as bad as it was, All About Steve did open at #1, right?) She’s had quite a year! This actually reminds me of when Julia Roberts had the big rom-com of My Best Friend’s Wedding and the big thriller Conspiracy Theory after being out making duds and smaller pictures (compare Roberts’ Everyone Says I Love You and Pret a Porter with Bullock’s Crash and Infamous for instance).

  24. scooterzz says:

    i could be wrong (duh) but i think summit has already screwed the pooch by not having ‘hurt locker’ screeners out by now….it’s a sand movie and a ‘hard sell’….if they don’t get it out by wednesday, it’s lost in the shuffle…just my take…..
    that said..i just watched the ‘blind side’ screener….gawd, that was so offensive on so many levels….i usually agree with kim voynar’s stuff but that was just really, really bad….

  25. Steven Kar says:

    “It looks like 2012 will come up well short of The Day After Tomorrow, but $450 million still seems inevitable as a worldwide number, which is about enough for this one to break even.”
    This doesn’t make sense.
    If you believe Finke’s sources, then 2012 had a budget between $200-325 million with a further $150 million spent on global marketing.
    So how is a $450 million worldwide gross “breaking even”?
    Sony expects the movie to make $400 million before the end of next week. I say it has a good chance of reaching 200 in the US and 400 abroad.
    Even a $600 million worldwide gross is not going to help it break even. It would need at least 800 to break even. No?

  26. palmtree says:

    Dave, your B-Animation list is missing TMNT as the champ at $54 million domestic. TMNT was produced by HK-based Imagi, which also produced Astro Boy.

  27. leahnz says:

    “If you believe Finke’s sources…”
    just to say: steven kar, have you not met DP?
    (and i can’t tell if you’re being facetious about your figures but if not, you may need a wee refresher course in basic maths. or just a calculator)

  28. Steven Kar says:

    Leah,
    No need for the sarcasm or a know-it-all attitude, you might be knowledgeable of film-related matters but you are by no means an authority on how the film industry works and how the accounting works and what-not.
    I’m not either.
    The math I used in my comment above was math that DP also uses when he calculates BO.
    He takes the total BO, subtracts from it the theatre owners’ share, subtracts the budget+marketing of the movie and whatever amount remains is what gets divvied up between the studio, the talent and so on. DP used the same method a few weeks back when he wrote about Avatar.
    If 2012 cost a minimum of 200 to produce and 150 to market, then it’s going to need a lot more than 450 to break even, especially since Emmerich is getting 25% of the gross.

  29. Josh Massey says:

    Yeah, came in to say what Leydon did. Blind Side ads have been all over sports broadcasts for WEEKS.

  30. EthanG says:

    “If 2012 cost a minimum of 200 to produce and 150 to market, then it’s going to need a lot more than 450 to break even, especially since Emmerich is getting 25% of the gross.”
    I still can’t believe this movie cost most than 100 mil. to market, no matter anyone’s estimate. Regardless, it will make enough to more than break even once it hits the home market.
    On the other hand…ACC cost at least $175 mil to produce and probably $100 mil to market…hence I still don’t think it’s going to come CLOSE to breaking even.

  31. EthanG says:

    “If 2012 cost a minimum of 200 to produce and 150 to market, then it’s going to need a lot more than 450 to break even, especially since Emmerich is getting 25% of the gross.”
    I still can’t believe this movie cost most than 100 mil. to market, no matter anyone’s estimate. Regardless, it will make enough to more than break even once it hits the home market.
    On the other hand…ACC cost at least $175 mil to produce and probably $100 mil to market…hence I still don’t think it’s going to come CLOSE to breaking even.

  32. Cadavra says:

    Ras and DP: you’re both right. PLANET 51 is a UK-Spain co-production; the Brit dough came from Handmade Films (who knew they were still around?), which also explains the presence of John Cleese’s voice in a key role.

  33. Chucky in Jersey says:

    “New Moon” and “2012” have claimed a major casualty: “The Road” was to have been a wide release for Thanksgiving (US) but is now being dumped. Weinstein Co. must be saving its money to buy awards for “Nine”.
    @movieman: AMC and Regal will not play a film if that title is available VoD. As a result Magnolia releases are shown mainly in arthouse-friendly chains like Landmark.

  34. Dr Wally says:

    “On the other hand…ACC cost at least $175 mil to produce and probably $100 mil to market…hence I still don’t think it’s going to come CLOSE to breaking even.”
    As i’ve said before, ACC is playing the long game. It will pick up steam as we head towards the holidays, even though the worry is that it will lose all it’s IMAX screens to Avatar the week before Christmas. anecdotally, i finally got to see it in IMAX 3-D yesterday a.m. and the screening was packed out.

  35. Joe Leydon says:

    Chucky: Define “dumped,” please. Because, frankly, it doesn’t look to me like The Road is being treated in such a fashion.

  36. movieman says:

    Chucky- I’m fully aware of AMC and Regal’s unwillingness to play VOD titles.
    The point I was making was that Magnolia/Magnet’s decision to release virtually all of their films as VOD (and offer many of them free previews on their inhouse cable channel) may be contributing to their lackluster theatrical performance.
    Even as arthouse-only releases, critically lauded movies like “Red Cliff,” “World’s Greatest Dad,” “Girlfriend Experience” and “House of the Devil” should have done a lot better than they did in theaters.
    I’m not sure if “dump” is the word for what Weinstein is doing to “The Road,” Joe, but I found it extremely peculiar that the film was yanked from its November 25th release slot here in NE Ohio. And that no replacement date–or even at attempt at an alternative date-was given by studio reps.
    Considering the unconscionable treatment “The Road” has received at the hands of Weinstein over the past year (you could have built a drinking game around every release date shift), I’d be mighty pissed if I was John Hillcoat.
    It would be one thing if the movie sucked, but it’s actually pretty darn good. I guess it just doesn’t have as much perceived Oscar “worthiness” as “Nine” or “A Single Man.”

  37. EthanG says:

    “As i’ve said before, ACC is playing the long game. It will pick up steam as we head towards the holidays, even though the worry is that it will lose all it’s IMAX screens to Avatar the week before Christmas.”
    Just too much competition IMO. Disney at this point I think is willing to give up some screens for “Old Dogs” next weekend, and even though some of its drop can be explained away by New Moon, ACC still should not have been outgrossed by “Planet 51” this weekend.
    While theatre owners would normally be inclined to hold ACC given the season, with “New Moon,” “Old Dogs,” “2012,”The Blind Side,” and even “Fantastic Mr. Fox” (given its fantastic per theatre 2 weeks in a row) there’s just way too much competition to hold onto for much longer. “Elf” saw a 29% drop in its comparable weekend while ACC shed 45%

  38. William Goss says:

    So far as I understand it, The Road’s Thanksgiving release has been scaled back to something like thirty markets instead of Totally Wide or Totally Limited:
    http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2009/11/road-mini-wide-release.html

  39. leahnz says:

    “No need for the sarcasm or a know-it-all attitude, you might be knowledgeable of film-related matters but you are by no means an authority on how the film industry works and how the accounting works and what-not.”
    oh. steven kar, it was late and i made a quick aside joke about your sums at the last moment (about which i gave very little thought, i don’t even know what DP’s ‘formula’ is and i actually thought you were joking at the time when i read it, that’s how tired i was), my main reason for commenting was because i found your “if you believe finke’s sources” amusing given the obvious. i didn’t mean to imply i know anything about 2012 accounting or anything else, it was an offhand observation about your figures and a stupid one at that, no offence intended

  40. Steven Kar says:

    No problem, Leah. And thank you.

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon