Box Office Analysis Week 50

Source: www.boxofficemojo.com

“Kiss you and we’re #1? M’oookay….”

Despite every other industry ailing during the recession and everything, Hollywood has already set a new revenue record for theatrical releases in 2009, already grossing over $9.79 BILLION so far this year, which breaks the previous record of $9.68 BILLION set in 2007 — and that’s not counting AVATAR and the other X-Mas releases coming soon to a theatre near you! In fact, pundits are estimating that the annual box-office will surpass the $10 BILLION mark in the next 10 days or so. Not bad, not bad at all.

This week’s releases didn’t break any records though, as Disney’s THE PRINCESS AND THE FROG went into wide release and nabbed the #1 spot with about $25M bucks. A decent amount, but certainly a lot less than many of the “big animated” movies that were released this year. Now, it’s just a matter of waiting to see if the film has “legs”. And speaking of “legs”, how about Sandra Bullock and THE BLIND SIDE, eh? The film remains in the top 2 for the 4th weekend in a row, and adds another $15M to its bank account, which has now ballooned up to $150M. Bullock’s own box-office record is $163M, which she just set with THE PROPOSAL this past summer.

Speaking of records, it seems as though NEW MOON won’t be setting any more records, despite an explosive opening weekend just about a month ago (it opened with $140.7M, third only to THE DARK KNIGHT’S massive opening weekend and SPIDER-MAN 3). The film should plateau around the $300M mark, as it sits around $270M right now. In case you’re wondering how that fares on the all-time domestic revenue list, the film is currently sitting in 43rd place, right behind the original SHREK and right above THE INCREDIBLES. It’s to note that the original TWILIGHT film only grossed $193M overall.

The only new release of this week was Clint Eastwood’s INVICTUS, which managed an “okay opening” in 3rd place and about $9M, but nothing to write to Matt Damon about. Much like THE POLAR EXPRESS a few years ago, Robert Zemeckis’ A CHRISTMAS CAROL started slow, but has been picking up the pace since. The film only lost 11% of its audience from last weekend (an extremely low amount!) and is now up to $125M in domestic gross, despite only a $30M opening. That said, the film apparently cost about $200M to put together.

The two films that dropped out of the top 10 this weekend were PLANET 51 ($37M) and EVERYBODY’S FINE ($7M). Despite a limited release, Jason Reitman’s UP IN THE AIR was in 11th place this weekend, and should be moving into the top 10 soon as it widens its release in the next couple of weeks.

…Download Australian & US Results Here

To view the Top 20 for week ending 6 Dec 09: Click here