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2012 Destroys the World... and Its Competition

News flash: People like to watch stuff blow up. Michael Bay knows this. So does Roland Emmerich. Were they ever to co-direct a movie, the world might actually end because of some ginormous special effects-laden fireball-crash-implosion stunt gone awry. Thankfully, I don't see that happening. They're both doing well enough on their own, with Transformers 2 placing third on this year's list of the highest-grossing films on the planet, and 2012 already landing in the #17 spot on that same list (and of course easily winning the U.S. box-office battle) after its $65 million domestic and $160 million overseas haul. 

Yep, in destroying its competition, 2012 displayed the same grace and ease with which the USS John F. Kennedy rolled over the White House (in the film, of course).  A Christmas Carol, in second place, earned approximately $43 million less.  However, it should be noted that ACC didn't suffer a big drop-off in ticket sales its second week -- figures dipped only 26%, which is considered pretty impressive. (I bet that makes Locke very happy.)

There was also a huge gap between the second and third-place films -- as huge as the tsunami that is staring that poor monk in the face in the poster above.  While Jim Carrey helped Disney's reimagined Dickens classic rake in another $22.3 million, Clooney and his Men Who Stare at Goats chewed up just $6.2 million.

I felt a bit of déjà vu reading about Precious' huge triumph in the number four spot with $6 million -- as we mentioned last weekend, this much buzzed about indie is breaking all sorts of records... and hearts.  I can't bring myself to see it in the theater because I know I'm going to bawl my head off.  But that doesn't mean I won't be rooting for it and its cast come Oscar nomination announcement time. 

And finally, in fifth place we have Michael Jackson's This Is It with $5 million -- its worldwide gross to date is just shy of $200 million.  Shamon!

Where did the weekend's other new release, Pirate Radio, float off to?  Ah, there it is, anchored down at #11 with $2.8 million.  (Though, mind you, it was only in 886 theaters as opposed to 2012's 3,404.)

Looking ahead... you guys know I don't like to make predictions because I'm usually always wrong, but sometimes there are certain circumstances that boost my confidence. Like, um, when a Twilight movie opens.  So I think it goes without saying that New Moon is going to be name of the game when we post our box-office report a week from now.  And yes, I will be reviewing this one (I totally had to fight James and Locke for it... kidding) so check back Friday morning for my totally unbiased take. (OK, I will be biased, because I do love me some RPattz and hate me some KStew. Don't all female Twilight fans, though?)

A Christmas Carol Tops the Box-Office, but Precious Breaks Records

It's no surprise Disney's new animated A Christmas Carol came out ahead at the box office this weekend. Robert Zemeckis's performance-capture retelling with Jim Carrey was carefully positioned to cash in on families seeking early holiday fare and Jim Carrey hi-jinks. (Though as I countered in my alternate review, I like Christmas Carol because it's free of Grinch-style mugging and plays it mostly close to Dickens's text.)

However, not everyone in the Mouse House is happy: at $31 million, A Christmas Carol came up short of expectations and has a long way to go to recap its $200 million budget. (Performance capture ain't cheap.) The good news for Disney is that for the next month there isn't much competition in the way of holiday family films; just some Old Dogs and Planet 51 in the way. (Until Disney's own The Princess and the Frog opens December 11 and those demonic Chipmunks arrive Christmas Day.) So depending on word of mouth--which may be dicey if not all families enjoy its gloomy, ghostly authenticity as much as I did--A Christmas Carol could do okay down the long stretch.

On the other hand, the smaller, independent film Precious: Based on the Novel "Push" by Sapphire (yep, that's its full official title) is off to a much better box-office start--thanks more than a little to the coveted Oprah Bump. Though it only opened on 18 screens (compared to A Christmas Carol's 3,600), Precious brought in a record-breaking $100,000 per theater. That gives the dark story of inner-city abuse and hardship some serious phenomenon-level buzz and will no doubt re-vitalize the Oscar talk surrounding it's co-star Mo'Nique. Precious will continue to expand into more theaters in coming weeks.

Michael Jackson's This Is It slipped to second place with $14 million, but if the spirited talk going on here at redblog is any indication, the concert-rehearsal documentary should continue to do well during its extended month-long run.

The weekend's other new releases battled it out for the top five. The Men Who Stare at Goats did fine with $13.3 million in third place, though I suspect weak word of mouth about the amusing-but-ineffective satiric misfire will negate the obvious Clooney-appeal in coming weeks.

The "is it true?" (it's not) UFO abduction thriller The Fourth Kind came in fourth with $12.5 million and opposite of Man Goats, I think stronger word of mouth and Paranormal Activity's spooky coattails might help this odd little horror film hang in there a while. It's kind of a mess, but playing alien abduction as demonic possession makes for some very creepy scenes.

Meanwhile, Paranormal Activity itself came in fifth as it closes in on the $100 million box-office total. In sixth place was the weekend's other wide release, The Box, from Richard Kelly, the director of Donnie Darko. (My review is coming this afternoon. Spoiler alert: I liked it.)

The rest of the top ten was filled out by Couples Retreat, Law Abiding Citizen, Where the Wild Things Are, and Astro Boy. (Sorry teen vamp fans, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant plummeted from ninth to 17th place. I could make a "Cirque du Freak" joke here about Michael Jackson taking its place, but I'll hold my tongue to avoid the fan's flames.)

This coming weekend brings the massive world-disaster popcorn flick 2012 (from the director of Independence Day) and the much smaller (and sweeter) '60s Brit-rock lark Pirate Radio (from the director of Love Actually). Thanks to ubiquitous wowsa commercials and hype,  think it's safe to say which one will handily destroy the box office.

King of Pop, King of the Box Office

Absolutely no surprises at the box office this weekend: Michael Jackson's This Is It was the only major release, and therefore easily danced away with over $21 million in ticket sales between Friday and Sunday. If you add in the revenue from its Wednesday and Thursday screenings in the U.S. and then include its five-day tally from overseas, This Is It has already earned $101 million, making it the highest-grossing concert film of all time. Take that, Hannah Montana!

As expected, Sony has now doubled the title's initial two-week theatrical run -- This Is It will be playing at your local cineplex until at least Thanksgiving.

Hoping that Halloween weekend would fill moviegoers with the urge to be scared outta their minds, Paramount expanded Paranormal Activity into another 459 theaters and spooked audiences into forking over another $16.5 million, landing the low-budget thriller in the number two spot.  Rounding out the top five were Law Abiding Citizen with $7.3 million, Couples Retreat with $6.1 million, and Saw VI with $5.6 million -- a hefty 60% drop from its October 23 debut.

This coming weekend is when the box office race is going to start getting veeeerrry interesting, folks. From Friday on, beginning with The Box, A Christmas Carol and Men Who Stare at Goats, we've got big-budget, big-name cast, big-name director, big-time marketing-budget films opening one after the other, and I'm very curious as to which titles will emerge victorious. I've pretty much given up on trying to predict winners except when it's a sure thing -- like New Moon sweeping November 20 -- so as far as I'm concerned, the rest of the year is up for grabs at the box office.

Paranormal Activity "Possesses" Top Spot at Box Office(See What I Did There? "Possesses"? Heh...)

Oh I do so love clever box-office headline wordplay! (Other websites went with bits about how Paranormal Activity "cut off," "slashed," or "slayed" Saw VI, or showed strong or "spirited" "Activity," or "scared up" first place.)

Yep, the little marketing phenomenon that could won the battle of the horror flicks this weekend, taking in $22 million to beat out the annual Saw Halloween appearance. Paranormal Activity expanded to a full wide release this weekend, finally setting aside the coy exclusivity release plan that had made it such a huge word-of-mouth event this past month.

But even when showing in almost 2,000 theaters, PA still brought in more than $11,000 per theater. Not bad for a film that cost $11,000 to make. Paramount bought the little movie for about $330,000, so with it having earned a total of $63 million so far, it's safe to say everyone involved is sleeping well at night, any demonic threats nicely staved off by the huge piles of money shoved under the mattress.

(And yes, a PA sequel is being talked about. More on that later this afternoon.)

As for poor Saw VI, it thought it owned every October--to be shown up by some upstart DIY home movie has to be galling. The further adventures in torture porn earned $15 million, about half of what the past couple Saw films have opened with. (The Saw films do well mostly with young men, while Paranormal Activity has been luring in large numbers of female film goers.)

Some of that is no doubt due to Cineplex fatigue with Jigsaw (who died about three films ago) and his followers' annual attempt to come up with new and creative ways for people to die for their sins. But some is also due to the fact that the past four Saw films have made the franchise's storyline so complex, so labyrinthine that many casual horror fans, like myself, have given up trying to follow who's who and why they're strapping people into various instruments of mutilation. Will this year's stumble slow down the march to next Halloween's Saw VII? Not bloody likely...

(Though Lionsgate could take a page from Paramount's book of creative marketing and maybe use some sort of Saw-Wiki to hype the next outing. Promoting it through a web site where non-Saw-fanatics can go to figure out the series' increasingly tangled plot and timelines?)

Spike Jonze's lovely "is-it-for-kids-or-not?" Where the Wild Things Are came in third, taking a 56% tumble in its second week--a sign that mixed word of mouth on the film has hurt it at the box office. You redblog readers have been carrying on a very interesting and thoughtful discussion this past week about whether WTWTA is a great film or a horrible film, and about its appropriateness for children of various ages.

The weekend's three other new wide releases received a less-than-enthusiastic reception. Astro Boy didn't seem to scoop up many families put off by WTWTA--it was in sixth place with $7 million. And despite high hopes from the bloodsucking crowd, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant came in a disappointing eighth place--despite some fun and clever stuff from John C. Reilly, it's attempt at mixing vamps and humor for the tween-and-teen crowd seemed to sputter out.

And then there was Amelia, which I'll be reviewing later today--I just need to decipher my notes, which kept trailing off the notepad pages as I struggled to stay awake. The Oscar-grubbing Earhart biopic starring Hilary Swank opened on a "wide limited" release to 800 screens and actually did respectable per-theater business, coming in at 11th on the chart.

The rest of the top ten was filled out with Law Abiding Citizen (fourth), Couples Retreat (fifth), The Stepfather (seventh), the delightfully resilient Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (ninth), and Zombieland (10th).

This coming week there's only one new wide release, and given that Michael Jackson: This Is It, opening Wednesday. As the posthumous performance documentary has already rung up huge pre-order numbers, it's a safe bet it will easily land atop the Halloween charts.

King Max Rules the Box Office

While some weekend moviegoers might have been caught off guard by the serious undercurrents in Spike Jonze's Where the Wild Things Are, I doubt anyone will be surprised to hear that it threw dirt clods at its competition and then stomped off with not only the box office crown (which is only slightly more impressive than Max's crown -- see left), but also approximately $32.5 million in ticket sales.  I, for one, really enjoyed the film, and can't wait for all of you to share your opinions. There were only a few children in the sold-out show I went to yesterday afternoon, so I'm especially curious to hear from anyone who trekked out to the cineplex with their entire family.  Were your kids into the monsters enough to ride out the slower, chit-chatty scenes?  Were they scared at any of the points it seemed Max might be in danger?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Coming in second place with $21.3 million was a surprisingly gory thriller to which no youngsters should've been subjected: Law Abiding Citizen. (Yes, I'm still fuming about the brilliant couple who brought their screaming one-year-old to the screening Locke and I attended.)  The film's crafty bad guy (or was he the good guy?), Gerard Butler, got a chance to break out his Scottish accent when he hosted Saturday Night Live this weekend -- too bad the 300 spoof they came up with was totally lame.

Paranormal Activity expanded to seven hundred and sixty theaters, and in turn scared $20 million more out of its audiences.  So far it's banked a total of $33.7 million, which is $33.685 million more than its $15,000 budget.  For comparison's sake, 1999's The Blair Witch Project was produced for $60,000 and earned $29.2 million in its first weekend of wide release, going on to gross over $248.6 million worldwide.  Can Paranormal beat that record? Industry pundits say it's unlikely, but stranger things have happened.  Just ask the couple in the film. (What? They're actors?!?! Say it ain't so!)

While few critics liked the fourth place title, Couples Retreat, from all of the comments left on this blog, I gather than many of you luuuurved it.  (For the record, I'm siding with Locke on this one -- despite being a huge Vince Vaughn fan and a married woman who understood all of the "jokes" in this rom-dram-com, I thought it was beyond awful.)  It made another $17.9 million this weekend, a drop of 47.7% from its opening three-night haul.

Rounding out the top five was the weekend's other new release, The Stepfather, which brought in $12.3 million.  I have a feeling that this one's going to fade into obscurity very quickly, what with Friday's release of Saw VI and all. While I personally am most excited about the debut of Cirque du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant, I'd still wager that Saw VI and Astro Boy are going to beat back the undead in this coming weekend's box office battle.  Anyone else care to make a prediction?

Couples Retreat Lures Millions Into Watching

Like Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau's characters in Couples Retreat, millions of filmgoers this weekend were lured into attending what seemed like a promising fun time, full of lovely sun-drenched beaches and hilarious high jinks. Only to get there and find they were stuck at a boring, humorless slog with all the wit and charm of a relationship intervention.

I understand why Couples Retreat led the weekend box office with $35 million. For the same reasons I went into it expecting to be pleasantly entertained: We all love Vaughn and Favs, it seemed like an amusing premise, and James Michener may have been on to something when he called Bora Bora the most beautiful island in the world. It's not your fault, America. We were all had.

Plus, there wasn't much heavy competition. Couples was the only new film opening wide this weekend. And no matter how much some folks loved Zombieland--which came in second with $15 million--its appeal wasn't likely to spread too far beyond the horror-comedy-zombie fans who'd already seen and raved about it last week. (Still, Zombieland only dropped 39% from its opening weekend--a strong word-of-mouth performance.)

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs hung in at third in its fourth week, but as well as the little, unsung animated film has done, it still hasn't quite made back its budget domestically. Still, that's no big deal--a movie like Meatballs will make most of its profit on DVD later this winter. Meanwhile, the movies that started the whole CG-animated genre--the Toy Story/Toy Story 2 3-D double feature--were in fourth place. This is supposed to be the Pixar revival's last week in theaters, but Disney may reconsider a longer theatrical run based on its impressive box office.

But the big box-office story was tiny little Paranormal Activity breaking into the top five while only showing in 159 theaters. The ultra-low-budget demon chiller (which is far from the "scariest movie ever," but is still a sharp, creepy little chill fest) is riding high on Paramount's "Demand it" marketing campaign--it makes the film seem rare and elusive, and therefore all the more intriguing and "dangerous." PA brought in a very house-rattling $44,000 per theater this weekend. As for the whole "Demand it" thing to bring PA to your town? It's a clever but soon-to-be-moot hype tool: On October 23, Paramount will give Paranormal Activity a full, wide release.

The rest of the top ten included Surrogates, The Invention of Lying, Whip It (which also only fell 39%, again suggesting that good word of mouth might help the scrappy little film do better in the long run), Capitalism: A Love Story, and Fame. Meanwhile, Chris Rock's cultural-economic documentary Good Hair opened on limited screens.

Next weekend brings Law Abiding Citizen, The Stepfather remake, and Spike Jonze's highly anticipated adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are. It's a safe bet that the promise of a wild, idiosyncratic, nostalgic rumpus will send the Couples back out to sea.

Zombies Rule

So let me get the bad news out of the way upfront:  I wasn't able to see Paranormal Activity this weekend, so the fact that I'm resuming my redblogging duties isn't tied in any way to the level of scariness in that film.  The good news is that Locke did make it to a midnight screening on Saturday, so he'll be able to give us the scoop soon.  If he's not rocking back and forth in a dark corner somewhere, that is.

While I didn't get to put my bravery to the test with PA, I did overcome my fear of the undead and see this weekend's box office winner not once, but twice.  Yes, that's right, even though there was a bunch of blood, guts, gore, slime, and black ooze splattering across the screen approximately every ten minutes in Zombieland, said gore was so over-the-top and fake-looking that it didn't bother me at all.  I'm sure the fact that I was laughing constantly -- from the first five minutes of the film to its rip-roaring finale -- helped me deal with the gross-out factor a bit, too.  Needless to say, I agree with James' review and highly recommend this one.

After Zombieland made off with $25 million of this weekend's movie ticket revenues, next in line was the box office champion for the past two weeks, Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  This family-friendly flick pulled in another $16.7 million, bringing its grand total to $82.4 million (its budget was $100 million, so it's well on its way to turning a profit).  In third place was the re-release of Toy Story 1 and 2 (now in 3D and offered as a double feature) with $12.5 million.  Remember, that one's only in theaters for another week, so if you think you can handle the three-hour running time for both films (there's an intermission in the middle), you best get yourself some tickets before it's too late.

Coming in fourth with $7.35 million was The Invention of Lying, starring Ricky Gervais and Jennifer Garner.  Quite frankly, I thought this one would do a lot better... but then again, I chose to see Zombieland twice instead of checking out the "What If?" rom-com even once.  Surrogates remained in the top five, barely, with its $7.34 million haul. 

Despite a ton of publicity and hype (and a story that, though predictable, I still thought was pretty cute), Drew Barrymore's directorial debut, Whip It, couldn't skate past the competition and ended up having to share the sixth place spot with Michael Moore's documentary Capitalism: A Love Story.  Both films made $4.85 million.

The only major release coming up this Friday is Couples Retreat... and since I am all emboldened from finally being right with my last box office prediction (that CWACOM would remain in the number one spot for two weeks), I'm going to make another call: I predict that all of the positive word of mouth for Zombieland is going to lead the zom-com (yeah, I said it) to victory once again this weekend.  I just don't think Couples Retreat looks funny enough to knock the zombie killing machine that is Woody Harrelson off of his perch.

The Meatballs Keep Raining Down

Riding on great word of mouth, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs held on to the top spot at the box office this weekend with $25 million--an impressively small 18% drop from last weekend. In the process it beat out the new openers Surrogates (second with $15 million) and Fame (third with $10 million), despite industry predictions those two would battle it out for first.

Meatballs is a true delight--a small, very funny film that's pleasing parents and children alike by not pandering or over-marketing. I did expect Fame to do better this weekend--while it was nothing I'd personally run out and see, it seemed very on-target and entertaining for the teen crowd. However, what might be happening is older fans of the 1980 original are checking the new Fame out and coming away disappointed at how cleaned up it is, while its target audience of teenage girls are skipping it because it's based on "some old movie." Still I suspect it might do okay in coming weeks as word spreads through the middle and high schools.

On the other hand, expect Surrogates to slide out of the top ten quickly in coming weeks--it's a bland, kinda dull action film that I can't imagine people getting too excited over.

The weekend's other wide release, the sci-fi horror flick Pandorum came in sixth with a meager $4 million.

Fourth place went to Steven Soderbergh and Matt Damon's terrific-but-baffling corporate farce The Informant!, with the film only losing 34% from its debut last weekend. And Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself was still holding strong in fifth.

The rest of the top ten included last weekend's other openers--Love Happens and Jennifer's Body--as well as 9, and Inglourious Basterds.

On the limited-release side, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, the "true" tales of bad boy Tucker Max, earned about $3,000 per screen. The fashion biopic Coco Before Chanel was on five screens with $35,000 each, while Michael Moore's latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story opened on only four screens, but brought in a whopping $60,000 per screen.

Next week the top five should get shaken up again as six widely varied films open: Capitalism: A Love Story goes wide, Toy Story 1 & 2 return in special limited 3D editions, and the LeBron James high school basketball documentary More Than a Game arrives. Plus, three mainstream films debut: Ricky Gervais' satirical rom-com The Invention of Lying, Drew Barrymore's roller-derby flick Whip It, and the horror comedy Zombieland.

Gettin' Meaty at the Box Office

Either everyone was really hungry this weekend, or there was a ton of pent-up demand for a good ol' fashioned family film, because Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, based loosely on the children's book by Judi and Ron Barrett, dominated the box office and brought in over $30 million.  Granted, more than half of that amount was comprised of higher-priced 3D ticket sales (and $2.5 million came from 127 IMAX showings), but still -- Sony Picture Animation's third feature-length film made it clear that not everyone was interested in Jennifer's Body (which came in fifth place with $6.8 million).  Or perhaps the citizens of the United States wanted to do whatever they could to take Megan Fox down a notch.  (Let's hope it worked -- I, for one, am really sick of seeing her on every talk show.... and I side with these guys!)

In second place with $10.5 million was The Informant!, Steven Soderbergh's take on the bizarre true story of a price-fixing scandal at agro-giant ADM.  Last week's box office champion, Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself, held strong in third place with $10 million, and the sappy Jennifer Aniston/Aaron Eckhart rom-com, Love Happens, came in at number four with around $8.5 million.

As there aren't any other kiddie films coming out until October 2 (with the re-release of Toy Story and Toy Story 2 -- now in 3D), I have a feeling Cloudy is going to hang tough next week, as it's in no way competing for the same audience as Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, Pandorum, Surrogates or Fame.  We'll see if I was right next Monday!  (I'm always wrong, by the way.)

I Can Do Bad Has a Pretty Good Weekend

I Can Do Bad All by Myself, Tyler Perry's third feature film release in a year, easily dominated a slow post-holiday weekend, bringing in $24 million. That's better than The Family That Preys, which opened with $17 million a year ago at this time, but not anywhere near Perry's biggest opening, Madea Goes to Jail, which had $41 million on its debut weekend last February.

Shane Acker's post-apocalyptic "stitchpunk" fable 9 came in a distant second with $11 million for the weekend, adding up to $15 million since its 9-9-09 opening last Wednesday. The weekend's other two wide opening movies, the horror remake Sorority Row and the Antarctic thriller Whiteout, came in below expectations with about $5 million each--that landed them in sixth and seventh places.

Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds was in third with $6.5 million, helping it pass the $100 million mark domestically. Interestingly, despite its Nayh-zee-scalpin' ways, the film is doing great business in Germany, where the draw is partly the combination of a big international star like Brad Pitt and stand-out performances from several home-grown actors like Christoph Waltz, Diane Kruger, and Til Schweiger. It could also be argued that the movie connects with younger Germans who may be happy to see the dark past of several generations ago once again punished, this time through a revenge fantasy.

The rest of the top five was filled out by All About Steve, which despite fairly rotten reviews hung in at fourth place, and The Final Destination in fifth place. The biggest drop of the week was for Gamer, which lost a whopping 66% of its opening weekend business and fell from fourth to 10th place. Meanwhile, Mike Judge's satire Extract slipped quietly out of the top 10 in its second weekend, having earned only $9 million in two weeks.

August's strong and steady releases, District 9 and Julie & Julia, continued to perform well in eighth and ninth places. District 9 has passed the $100-million mark domestically and Julie & Julia has earned a very healthy $85 million. Meanwhile, the Vogue documentary The September Issue expanded to over 100 theaters nationwide.