Weekend Magic Estimates by Klady
No real surprises on Potter. The same question I posed yesterday will linger as we go through the next few weeks… how much of the domestic audience showed up for the opening 24 hours and will the domestic total be in significant way larger than the rest of the series?
It’d actually a shame that C. Nikki Finke disappears her earlier content, even if incorrect, because as the unfiltered mouthpiece for many studios, she tells us all what they really were thinking, in this case on Friday afternoon. I don’t mind Nikki’s spin today that this is what WB was after because, in a sane world, it is. These numbers are right on target and probably a little more frontloaded than in past, as happens with most franchises these days. It may end up being the biggest Potter and then topped by the final finale, but low-mid 300s and possibly breaking the tape on $1 billion worldwide is not out of line with the rest of the franchise, one of the greatest of all time without having to see a $145m opening, for instance.
And I am impressed with Fandango’s press release that they sold 17% or about $21 million worth of tickets to Potter this weekend. We forget when talking about the 3D bump that a significant percentage of people are willing to pay a pre-sale bump of 10% or more.
The drops, as expected, flattened out as Potter did over the weekend, still carrying what I guesstimate to be an extra 5% or more from the Friday onslaught, meaning I think that #2, #3, and #4 would have all dropped nicely in the 30s if it weren’t for the elephant in the room on Friday.
The Next Three Days would still probably have come up short of $10m with the campaign it had and without Mr Potter it its way. LGF was probably after counterprogramming, but adults had little interest in going to the theaters with hordes of Potterites on Friday and were likely wary on Saturday too.
127 Hours‘ expansion was good, but not as good as the movie. And Made in Dagenham showed some potential with a nice 3 screen weekend.
Only a 71 percent drop for “Skyline”? Hell, it held better than I expected. LOL.
SKYLINE POWER.
Two of the hottest chicks I’ve never seen before (Balfour’s gal and Faison’s mistress).
Plus: Look at the TWENTY movies in that list.
SKYLINE is the only one that was shot and set in LOS ANGELES, and thus looks like an ACTUAL MOVIE.
I really wish Hollywood would get out of this chintzy-ass, penny-pinching rural location shoot tax break mode; Yeah, it was nice to see Pittsburgh, rural Michigan, Georgia, and Boston on the big screen the first HUNDRED times in the last five years.
But now every “big” movie is starting to feel like an Earl Owensby production.
ONE OF TWENTY MOVIES filmed in L.A. UNACCEPTABLE.
LA is too damn expensive. You, too, would head out of town for a tax break and it’s not like some of those films are set out of town for a reason. Seriously, it’s not 1950, man.
Well, fuck, then why doesn’t every movie mogul, actor, aspiring actor, director, studio head, and David Poland himself all uproot and buy houses in Ann Arbor, Michigan, or Atlanta, Georgia?
Long as they’re filming everything there anyway.
And IO, I don’t care what anyone says; Movies shot in LA and NYC have a higher level of production value. Or the skies and bustling cityscapes just look cooler than some wan-hued overcast cricket-buzzing Rust Belt backwoods.
And as someone who aspires to work on movies in some capacity again someday… I always feel for these big-time A-listers stuck from Bel Air stuck in my childhood backyard for six months at a time.
Much like how I rooted for LeBron to get the hell out of Cleveland.
Hopefully 127 can gain some steam in the coming weeks. It’s doing pretty good, but I don’t get that “breakout” sense quite yet. I loved it even more the second time I saw it…great film.
Any chance Searchlight is waiting for Black Swan to drop in limited and see how that goes, and then they’ll decide whether it’s 127 Hours or Black Swan that gets the full Juno/Slumdog push? Or are they committed to pushing them both equally?
Because, yeah, 127 Hours is a terrific movie, but it seems like it’s stuck in a holding pattern, buzz- and expansion-wise.
Tell the truth, LexG: You liked “Skyline” because that hot little brunette went all barefoot in the opening scenes. Right?
Indeed… I posted elsewhere that scene on the couch with the barefoot brunette was Tarantino/John Stockwell/Adrian Lyne-level blatant. And awesome.
She did have cute little toes, I’l grant you. But you should really check out the scene in “Stay Hungry,” where Jeff Bridges massages Sally Field’s feet.
I had a rant somewhere about STAY HUNGRY, about how sometime when I was 12 or 13 and Arnold Schwarzenegger was the biggest thing in the world to a kid that age, and Jeff Bridges had just done STARMAN which I loved, I talked my mom into renting STAY HUNGRY.
I guess thinking it was gonna be some big-action early Arnold extravaganza with broad, Smokey and the Bandit-style comedy or something. Who knows what I thought. I just knew Arnold was in it, and thus I had to see it, and talked my mom into getting it.
Next thing I know, I’m watching Arnold in some table-cloth shirt and cowboy hat at a barbecue and all this 70s style social satire comedy straight out of SHAMPOO, SEMI-TOUGH, and SMILE, just SAILING over my 12-year-old head, then there’s *rampant nudity* and some dude pleasuring a chick on a weight bench with a massager. I think it got shut off in record time and I caught a broom over the head or something, since nudity/sex was far, far, FAR more forbidden than depictions of violence.
Before she returned it, I remember sneaking back down into the TV room to watch those scenes again on the QT, then feeling super guilty about seeing nakedness, then going to confession and praying extensively that I wouldn’t burn in hell. For watching STAY HUNGRY.
Joe — you need to answer for the Houston Texans. I’m a huge Pats fan and that Jets “win” was ridiculous!
And thus, Lex’s mom stunted his hormonal growth, leaving him permanently fixated on underage girls so that he would never have to witness any of that sinful sex or nudity!
they filmed Battle: Los Angeles in Baton Rouge, LA.
that sums it up pretty well.
ManWithNoName: Well, at least he didn’t go out and blind horses or something. And BTW: There is no excuse for the Texans. Good teams don’t let that happen. And even mediocre teams don’t let that happen two weeks in a row.
Skyline may have been filmed in LA, but it was also filmed almost entirely inside a single apartment, and hence had the production values of a SYFY original movie or a student short. No scope whatsoever. Just people cowering behind counters hiding from light like a bunch of mogwais.
Yeah, but all that rooftop action with a WHOLE GIANT AWESOME CITY in the background was great.
Kind of like the L.A. version of the rooftop battle finale of REVENGE OF THE NINJA. (Filmed in Salt Lake City, of all places.)
Craziest stat of the weekend…Resident Evil 4’s China opening guarentees that it will pass $300 million worldwide, meaning Milla Jovovich has a chance to headline the highest drawing actress-driven film since “Mamma Mia.” (Only LexG would consider Twilight an actress-led movie) It also makes it likely that Sony’s B-movie studio released a more succesful live-action film than Universal did in 2010.
Im happy that Denis’s “White Material” almost grossed as much as “Made in Dag.”
“Jackass 3D” has made a shocking $39 million overseas and could hit 200 mil worldwide.
Here’s the “Stay Hungry” scene:
http://movieclips.com/ZqAe-stay-hungry-movie-making-out-with-mary-tate/
I like movies where the location becomes another character. Like The Town or Shotgun Stories or Unbreakable.
Hey, unrelated question: When the heck is Tucker & Dale vs. Evil coming out?
Tucker & Dale vs. Evil – lots of people want it on dvd ..
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tucker-Dale-vs-Evil/415311005116?v=wall
Damn, not on topic but I just got an email from netflix saying they are increasing my monthly bill by three bucks (15%) a month to pay for all their streaming costs.
I guess they need that three extra bucks to buy more freaking servers or whatever but that’s still a steep price increase.
Netflix just got an e-mail from me saying I am cancelling my subscription.
I’m feeling kind to Netflix because of the boss amount of hitherto unavailable streaming titles… BUNNY O’HARE anyone?
I switched to the streaming only option, but now I have to figure out how I’m getting the DVD of All About Eve in the mail without the envelope I’d misplaced during cleaning without paying too much.
Joe, just say you mailed it. I end up holding onto something way too long and just say that I mailed it back but they never received it. I have done this about 3 times and they have not asked any questions.
So I have been thinking about this since getting the email and at first being a bit miffed, but, I joined in 2002 for a price of 19.99 a month and eight years later I was only paying a dollar more a month and that is with a Blu subscription. I got a Roku box for a birthday a few weeks ago and watch that more than cable. Figuring in what comes in the mail and what we watch streaming, this will still come in at less than $1.00 a movie (each disc of a television series season counts as an individual movie). That is still cheaper than anything else out there including Redbox which wants $1.50 for Blu’s. Its a steep increase but they did drop their prices significantly when they were competing with Blockbuster so this does seem like a reasonable correction. Now if they would only go back to selling their used dvds. I must have doubled my library on their $5.99 titles.
Agreed with hcat. People whining over the price increase now would have been perfectly happy if the prices had simply stayed what they were at before the price drop of a few years ago — even though getting that price drop for a few years was better for us.