Box Office Analysis Week 33

Source:
www.boxofficemojo.com
www.joblo.com

For a film that only cost $30M to make, DISTRICT 9 kicked plenty of ass during its first weekend of release, with $37M in grosses in domestic dollars alone. The film, which was produced by LOTR guru Peter Jackson and directed by first-time feature helmer Neill Blomkamp (born in South Africa, moved to Vancouver Canada at age of 18), also garnered a massive 88% positive response from Rotten Tomatoes critics, and a 95% positive response from JoBlo.com readers.

Last week’s #1 movie, G.I. JOE, dropped about 60% from last weekend, but stayed pretty strong in 2nd place. The film has generated $100M domestically in its first 10 days of release. The week’s other new successful release was THE TIME TRAVELER’S WIFE, which seemed to benefit from its counter-programming efforts versus all of the “young male blockbusters” out there. JULIE & JULIA also stayed strong, losing only 38% of its audience from last weekend, and grabbing 4th place.

The weekend’s 3 other releases didn’t fare so well, with the crappy looking THE GOODS opening in 6th place with only $5M, Disney’s PONYO garnering only $3M in receipts over the weekend, while Vanessa Hugdens’ “nekkid pictures all over the Net” didn’t seem to help her latest release entitled BANDSLAM, as it opened with only $2M and in 13th place (and that’s despite the TWILIGHT sequel’s trailer showing up in front of the film).

500 DAYS OF SUMMER has turned into the “little movie that could” this summer, although I personally think the studio is going too slowly in “widening” its release. The summer is almost over, fellas…what are you waiting for to go all wide? The film has all the buzz in the world behind it at this point, and has already made close to $20M during its 5 weeks of limited release. The films that dropped out of the top 10 this week include FUNNY PEOPLE ($48M), A PERFECT GETAWAY ($12M), ORPHAN ($38M) and ALIENS IN THE ATTIC ($21M).

…Download Australian & US Results Here