Box Office Analysis Week 49

Source: www.boxofficemojo.com

“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 fu##in’ 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 theatres, grossed over $1M, which averaged about $77,000 per theatre, 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 theatres, making $250,000, which is an average of $250 per theatre (that’s like 25 people per theatre, 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.

…Download Australian & US Results Here