Friday Estimates by The Possessed Klady
It’s Labor Day weekend. It used to be ironic because of all the box office stillborns on this date. But the slot has been mined by the indies, starting with UA dredging up the first-ever 4-day $10m opening weekend over Labor Day in 2001 with Jeepers Crepers ($15.8m). IN2005, Focus put an Oscar-bait film, The Constant Gardener, in the slot and opened to $11m in 4 days on its way to $36m domestic and an Oscar for Rachel Weisz. In that same year, Fox rolled Transporter 2 into that slot and opened to $20m. Since then, two movies have opened to over $10m in 4 days in this slot every year, with 3 in the slot last year.
The MGM/Weinstein reboot of Halloween remains the high water mark, opening to a 4-day of $31m in 2007. No other film has topped Transporter 2‘s $20.1m 4-day launch there. Halloween is also the high mark for total domestic gross from a Labor Day launch with $58.3m.
13 of the 17 films that have opened to over $10m in this slot are either horror or broad comedies targeting teens almost exclusively. The art films are Gardener, The American, and The Debt. All About Steve is the oddball.
So those are the boundaries.
One other note: As The Dark Knight Rises has passed $950m, it’s worth noting that this is the Batman film with the highest percentage of its theatrical gross coming from international. It’s only the second of the films to gross more internationally than at home and the other was Batman & Robin, which was more a product of domestic failure than international strength. The domestic and international numbers are almost the inverse of TDK’s (TDKR domestic being about $43m lower than TDK).
Most weekends at #1 by studio, 2012:
Lionsgate-7
Uni-7
Sony-7
Disney-4
Paramount (inc Dreamworks Ani)-4
WB-3
Fox-2
Open Road-1
Relativity-1
A great illustration of the uselessness of winning the weekend, as the highest grossing studio has only 3 weekends at the top, and the most profitable, Disney, has 4, while Sony has the most bombs this year. Still, big tip of the hat to Lionsgate marketing. This is still something to be proud of for a non-major.
Two movies. They did a nice job on Hunger Games and Expendables 2, but nothing no one else couldn’t have done.
And winning a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th weekend isn’t about marketing, just like opening weekend is about mktg.
True, but also kudos on THE POSSESSION (although it is a Raimi production), yanking it from Halloween 2011 and placing it here turned out to be a stroke of genius, and they sold it well given the lack of religious iconography. It also could easily spend two weekends at the top, giving the studio a solid month at #1 for the second time this year, which again, while useless, is impressive for a non-major.
I wonder if COSMOPOLIS went any wider this weekend. I’d expect it to crater in whatever markets it’s playing. I knew it got a mixed reception, but why didn’t anyone warn me just how flat, arid, trite, and cheap-looking it is?
I said it sucked, Rob! No one listens to me. Sigh.
I gotta get outta the house tonight and see something. I want to see THE POSSESSION but going to horror alone is creepy and no fun. So…should I see:
ROBOT AND FRANK
CELESTE AND JESSE FOREVER
or
RUBY SPARKS
I cannot decide and all 3 sound interesting and fun on almost the exact same level.
I REALLY liked THE POSSESSION.
Didn’t see CELESTE (couldn’t get past all the creative eyeglass frames in the trailer), but definitely preferred ROBOT to RUBY.
That Oogieloves opening must make it one of the worst 2,000+ theater openings ever, right?
Meanwhile, Delgo and Doogal are in a bar somewhere laughing.
probably too late, Don, but…ROBOT AND FRANK 100%
Doogal! Can’t believe anyone remembers that putrid (at least in the Americanized form released by TWC) product enough to recall just how big it failed. Never saw Delgo but it couldn’t possibly be as bad as Doogal, could it?
Omg yes Nate. Production on DELGO began in 1999, 9 years before the film was released. Animation was begun, and a teaser trailer was released, in 2001. Two of the film’s main voice actors, including the legendary Anne Bancroft (the wretched movie is dedicated to her) died 3 years before its release.
The animation looks so bad it’s like watching a series of video-game cut scenes from 1999. The plot is a horrible rip-off of Star Wars. I assume they spent from 2005-2008 trying to get out of the contractual obligation for a theatrical run and were unsuccessful.
Doogal at least got into the millions. Delgo made, I believe, $500,000 in its opening weekend. Oogieloves has made more at this point, but it also has been out since Wednesday. I thought Rollerball being sent to the bargain theaters after one week was bad, but Delgo just disappeared.
The only reason I remember Doogal is the advertising hit me on two fronts. 1. The animation was barely moving to the point where I don’t think I’d call it animation. 2. Jon Stewart? What the hell?!
I saw ROBOT AND FRANK today (finally left the friendly confines) and loved it until I recognized the missed opportunity/lack of experience from the director that kept it from being what it should have been.
To clarify- it’s an awesome, no-nonsense/frills sci-fi movie and I loved it for that. Like, if Spike Jonze of Michel Gondry would have had at it, it would have worked and been rad, but been twee and style over substance. However the writer/director here stuck to such a strict formalist/no-nonsense view that the film lost any bit of heart or caring. And that’s ALSO ironic because it’s a warm, subtle story of people getting old and how we take care of them but it also managed to make me not care about the people involved. It’s a cold hearted film shot warmly. Totally weird.
Still, I really, really liked it and would recommend it highly. Especially to old people. I was at a 4 pm showing today and the theater was 1/2 full of grey heads. They were loving it. Or, gassy.
Interesting, Don. That’s surprising because I’m assuming it wasn’t dirt cheap to make, so I’m surprised there wasn’t any push-back to make the film more accessible.
Don, that sounds like when we saw True Grit in a cheap theater popular with old farts. Literally.
etguild-
don’t get me wrong, I still really liked it. But it could have been a really outstanding film that packed a punch instead of just a very good one. Everyone in my showing seemed to love it and my mom did too.
Doug-
it wasn’t even a bargain matinee! Usually when I hit those on weekdays, it’s full of blue hairs. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Now, supermarkets in the daytime full of old people is another story…
Don, you should love bluehairs. They don’t text!