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Box Office Guru Wrapup: Twilight Threepeats at No. 1
Meanwhile, Skyfall holds strong and Killing Them Softly has a mild debut.
The annual post-turkey blues kicked in as spending at the North American box office dropped by half compared to the record Thanksgiving frame with the top movies still in command. The only major new offering was Brad Pitt's mob pic Killing Them Softly which died on impact failing to attract much business.
For the third weekend in a row, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 ruled the box office. The final chapter of the vampire soap opera took in an estimated $17.4M representing a drop of 60%. That was exactly the same fall that the last installment suffered this very weekend a year ago. With $254.6M to date, Part 2 is running 3% ahead of Part 1. Overseas, it grossed $48.4M this weekend boosting the international total to $447.8M and the worldwide haul to $702.4M.
Moviegoers kept coming out for James Bond as Skyfall grossed an estimated $17M in its fourth weekend declining by 52%. Sony has amassed $246M from North America to date. Once again in third place was Steven Spielberg's Lincoln with an estimated $13.5M as it continues to cash in on Oscar buzz. Off 47%, the Disney release has collected $83.7M to date, an impressive figure for a historical drama. It will join the century club soon.
Following its disappointing opening, the DreamWorks Animation pic Rise of the Guardians dropped by an encouraging 43% in its second weekend to an estimated $13.5M boosting the 12-day cume to $48.9M. Kidpics often fall by 60% or so coming off of the turkey frame while Christmas movies hold up much better. Given Rise's semi-holiday theme, the decline was quite respectable. But the toon still hopes to show better legs in the weeks ahead in order to reach the heights of most recent 3D animated offerings from the DreamWorks stable.
Ang Lee's 3D adventure Life of Pi held up well dropping 47% to an estimated $12M giving Fox $48.4M after 12 days. Tumbling 58% from the holiday, Disney's hit toon Wreck-It Ralph followed with an estimated $7M. The video game flick has grossed a sturdy $158.3M thus far.
Brad Pitt anchored his worst debut in nearly two decades with the gangster pic Killing Them Softly which was dead on arrival in sixth place grossing just $7M, according to estimates. Looking at the popular actor's past live-action films that opened nationwide on the first weekend, it was his worst debut since 1994. If that weren't bad enough, Killing got slaughtered by audiences polled by CinemaScore who gave The Weinstein Co. release a pathetic F grade. The horror pic The Devil Inside scored the same grade on the first weekend of the year and collapsed by 76% in its sophomore frame. Averaging just $2,888 from 2,424 theaters, Softly received fairly good reviews from critics but paying moviegoers were utterly disappointed.
The remake Red Dawn followed with an estimated $6.6M, off 54%, putting FilmDistrict's MGM production at $31.3M. Denzel Washington's popular drama Flight collected another $4.5M, according to estimates, and has taken in $81.5M for Paramount thus far.
The horror pic The Collection bowed in the number ten spot with an estimated $3.4M from 1,403 locations for a weak $2,430 average for LD Entertainment.
Below the top ten, Oscar hopefuls expanded their releases aiming for wider audiences and kudos cred. The period piece Anna Karenina widened from 66 to 384 locations in its third weekend and grossed an estimated $2.2M for a decent $5,807 average. The Focus title has made $4.1M. Fox Searchlight's Hitchcock went from 17 to 50 locations and grossed an estimated $406,000. Averaging a sturdy $8,120, the Anthony Hopkins-Helen Mirren drama upped its sum to $784,000.
The Indian crime drama Talaash scored a strong opening in limited release with an estimated $2M from 172 locations for a promising $11,529 average for Reliance Entertainment.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $101.9M which was up 45% from last year when The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 held steady at number one with $16.5M; and up 36% from 2010 when Tangled took over the top spot with $21.6M.
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Janson Jinnistan
It's official. "Killing Them Softly" is this year's "Drive".
Audiences get very nervous away from their formulas.
Dec 2 - 09:01 PM
Timothy Mensing
I agree wholly with your comparison, but would posit the true culprit here is the difference in what the marketing says the movie is versus what the movie actually is.
Drive as action but really a full body experience, Killing as Brad Pitt in crime noir but moreover a statement on US society.
Dec 2 - 10:57 PM
LeVar Marklar
I think that explains the low cinema scores, but not the low initial box office. Word of mouth does not spread fast enough to kill opening weekend.
Dec 3 - 04:44 AM
Zach Idiculla
Comparing Drive and Killing them Softly? Really Janson? The former did not get an F CinemaScore; also, holds down a 90%+ RT rating.
Dec 2 - 11:32 PM
LeVar Marklar
They are both critically well reviewed films that flopped commercially because of their formula. Drive had higher critical reviews, and the Cinemascore of C- instead of F, but a comparison does not require the two films have the exact same metrics.
Dec 3 - 04:41 AM
Zach Idiculla
Janson says "Audiences get very nervous away from their formulas," referring to KTS and Drive; you say they flopped commercially because of their formula. I'm not disagreeing, but you or someone else to expound further -- do you think these movies flopped because of their non-typical structure?
Dec 3 - 08:27 AM
Francesco Fortuna
To Zach: Drive and KTS did flop not only because of their structure, but also because they were mismarketed. People thought Drive was a fast and furious movie based on the marketing but, once everyone saw it opening weekend and were disappointed, the movie started to drop 50%+ each weekend after that.The same will happen with KTS unfortunately. In fact with the "F" cinemascore it's going to be a lot worse than Drive in terms of box office in the next coming weeks.
Dec 3 - 09:34 AM
Janson Jinnistan
Audience expectation was very important, but what's more important, even more than marketing, is the fact that many audiences, especially the action-oriented audiences these films attract, are resistant to films that don't follow the action-film formula. So rather than being challenged by a film that is surprising, they hold it against them film for not giving them some version of what they think they wanted. (I personally want to be surprised when I watch films.) Judging on audience reaction that I've read, it also appears that audiences didn't appreciate all that "talking talk" in the film, and rather than being unimpressed by the capitalistic metaphor in the film or how it was handled (which is open to discussion), they seem to be more aggravated that they had to deal with socio-political metaphors, which causes great stress to non-thinking heads.
Dec 3 - 11:17 AM
Zach Idiculla
Cool, I hadn't considered those points. Thanks guys for clearing that up!
Dec 3 - 12:28 PM
Infernal Dude
Was Drive really considered a flop? It seems it made back its budget and has become a cult hit. I know Gosling isn't hurting for work because of it and Refn now has Logan's Run which will probably be a hit.
Maybe KTS just isn't that good of a film and that's why its tanking.
Dec 3 - 02:59 PM
Janson Jinnistan
"Killing Them Softly" was great. It's tanking because it talks a lot.
Dec 3 - 07:03 PM
Shane Patterson
Drive was horrible.
Dec 3 - 08:10 AM
Christopher Kulik
Yeah, and it got a 15-minute standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festival. It's actually awesome!
Dec 3 - 10:11 AM
zinc alloy
Drive was brilliant...........
Dec 3 - 03:37 PM
Francesco Fortuna
To Infernal: I guess it wasn't really a flop, but it did under perform and it quickly disappeared from theaters. It couldn't even stay in the top ten longer than two weeks.
Dec 3 - 08:00 PM