Weekend Box-Office: ‘The Vow’ Leads a Massive February Weekend
By
Brad Brevet
This weekend was up almost 29% from last year with the top twelve at the box-office scoring $173.8 million. It wasn’t until the final weekend in May last year that the box-office had a larger weekend as 2012 is clearly off to a great start with all four new films hitting theaters this weekend performed admirably. Let’s take a look.
Laremy predicted the #1 movie correctly 5 Weeks In A Row
The Vow held up to expectations and with Valentine’s Day a couple days away it should have a nice little five day run to kick off its theatrical debut. As far as predictions go, Laremy didn’t dare go high enough but the readers weren’t so shy as it seemed to be a competition to see who would go highest.
The highest bid on the board came from Brandon with $72.5 million, but it was Chuck Bartowski’s $42.4 million bid that takes the credit for best of the week.
Weekend: $41.7 million RottenTomatoes Score:27% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #1 and his prediction of $33.6 million was $8.1m off for a percentage error of 19.42%.
Safe House was neck-and-neck with The Vow on Saturday and Sunday and just couldn’t overcome Friday’s $1.5 million deficit. The film, clearly, has performed well offering exactly what audiences were looking for in terms of counter-programming.
Laremy was low once again in his predictions and most of the readers were with him in predicting mid-$20 million figures while only a few people went $30 million or more. That said, Brandon may have been way too high on The Vow, but his $33 million prediction here was the closest on the board.
Weekend: $39.3 million / RottenTomatoes:52% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #2 with $22.5 million, which is $16.8m off for a 42.75% error.
The big weekend continues with Journey 2: The Mysterious Island at #3, opening with $27.6 million, $6 million more than Journey to the Center of the Earth opened with back in 2008 and Friday’s A- CinemaScore suggests this one might be able to hang around for a while.
Laremy, yup, you guessed it, was low again on his prediction here. $10 million low in fact as the box-office is on fire at the moment and aj was all over it with a $27.1 million prediction.
Weekend: $27.5 million / RottenTomatoes:61% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #4 with $17 million, which is $10.5m off for a 38.18% error.
Star Wars fans are still out there and showing support as Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace is now #5 on the all-time domestic box-office list, surpassing Shrek 2 now holding a total of $454.1 million. I wonder how things will go after this weekend’s $23 million. Is this all there is for this re-release? What kind of drop is it looking at next week?
Looking over reader predictions Dennis takes home the win here with a $22.5 million prediction.
Weekend: $23 million / RottenTomatoes:63% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #3 with $18.2 million, which is $4.8m off for a 20.87% error.
Not only are the new films performing well, but previous releases aren’t dropping too hard. Chronicle was made on a tiny $12 million budget and has now surpassed $40.1 million at the box-office. I can’t imagine anyone is upset about this result and director Josh Trank is probably now wondering when he’ll be offered that Fantastic Four reboot gig.
Weekend: $12.3 million (-44.1% drop) / Cume: $40.1 million / RottenTomatoes:85% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #5 with $11.66 million, which is $0.64m off for a 5.2% error.
Like Chronicle, you’re looking at another low budget film ($13 million) in The Woman in Black, which CBS picked up for $3 million and is now reaping the rewards.
Weekend: $10.3 million (-50.5% drop) / Cume: $35.4 million Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #6 with $10.02 million, which is $0.28m off for a 2.72% error.
I am happy to see The Grey holding on rather well after all the negativity swirling around its ending. It dipped a little over 52% in its second weekend, but a 46% drop this weekend is a sign some people are still giving it a shot and that there is some good buzz out there.
Weekend: $5 million (-46.2% drop) / Cume: $42.8 million / RottenTomatoes:77% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #7 with $5.02 million, which is $0.02m off for a 0.4% error.
With a reported $30-40 million budget, this is pretty much a crash and burn situation.
Weekend: $3.8 million (-50.6% drop) / Cume: $13.1 million / RottenTomatoes:73% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #8 with $4.66 million, which is $0.86m off for a 22.63% error.
Wow, and to think all the Best Picture buzz is surrounding The Artist, which has not yet cracked the top ten or managed to hit 1,000 theaters. I’ve read the budget here was less than $20 million and it has now made $115.5 million worldwide. These are astronomical figures for a movie of this sort and to think it isn’t even #2 on my Best Picture prediction charts is astonishing.
Weekend: $3.5 million (-22.2% drop) / Cume: $70.7 million / RottenTomatoes:90% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #9 with $3.64 million, which is $0.14m off for a 4% error.
Underworld Awakening is scratching and clawing, doing whatever it can to get to best fellow franchise features as it is now $3.6 million behind Underworld: Evolution. It will probably get there before its theatrical run is done, but I wonder how quick Screen Gems will be to pull the trigger on another installment or if they are even considering it.
Awakening was made on a reported $70 million budget, but beyond domestic returns it has made an additional $53.9 million overseas and this is the kind of title that does really well on home video and I would imagine with it being a Sony release will also do quite well in the Playstation Market.
Weekend: $2.5 million (-54.5% drop) / Cume: $58.9 million / RottenTomatoes:29% Laremy’s rank: Not Ranked
Beyond The Descendants, fellow Best Picture nominees still in theaters, The Artist took in $2.2 million from 808 theaters, Hugo managed $1.8 million from 702 theaters, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close made $1.5 million from 1,375 theaters and War Horse is still clip clopping along in 502 theaters where it made $411,000.
Rampart opened finally this weekend in 5 theaters and took in $65,100. Foreign Language nominee In Darkness opened in three theaters to the small tune of $27,600 and the Animation nominee Chico & Rita won the per theater battle taking in $21,700 from only one theater.
Next weekend the 2012 box office will greet the likes of Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeaunce (which doesn’t look like it will be screened for critics) and This Means War, which was originally going to open on Valentine’s Day, but backed off back to February 17 due to all the heavy buzz surrounding The Vow.
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