Weekend Box-Office

WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE

"You’re
money and you know it!"

This is Sandra Bullock’s year and we’re just
sitting around watching her movies, apparently. After posting the
biggest opening weekend of her career with THE PROPOSAL this past
summer with $33.6M (which ended up being her highest grossing
film to boot with $164M), Bullock beat that mark with the
opening for THE BLIND SIDE three weeks ago, $34.1M, and appears to
be headed to yet another personal best, as the film just moved
from 2nd place for the past two weeks (behind NEW MOON, of course)
into 1st place in its third week of release and has already earned
$129M — not to mention being the major surprise hit of the
season!

I’m not sure if I’m reading too much into the
film’s success, but could it be possible that audiences are dying
for a fuckin’ happy-go-lucky movie amongst all of the
horrid news on TV these days, not to mention the umpteen
apocalyptic flicks out there like 2012, THE ROAD and THE BOOK OF
ELI to be released in January? Just a thought.

On the other side of the spectrum, this weekend’s
3 new releases didn’t fare too well with BROTHERS scoring the
highest with a 3rd place opening and about $10M in returns,
despite its three high-profile young stars. ARMORED did about as
well as you would expect for a thriller starring Matt Dillon, as
it opened in 6th place and about $7M bucks, while Robert DeNiro
doing his best "Jack Nicholson in ABOUT SCHMIDT"
impression for EVERYBODY’S FINE, tanked in 10th place and about
$4M. A lot of previous releases also dropped like crazy this
weekend, with NEW MOON, 2012 and NINJA ASSASSIN losing over 60% of
their respective audiences from last weekend.

The three films to drop out of the top 10 this
week were limited releases including THE FANTASTIC MR. FOX ($14M),
PRECIOUS ($36M) and THE ROAD ($3M). Other limited releases made
waves this past weekend, including George Clooney’s UP IN THE AIR
which despite only being released in 15 theaters, grossed over
$1M, which averaged about $77,000 per theater, which is a massive
figure (THE BLIND SIDE averaged about $6,000 in first place).
Also, in case anyone gives a shit, TRANSYLMANIA bombed in 1,000
theaters, making $250,000, which is an average of $250 per theater
(that’s like 25 people per theater, right?).

It’s also interesting to note that BOONDOCK SAINTS
2 is still in the top 15 (14th place to be exact), but sticking
around despite having been released 6 weeks ago. The film
apparently cost $8M to produce, and has made $7M back so far. NEW
MOON, on the other hand, is closing in on the $300M mark, although
it doesn’t look like it will break the $400M
mark, despite opening with $143M. The film has grossed over
$570M around the world though. That’s a lot of sparkles.

Next week sees the expansion of Disney’s return to
2D animation with THE
PRINCESS AND THE FROG, as well as the expansion of the
"it movie" of the season in UP
IN THE AIR, as well as the release of Clint Eastwood’s latest
shot at the Oscars with INVICTUS
starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon with an accent. How much $$$ do you think
THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG will make during its entire theatrical
run? VOTE
HERE.

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