Box-Office Wrap-Up: Irene vs. Box-Office as ‘The Help’ Reigns Over Worst Weekend of the Year
By
Brad Brevet
Sorry for no Friday box-office news yesterday, I spent my time from 7 AM to midnight enjoying the magical land of Disney and California Adventure. But I am back in action so let’s explore the weekend’s results, which mark the worst weekend at the box-office this year as the top twelve managed a meager $73.1 million, $15 million worse than Super Bowl weekend back in late January.
Hurricane Irene wasn’t too interested in box-office results and on Friday some thought it may result in a weekend box-office down 25 percent due to theater closures on the East Coast. Either way I’m not sure it would have been much prettier than we ultimately ended up seeing as the highest grossing newcomer barely cracked $10 million and The Help took its second straight weekend at #1.
Laremy predicted the #1 movie correctly 5 Weeks In A Row
It wasn’t only the newcomers that were affected by Hurricane Irene, The Help with only a 28.5% drop from last weekend’s move from #2 on opening week to #1 remains impressive, but it will have to wait to crack the century mark until early next week when it will become the 21st film of the year to make over $100 million.
I don’t expect it will stop there, though, and I don’t think it’s a risk to say next weekend will see another strong holdover, but it will probably drop from the top spot.
The question now is just how strong an Oscar contender are we talking about here?I see Best Picture as a strong possibility (for the moment) and expect at least one acting nomination (can’t decide between Spencer or Davis at the moment). Not sure about much more after that as below-the-line categories such as cinematography, costumes and art direction don’t seem likely to me.
Weekend: $14.3 million (28.5% drop) Cummulative Total: $96.6 million RottenTomatoes Score:74% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #1 and his prediction of $14.41 million was $0.11m off for a percentage error of 0.77%.
This isn’t an awful film, it’s just another shooter in that same range of PG-13, videogame-esque films we’ve come to expect from Hollywood. You know what I’m talking about, a plot that falls to pieces in an attempt for gloss and frenetic explosions. Nothing wrong with that, seeing it finish above the rest of this week’s newcomers obviously says there is an audience for this kind of film… they have been served.
Weekend: $10.3 million / RottenTomatoes:34% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #4 with $10.45 million, which is $0.15m off for a 1.46% error.
There’s always an audience for solid scary films, but this one is not solid even though we all wanted it to be. I didn’t do a lot of research, but horror films don’t appear to be doing too well this year. Final Destination 5 is already out of the top ten after only three weeks in theaters and the top fear flick is Insidious, which blew away expectations on a minimal budget. What gives? You’ll see in six more spots just how bad horror really is doing.
Weekend: $8.68 million / RottenTomatoes:58% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #2 with $12.6 million, which is $3.92m off for a 45.16% error.
Still dropping in small bursts, Rise of the Apes has almost cracked that $150 million mark domestically and is pushing $275 million worldwide. Happy to see it.
Weekend: $8.65 million (-46.3% drop) / Cume: $148.4 million / RottenTomatoes:83% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #5 with $8.48 million, which is $0.17m off for a 1.97% error.
Easily the best new release of the weekend, Our Idiot Brother, cost a measly $5 million to produce and I’m not sure what the marketing looked like, but I can’t imagine it was too pricey as it seemed to me the Weinsteins focused mainly on online marketing. Did you see a lot of television ads for this one?
Weekend: $6.5 million / RottenTomatoes:67% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #3 with $11.48 million, which is $4.98m off for a 76.62% error.
At only $21.7 million after two weeks this is quite an unimpressive result. Of course, it only cost $27 million to produce so it’s not like Dimension is wringing their hands too hard, though I’m sure they’re wondering why in two weeks they are still $6 million behind the third film’s opening weekend.
Weekend: $5.7 million (-50.9% drop) / Cume: $21.7 million / RottenTomatoes:20% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #6 with $6.75 million, which is $1.05m off for a 18.42% error.
Families have spoken, CGI little blue creatures running around New York in 3D is what they want.
Weekend: $4.8 million (-38.5% drop) / Cume: $126 million / RottenTomatoes:21% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #10 with $3.98 million, which is $0.82m off for a 17.08% error.
Everyone has spoken, a hulking man running around killing parkour sand monsters while Rose McGowan channels Freddy Krueger is not what anyone wants.
Weekend: $3.1 million (-69% drop) / Cume: $16.5 million / RottenTomatoes:23% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #7 with $4.7 million, which is $1.6m off for a 51.61% error.
I met with some folks at Disney while I was down here in California over the weekend checking out Disneyland and we talked Fright Night, just what exactly happened here? My theory was the marketing was all wrong. An awful poster and trailers that confused the audience as to what kind of film to expect. I even mentioned how all of the images released to press were so dark and ugly it was impossible to make the film look good even though I really liked it. If you have a chance give it a watch, it’s a fun vampire feature.
Weekend: $3 million (-61.1% drop) / Cume: $14.2 million / RottenTomatoes:76% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #9 with $4 million, which is $1m off for a 33.33% error.
I’m sure some comedies are worth spending $50 million to make, but I’m not sure this is it.
Weekend: $2.9 million (-38.3% drop) / Cume: $69.5 million / RottenTomatoes:76% Laremy’s rank: Not Ranked
As for next week, on Wednesday The Debt will hit theaters, which I saw in Toronto last September and actually enjoyed (read my review here), though I’m not sure it’s a film you necessarily need to rush out to see. On Friday we’ll see the release of Apollo 18 and Shark Night 3D, a pair of PG-13 horror films that will test my theory of horror’s bad year. My guess is Apollo 18 will rise to the top of the box-office as I think the alien conspiracy aspect of it may intrigue audiences, I know it has driven a TON of traffic to the article I wrote about the film last year.
Otherwise there is the limited release of A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, which I see tomorrow afternoon. Any chance that film makes a dent?
What do you think? My guess is Apollo 18 will take the #1 spot with what is estimated to be 2,750 theaters over Shark Night‘s 2,400 theaters. Will Shark Night‘s 3D carry it to the top or will audiences just wait for Piranha 3DD in November, which will actually be rated R?
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