Monday Morning Box Office Report: Jacko is Boffo?
There will be some debate over whether or not Michael Jackson’s This Is It really ended up being as successful as the hype machine predicted, but it did lead the weekend box office and if you look at the worldwide box office numbers for the first week, $101 million is a pretty decent haul for a concert film. It’s interesting to note that the movie was significantly more successful outside of the U.S. ($68 million foreign versus $32 million domestic). Either way, it is no longer a limited two-week engagement as Sony has extended the run after suckering people into seeing it in the first few days. Paranormal Activity had another solid haul, although it made less this weekend while playing on more screens than it did the previous one. Law Abiding Citizen and Couples Retreat were at #3 and #4 respectively, while Saw VI dropped all the way to #5. The other horror movie currently playing in theatres, The Stepfather, fared even worse, earning just $3.4 million. The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day debuted all the way down at #16, but it played on less than 100 screens.
1. This Is It — $21.3M
2. Paranormal Activity — $16.5M
3. Law Abiding Citizen — $7.3M
4. Couples Retreat — $6.1M
5. Saw VI — $5.56M
6. Where the Wild Things Are — $5.08M
7. The Stepfather — $3.4M
8. Astro Boy — $3.04M
9. Amelia — $3M
10. Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant — $2.81M
Comments (4)
I normally don’t care about the box office stuff, but right now there are actually some pretty strong narratives going on – that people aren’t over Jackson, but are more over than the media thinks, that Paranormal Activity is the success story of the year, and that WTWTA has been a surprisingly huge box office disappointment (despite the initial huge bump), with huge percentage drops every week. Take a look at the last couple weeks where shit nobody likes such as Couples Retreat and Law Abiding Citizen are holding to at least the average box office drop, whereas WTWTA is losing 2/3 every week.
Now is that bad word of mouth, or that everyone who wanted to see it went out that first weekend, or something else?
Posted by Goon on November 2nd, 2009Yeah good point about Where The Wild Things Are. I think that with all the stuff in the media about it being too scary for kids, it kept most of the parents away from it. So outside of that, it’s basically a Spike Jonze indie film that under any other circumstances would have probably had a limited release.
Posted by Sean on November 2nd, 2009I’m not surprised, one of my biggest gripes these days is the way parenting has become an exercise in paranoia. I go back to my home town and the parks and ball fields are empty unless a “organized” “play date” thingy is going on. I can see how one whisper of WTWTA being a little scary and the parents banning it from their kids lives.
Posted by rus in chicago on November 2nd, 2009Sham’ON!
Posted by jaime on November 2nd, 2009Leave a Reply