By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com
Weekend Box Office Report – October 31
See … Saw … Ouch!
Saw 3D whipped into cinemas with an estimated $24.3 million to take top spot in weekend movie going. Distributors gave a wide berth to the Halloween frame when traditionally there are sharp drops in attendance; making the Saw finale the sole new national release.
A different sort of ghoul — the Millennium finale The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest — went limited wide to solid returns of $890,000, but otherwise the frame’s new entries were dominated by niche and exclusive launches. The best of the bunch was the Chinese trembler Aftershock with a single screen entry of $17,600. Other newcomers with good but not spectacular returns included indie drama Welcome to the Riley’s, Brit spy spoof Wild Target, Mexican prize winner Nora’s Will, Claude Chabrol’s final effort Bellamy and non-fiction entry Waste Land.
Overall box office saw a sharp fall from last weekend and a slight bump from 2009 results.
The seventh annual edition of the Saw franchise was hoping for an exit with bite with the addition of stereoscopic imagery. But pre-release tracking indicated that with or without gimmicks the mania was fading and its mid-$20 million weekend tally was pretty much in line with pundit’s predictions. The gore crowd would appear to be sated with current splatter fare but the past month has seen every segment of the audience unenthusiastic for the new crop of movies beyond their opening sessions.
The global juggernaut for the Millennium trilogy continued with the U.S. bow of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. The first installment, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, has racked up $99 million internationally and it and its second chapter are the top grossing foreign-language movies in America post-Pan’s Labyrinth.
Weekend revenues generated about $95 million in sales that translated into a 28% drop from the immediate prior session. It was a modest 6% improvement from 2009 when Michael Jackson: This Is It bowed to $23.2 million followed by Paranormal Activity with $16.4 million.
The fact-based Conviction expanded nationally to fair results and appears to be headed to the same sort of indifferent commercial returns as the rest of the early award season contenders. A sharp drop for last weekend’s Hereafter departs from the sort of holds associated with recent films directed by Clint Eastwood whereas the better than expected stamina of the geezer spies of RED has confounded box office mavens.
But apart from Jackass 3D (which passed a $100 million tally this weekend) such well-reviewed positive word-of-mouth entries as The Social Network and Secretariat have struggled to maintain a presence (forget about momentum) in a marketplace that has all but eliminated the possibility of a second wind.
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Weekend Estimates – October 29-31, 2010
Title | Distributor | Gross (average) | % change * | Theaters | Cume |
Saw 3D | Lionsgate | 24.3 (8,660) | New | 2808 | 24.3 |
Paranormal Activity 2 | Par | 16.4 (5,070) | -60% | 3239 | 65.6 |
Red | Summit | 10.9 (3,250) | -28% | 3349 | 59 |
Jackass 3D | Par | 8.5 (2,720) | -60% | 3139 | 101.7 |
Hereafter | WB | 6.4 (2,630) | -47% | 2424 | 22.2 |
Secretariat | BV | 5.0 (1,610) | -28% | 3108 | 44.7 |
The Social Network | Sony | 4.7 (1,690) | -36% | 2767 | 79.7 |
Life As We Know It | WB | 4.1 (1,440) | -33% | 2860 | 43.6 |
The Town | WB | 2.0 (1,250) | -27% | 1608 | 87.7 |
Conviction | Fox Searchlight | 1.8 (3,220) | 501% | 565 | 2.4 |
Legend of the Guardians | WB | 1.8 (880) | -46% | 2010 | 52.7 |
Easy A | Sony | 1.1(880) | -37% | 1262 | 56.3 |
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest | Music Box/Alliance | .89 (5,830) | New | 152 | 0.89 |
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps | Fox | .78 (840) | -37% | 933 | 51.2 |
Waiting for “Superman” | Par Vantage | .52 (1,580) | -33% | 330 | 4.6 |
Devil | Uni | .51 (800) | -21% | 635 | 33.1 |
Alpha and Omega | Lionsgate | .48 (710) | -34% | 676 | 24.1 |
It’s Kind of a Funny Story | Focus | .46 (960) | -32% | 477 | 5.8 |
You Again | BV | .41 (610) | -37% | 673 | 24.7 |
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger | Sony Classics | .33 (1,022) | -24% | 323 | 2.4 |
Toy Story 3 | BV | .31 (920) | -34% | 337 | 413.9 |
Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) | $89.70 | ||||
% Change (Last Year) | 6% | ||||
% Change (Last Week) | -28% | ||||
Also debuting/expanding | |||||
Stone | Overture | .22 (1,760) | -39% | 125 | 1.2 |
Nowhere Boy | Weinstein Co. | .13 (840) | -62% | 153 | 1 |
10.50 | Alliance | 55,800 (4,290) | 13 | 0.06 | |
Welcome to the Riley’s | IDP | 41,600 (4,160) | 10 | 0.04 | |
Nora’s Will | Menemsha | 25,300 (4,220) | 6 | 0.03 | |
Wild Target | FreeStyle | 23,200 (5,800) | 4 | 0.02 | |
Bellamy | IFC | 19,700 (9,850) | 2 | 0.02 | |
Monsters | Magnolia | 18,100 (6,030) | 3 | 0.02 | |
Aftershock | AMC | 17,600 (17,600) | 1 | 0.02 | |
Waste Land | Arthouse | 10.300 (10,300) | 1 | 0.01 | |
Walkaway | IABA | 9,400 (360) | 26 | 0.01 | |
Strange Powers | Variance | 4,800 (4,800) | 1 | 0.01 | |
The Kids Grow Up | Shadow | 4,600 (4,600) | 1 | 0.01 |
Domestic Market Share (Jan. 1 – Oct. 28, 2010)
Distributor (releases) | Gross | Market Share |
Warner Bros. (25) | 1436.3 | 16.40% |
Paramount (16) | 1389.1 | 15.90% |
Fox (16) | 1289.8 | 14.70% |
Buena Vista (15) | 1155.5 | 13.20% |
Sony (23) | 1142.4 | 13.10% |
Universal (17) | 774.3 | 8.90% |
Summit (10) | 473.3 | 5.40% |
Lionsgate (12) | 412.7 | 4.70% |
Overture (7) | 80.6 | 0.90% |
Focus (7) | 74.1 | 0.80% |
Fox Searchlight (6) | 73.4 | 0.80% |
Weinstein Co. (7) | 61.9 | 0.70% |
Sony Classics (21) | 54.7 | 0.60% |
MGM (1) | 51.2 | 0.60% |
CBS (2) | 50 | 0.60% |
Other * (277) | 229.7 | 2.70% |
8749 | 100.00% | |
* none greater than .04% |
Top Limited Releases * (Jan. 1 – Oct. 28, 2010)
Title | Distributor | Gross |
Hubble 3D | WB | 17,246,918 |
The Ghost Writer | Summit | 15,569,712 |
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo | Music Box/Alliance | 11,270,373 |
The Young Victoria * | Apparition/Alliance | 11,131,232 |
Get Low | Sony Classics | 8,980,294 |
A Single Man * | Weinstein Co. | 7,935,872 |
The Girl Who Played with Fire | Music Box/Alliance | 7,768,761 |
Cyrus | Fox Searchlight | 7,461,082 |
Babies | Focus | 7,444,272 |
The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus * | E1/Sony Classics | 7,394,171 |
City Island | Anchor Bay | 6,671,036 |
The Last Station | Sony Classics | 6,617,867 |
The Secret in Their Eyes | Sony Classics | 6,391,436 |
Winter’s Bone | Roadside Attractions | 6,204,696 |
It’s Kind of a Funny Story | Focus | 5,342,641 |
Under the Sea 3D * | WB | 5,256,073 |
I Am Love | Magnolia | 4,982,446 |
An Education * | Sony Classics | 4,963,224 |
The Hurt Locker * | Summit | 4,531,548 |
Solitary Man | Anchor Bay | 4,360,548 |
* does not include 2009 box office |