Box-Office Wrap-Up: Dec. 17 – Dec. 19, 2010

Wow, this is one hell of a slow weekend at the cinema. TRON: Legacy is on top as expected, but it’s only the smaller indie films that appear to be making any noise worth listening to. Let’s break it down.
Laremy predicted the #1 movie correctly 7 Weeks In A Row
Laremy continued his spot on predictions with Yogi Bear as he was less than $1 million off when it comes to what looked like an absolute travesty of a film. I didn’t have the nerve to go see it and am quite honestly surprised anyone could muster up the courage to watch this movie based on the trailers.

On the reader prediction side of things John-PT was almost spot on with a $16.8 million prediction, but again there were a lot of people way overestimating, some predicted a number double the actual result. Surprised?

Result: $16.7 million

Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #2 with $17.58 million, which is $0.88m off for a 5.27% error.
The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe made $65.5 million its opening weekend. After two weeks in theaters The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has now cracked the $42.8 million mark. Not a pretty picture for Fox who took a gamble keeping this franchise alive for one more film.
Result: $12.4 million

Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #4 with $14.4 million, which is $2m off for a 16.13% error.
After a soft opening in 4 theaters last weekend where The Fighter made $75,003 per theater it opened up its doors to 2,503 theaters this weekend and $4,874 per theater. I actually watched this one again this weekend and loved it all over again and now think it is the #2 contender for Oscar’s Best Picture alongside The Social Network and ahead of The King’s Speech. It fits nicely in-between those two films with something for the older and younger members of the Academy, something those two other films will likely split the interest.
Result: $12.2 million

Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #3 with $15.4 million, which is $3.2m off for a 26.23% error.
A 47.2% dip for the Angelina Jolie and Johnny Depp starrer means not even multiple undeserved Golden Globe nominations could bring the audiences out to this one for a second weekend and I suspect this will begin dropping like a stone from here on out. Of course, with so few films opening in the next few weeks it may remain in the top ten, just with rather dismal numbers.
Result: $8.7 million

Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #8 with $7.41 million, which is $1.29m off for a 14.83% error.
Tangled dipped only 39% and I imagine it will probably do the same over the next couple holiday weekends seeing how it’s the only animated film out there at the moment, behind Yogi Bear of course, but I think we all recognize the distinct difference between those two.
Result: $8.6 million

Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #7 with $9.65 million, which is $1.05m off for a 12.21% error.
If you thought the numbers for The Fighter were good, slow it down a bit… Black Swan would like to tell you a story about a film that took in $8.3 million from only 959 theaters. That’s a $8,655 per theater average for those that are counting. Not too shabby eh? But wait, in my conclusion I’ll tell you about a film that did even better.
Result: $8.3 million

Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #5 with $12.21 million, which is $3.91m off for a 47.11% error.
Yikes, a $120 million budget and a $7.6 million opening. Not even Laremy had the nerve to go that low and most of the readers were too high, with the highest picks on the board being $40 million. However, three readers went sub $10 million (Check Spot, Athar and John-PT) with John-PT being the closest with a $7.2 million pick. It’s not easy to discount a film that much, good on yah.
Result: $7.6 million

Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #6 with $11.17 million, which is $3.57m off for a 46.97% error.
Not much to say here other than this one is going to fall short of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince‘s $301.9 tally last year and won’t be besting the $290 million Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire making this the number five grossing Potter film of all-time. However, I have to believe they’ll re-release it next year when Part 2 comes out, which will give it a boost and I fully anticipate Part 2 becoming the highest grossing one of them all, especially given the 3D bump it will receive.
Result: $4.8 million

Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #9 with $4.41 million, which is $0.39m off for a 8.12% error.
Unstoppable rounds out the pack with a 51.4% dip. Moving on…
Result: $1.8 million

Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #10 with $2.28 million, which is $0.48m off for a 26.67% error.

In smaller release, the excellent Rabbit Hole opened this weekend in a whopping five theaters, but did manage to take in $55,000 for an $11,000 per theater average. Yet, that wasn’t the highest per theater on the board this week, that went to The King’s Speech, which the Weinstein Co. continues to slowly roll out. This weekend it made $1.07 million from only 43 theaters for a $25,000 per theater average. Had they tried just a little harder they could have cracked the top ten with perhaps fewer than 100 theaters, which would have been a nice story heading into the holidays.

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