The Weekend Report

Home on the Deranged

Newcomers Resident Evil: Retribution and Finding Nemo 3D led weekend ticket sales with respective estimated debuts of $20.9 million and $17.4 million. Both films nonetheless bowed to lower than anticipated returns and saw their media thunder stolen by potent returns in the niches. The sessions other national freshman _ the inspirational drama The Last Ounce of Courage _ weighed in with a dull $1.8 million.

The big noise was unquestionably The Master, a daunting, compelling study of inter-dependence that opened with five 70mm engagements and a staggering near capacity $748,000. Also displaying premiere power was the Wall Street cautionary Arbitrage with a $2 million launch from 197 engagements.

There was good news for new entries on the Indian circuit with Hindi Barfi! grossing $954,000 at 132 venues and Telegu Life is Beautiful launching with $334,000 on 55 screens. In Quebec L’Affaire Dumont looked sturdy with a $184,000 bow at 45 discretions and a single Toronto screen rendered $8,600 for Inescapable.

Exclusive bows of Liberal Arts and 10 Years showed encouraging signs while mini-breaks of Bangkok Revenge and After sealed off any thought of expansion plans.

Overall frame revenues expanded to roughly $87 million for a tidy 29% from last weekend’s box office nadir. It was still 17% off of the 2011 pace when the 3D Lion King roared to a $30.1 million debut and the $11.3 million opening of the critically admired Drive was viewed as disappointing.

Box office for the year to date has shrunk to 3% better than 2011 and the industry is eyeing the release schedule for a turnaround

The action franchise Resident Evil (five films in 10 years) has largely been fueled by strong international revenues and Retribution shows no signs of breaking that mold. The opening weekend crowd was unsurprisingly 64% male and both aging fans and the movie going crowd contributed to an audience that was 55% aged 25-years and senior. It’s now simply a matter of when expanding budgets and declining profits make future installments unprofitable.

Also getting put under the profitability microscope is Disney’s conversion of vault favorites to stereoscopic versions. The tepid response to Finding Nemo 3D likely will slow down the process until sales of in-home 3D TVs becomes more common much as color TV hit a tensile point in the early 1960s and monochrome evaporated from big and small screens.

The Master amazed and confounded critics as well as audiences and that’s stirred up a debate that at least has spurred the cognoscenti to buy tickets. The challenges ahead to expand strategically, maintain interest and be on screen and in contention for critic’s awards and Academy consideration are considerable. But for the moment it’s the picture with the big target in its frame and that’s not a bad situation for the nonce.

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