The Weekend Report: February 12, 2012

Safe and Sound

The weekend turned out to be more of a horse race than anticipated with the four hankie The Vow pitted against the Bourne again spy antics of Safe House. Ultimately sentiment won out with the romantic yarn earning an estimated $41.4 million to the thriller’s $39.3 million. Two other national releases rounded out the top of the list with the stereoscopic adventure Journey 2: The Mysterious Island grossing $27.5 million and the 3D enhanced Star Wars, Episode 1 adding $22.9 million to the pot.

Overall that spurred record breaking box office revenues for the period that put big smiles on all sectors of the industry.

The session also featured a strong $632,000 bow for Bollywood entry Ek Main aur Ekk Tu and a fast $311,000 start for the 2012 edition of Oscar Nominated Shorts. The non-Oscar nominated Rampart had an impressive $60,500 bow on five screens while Oscar short listed foreign-language entry In Darkness garnered $26,400 from three venues. Also boffo was surprise animation nominee Chico & Rita with $20,700 at a single site and Hungarian Oscar submission The Turin Horse scoring $9,300 from another solo flight.

Weekend revenues edged close to $195 million that expanded last weekend biz (hit by the largest viewership ever for a Super Bowl) by 66% as well as a 29% boost from 2011. A year ago five new films led the charts with the top trio of Just Go With It, Justin Bieber: Never Say Never and Gnomeo and Juliet entering the fray respectively with $30.5 million, $29.5 million and $25.4 million.

The Vow, a Nicolas Sparks’ like romantic saga, always appeared to have the edge on Safe House with tracking that pegged it about $5 million ahead with weekend estimates generally in the mid-$30 million range. Obviously both films exceeded expectations, particularly the latter Denzl Washington vehicle.

Not unexpected was the 72% female demos for The Vow (Safe House attracted 50%) but while it was anticipated to attract an older crowd, exit polls indicated an audience that was 55% aged 25 years old and younger. Conversely Safe House drew a 62% crowd aged 30 years and older. It also skewed African American with 38% of viewers compared with 31% identified as Caucasian and 23% Hispanic.

Journey 2, targeted at families, also outpaced projections in the mid-teens that would have had it fourth behind the Star Wars reissue that was anticipated to bring in $20 million.

The new titles pushed Oscar contenders further into the niches. None of the best picture nominees has sustained momentum as the awards approach though those still on screen will likely receive a boost next week … if they can maintain current screen counts. Ironically there was a better than usual response to the program of Academy nominated shorts but generally the lack of frontrunners in high profile categories has robbed the event of suspense or the prospect of a favorite getting his/her due.

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