Box-Office Wrap-Up: Jul. 24 – Jul. 26, 2009

Curses. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince fell a staggering 61.5 percent which meant my accurate G-Force prediction was worthless. Only alert commenter Checkspot had the order correct – we salute his excellence. Let’s get it on.
#1 movie predicted correctly: 0 Weeks In A Row
Highly annoying. Wanna take a guess at how many films have won consecutive weekends this year? Got your guess in? The answer is four. And half of the titles were more about timing than anything, Paul Blart and Madea Goes to Jail both won lightly contested second weekends. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and The Hangover both came by their wins honestly, but we’re reaching a point where domestic box-office is so frontloaded it’s impossible to repeat.
Result: 32.1 million (My rank: #2, $.2m off)
It’s nearing half a billion dollars but they’ve got to be a little concerned. The film received 83 percent over on RT (up from Phoenix’s 77 percent) … and yet it’s still sinking like a stone. Have the fans grown out of them? Or are they getting too dark to take everyone along? They’ve got to be scratching their heads a little over at Warner Bros.
Result: 30.0 million (My rank: #1, $7.0m off)
Put out a generic rom-com, get rewarded. The rules are simple, folks. Now go buy an HD camera and start cashing in! I guess the one bright side here is that the budget was nearing $40m – which means they still have some work to do.
Result: 27.0 million (My rank: #3, $8.3m off)
It made $4,644 per theater, I think I had it at $5,000. That’s a variance I can live with.
Result: 12.7 million (My rank: #4, $1.1m off)
Now that we’re in the “been there, done that” section of Oracle I feel it’s my duty to report to you that The Hurt Locker finished 13th. It was also beaten on per theater average by four films above it. That’s not a good sign, people still don’t love modern war.
Result: 8.2 million (My rank: #5, $0.9m off)
You know what might sneak up soon? 500 Days of Summer. It only had 85 theaters but it cleared almost $20k per. That’s double what anything else did this weekend. The slow-burn marketing might pay off there.
Result: 8.0 million (My rank: #6, $1.4m off)
The lowest percentage bleed of the weekend, another in a long list of accolades for this one. Todd Phillips is probably at the point where they’re just delivering him cocaine and strippers without him even having to ask.
Result: 6.46 million (My rank: #8, $1.16m off)
I did have the two titles within a hundred thousand of each other, so I’ll take partial credit.
Result: 6.42 million (My rank: #7, $1.02m off)
Back on track! Is Funny People going to win next weekend going away? I know it looks to be more serious Sandler, but the competition really is minimal.
Result: 4.2 million (My rank: #9, $0.7m off)
10. Bruno
On the other hand, if guinea pigs can win I suppose Aliens in the Attic can make a charge, eh? Sigh. Oscar season can’t come soon enough. But get your early calls in now, I’m gonna need the wisdom of crowds.
Result: 2.7 million (My rank: Not Ranked)

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