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SUNDAY AM UPDATE: Sony Pictures announced today its 2012 opened as a runaway No. 1 with $23.6 million Friday (including $1M in Thursday midnights) and $24.8M Saturday (+5%) from 3,404 theaters, with the studio expecting another $16.6M on Sunday. That’s a $65M domestic weekend and $160M international Wednesday through Sunday launch (with 2/3s of the 100 territories releasing day and date starting Friday, including North America). So it’s on its way past $225M worldwide for its first 5 days. That’s big for a PG-13 popcorn pic that’s neither a previously established brand or franchise or bestselling novel. Yet another in a long line of signature Roland Emmerich films featuring world destruction, this catastrophe film was anything but at the box office and became Sony Pictures’ 8th #1 North American film this year. Opening weekend exit surveys showed the audience was 52% male and 48% female with 45% under the age of 25. Despite dismal reviews, the film received an “A” Cinemascore for moviegoers under 18 and a “B+” overall. It’s exceeding expectations due to an aggressive marketing campaign that went into overdrive 6 weeks ago that included sneaking a key 2-minute sequence of the film’s special effects featured in the film as well as aggressive Internet searches surrounding the Mayan prophesy. But don’t forget that the disaster pic’s production budget was at least $200M and that Emmerich receives 25% of the gross. (see below).
Disney’s A Christmas Carol from Robert Zemeckis showed an excellent hold for No. 2, down just -25.7% from a week ago with $5.6 million Friday and $10.4M Saturday (+87%) from 3,653 plays for a $22.3M weekend and new cume of $63.3M. Overseas, the UK continues to outperform, with the overall international weekend of $16M bringing the total cume from abroad to $34M.
Because of amazing word of mouth propelled by Oprah and Tyler Perry, and castmembers Mariah Carey and Mo’Nique, and even George H.W. Bush, Lionsgate’s Precious: Based On The Novel ‘Push’ By Sapphire also did $1.9 million Friday and $2.4M Saturday (+26%) and an estimated $1.7M Sunday for a $6M weekend for a new cume of $8.9M after expanding to still only 174 plays in arthouse and African-American neighborhoods. The location average was $35K. Precious also is pulling off an impressive feat; it represents a healthy 10% of Fandango’s daily online ticket sales.
In 4th place, Overture’s The Men Who Stare At Goats was down -52% from a week ago for $1.9 million Friday and $2.6M Saturday from 2,453 dates and $6.1M for the weekend.
In 5th place, Michael Jackson’s This Is It for Sony Pictures had a $5.1M weekend from 3,036 theaters and new cume of $67.2M. The film has now grossed $222.6M globally – $155.4M overseas and $67.2M domestic.
Among new limited releases, Wes Anderson’s The Fantastic Mr. Fox from, of course, Fox, got off to a good start in 2 theaters in NY and 2 in LA for $70K Friday and $107K Saturday (49%). This put the animated pic at $260K for the weekend with a total per screen average of $63,000. And Focus Features’ Pirate Radio got off to only a modest start Friday with $879K but a feeble per screen average of $998 from 882 theaters, for an estimated $2.7M weekend, with better results in the urban and suburban smart houses. Saturday is generally the strongest day for adult/boomer movies so the studio hopes there’s an opportunity to rebound tonight.
As for 2012, Roland Emmerich of Independence Day, Godzilla, Day After Tomorrow and other pics in the apocalyptic genre, came to market with this spec script in February 2008 right before the release of his bomb 10,000 BC with its humiliating “9″ Rotten Tomatoes score. Sony won a fairly competitive bidding war to get the property, but had to commit to a whopping 25% of the gross for Emmerich, as well as a staggering $200 million budget for 2012. (Film financing circles speculate the cost ballooned past $300M, maybe because of Roland’s reputation for not controlling costs, but Sony execs vehemently deny this.) That said, all the money went to special effects on this 2 hour, 39 minute, nonstop series of deaths, explosions and collapsing buildings. Certainly not to actor salaries. (Seeing small movie standout Jon Cusack as the lead in this bloater, and you wonder why the filmmakers couldn’t pay for a “real” action star.) Or a real script. (The more candid reviews advised audiences to “look, not listen”.)
Yet this weekend’s great numbers for 2012 prove once again the irrelevance of movie critics and bad buzz (only 36% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes) and the effectiveness of early and relentless marketing. Not to mention everyone’s seemingly insatiable appetite for world annhilation especially when it targets iconic landmarks. ”Really, how many times can you get away with destroying the White House? Nice touch taking out the Vatican, though, even with the Pontiff on the balcony,” snarked a rival studio exec to me. (But when Emmerich proposed demolishing a sacred Muslim shrine, his colleagues freaked out about a possible fatwa — and the idea was dropped.)
Awareness was high among all quadrants for 2012 with a slight edge to males under age 25 who also showed strongest definite interest and drove tonight’s big box office since everything else in the marketplace for them was holdovers. Hollywood expects 2012 to be flat or down for Saturday. But even though the world didn’t come to an end for Sony because of this budget-buster, with talk of another $150 million spent on global P&A, the studio has a long way to go to break even. “Even with some huge international grosses that are the hallmark of Roland’s films, Sony isn’t out of the woods yet,” another studio competitor warned me.
The studio opened 2012 on Wednesday overseas in what has been a $58.4 million cume from 38 territories after Friday when the pic expanded into 100 countries. ”From Day One, this has been a worldwide play for the studio. We have many highly-ranked opening days. Again, remember for a new, non-branded, non franchise title, this is shaping up nicely all over the globe,” a Sony exec told me. Highlights so far included France with the 2nd biggest non-sequel opening day ever, and the 12th biggest opening day among all movies; and Russia, the 2nd biggest opening day ever; plus big numbers in Germany, Belgium, Korea, Poland, Australia, and Thailand.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Every crappy movie out this year is about white people. Can you and your liberal rant just shut up this once? If it was about a white family, Precious would be getting the same reviews and Meryl would be picking out her Oscar dress. You’re an idiot and you probably write crap. PRECIOUS is the best movie out.
I doubt Meryl Streep would play a one-dimensional character. Yup, I write crap and clearly jealous. Nice argument. You don’t have to beat people up for having a different opinion than the masses — that’s actually a good quality in a writer and in a person. Keep going w the flow “SHUT UP” –!
Explanation for the mona lisa in the beginning of 2012, the world is ending so they want to save the best pieces of art. Get it now?
Last movie I will see in a theater. The price is too high for such a poor script. Sure, the CGI effects were fun but that doesn’t make up for the story. Who are the movie writers these days? 14 year old boys?
75 percent of those at box office mojo gave 2012 an A or a B. It’s a great movie! One of the best of the year and not to be missed on the big screen.
Cusack was well cast. He is the only thing about that movie that could put my butt in a seat. However I will wait till it ends up in the dollar theaters. This movies is in the same category as G.I.Joe and Transformers, a silly spectacle.
“Nice touch taking out the Vatican, though, even with the Pontiff on the balcony,” snarked a rival studio exec to me. (But when Emmerich proposed demolishing a sacred Muslim shrine, his colleagues freaked out about a possible fatwa — and the idea was dropped. Funny, even though Hollywood has made an industry of trashing the institutions of Christianity and western civilization, there is no fear of any backlash. Thank you for brilliantly illustrating the difference between the two religions and their respective followers.
Since we’re spouting uninformed generalities: you are an insulated Christian idiot.
Pirate Radio was just plain silly and dumb. And some of the music the disk jockeys in the movie were playing hadn’t even been written in 1966.
This was a great idea for a movie but they botched it with too many goofy dumb pratfall slapticky scenes.
“Seeing small movie standout Jon Cusack as the lead in this bloater, and you wonder why the filmmakers couldn’t pay for a “real” action star…”
Good Point. I’m sure Johnny’s just glad it ain’t going direct to DVD, like much of his recent work.
@Laremy – yes, 4 of the top 5 box office grossers were Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes… expand that to the Top 10 and 5 out of 10 were rotten. Expand that further to the Top 20 (all of which grossed over $100mil domestic) and that increases to 12 out of 20 rotten. The top grosser of the year has a whopping 19% favorable rating
So, no, the data does not back you up.
2012 was utter nonsense – but it was enjoyable nonsense.
Yes the script was full of plot holes and Emmerich loves those cartoonish foreign stereotypes and big emotional speeches – but I’d rather see 2012 than misogynistic garbage like Transformers 2.
OK, Truth corner here; I’m a Glambert and the only reason I went to see 2012 was because I knew Adam Lambert would be singing “Time for Miracles” during the credits; which was assume to hear on the theater stereo system! I enjoyed the movie with my family, we all had fun analyzing everything happening. In my opinion it is a great movie to see on the big screen, loved it! Adam Lambert YOU ROCK!
I really can’t believe all the complaints/hate this movie is provocing. I wonder if the same people hating this movie were the idiots who kept seeing Transformers 2 over and over again over the Summer, that was by far the worst film of the year and yet made $400 million. 2012 is a million times better than Transformers 2 and is now definitely one of my most enjoyed films of the year.
Yes it’s cheesy in places, yes it’s unrealistic but it’s also perfect, check your brain at the door, popcorn entertainment. I saw this in a 2000 seat screen and every seat was full and there were people siting on the stairs, that just proves that sometimes, with all the horrible things happening in the world people sometimes just want to watch something about true escapism. I would gladly see this film again and will be getting the Blu-Ray, why? because I enjoyed it for what it was, stunning spectacle from beginning to end.
This film is going to make a fortune worldwide, you have to remember that films need to appeal to a global audience now and this film does just that. Why will it do so well worldwide? because everyone outside of the US will take it for what it is – a popcorn flick.
first,
i walked out of Independence Day and watched in slack-jawed amazement at the over the top CGI gluttony when the extended clip of 2012 came out. Nikki rips on torture porn, isn’t this disaster porn? it’s not even a politically correct thing, just an aversion to the overabundance of fx and lack of script.
as far as those who complain about Christianity vs. Muslim, can’t you just deal with things as they are? a small group makes threats due to an artistic depiction so the studio blinks. is it really necessary to find a mosque disintegrate as much as was it really necessary to find the Vatican disintegrate? isn’t both case not needed when the director makes the point in multiple ways?
“Animated” and “fantastic” are two words that can never be applied to Wes Anderson.
Couldn’t agree more about Precious being wildly overrated. There are at least ten scenes you could cut without even knowing they were gone. And the third act was weak.
The only truly great film I’ve seen this year is “The Messenger.”. Stunning.
Hey, me again with my second post after last weeks box office. I’ll go in order of grosses this time.
1. 2012 – This is a success for a mid-November film that is original and Sony should be celebrating. However, due to a slow November, I did think the gross would be closer to $70M, if not past it. Roland did some smart casting and having the film take place all over the globe will assure this film’s killer overseas sales. Sony will make it’s money back for sure. However, I was surprised how many families were at the showing I saw on Saturday and think that there might be an actual bump on Saturday, but who knows. I was surprised how it is only in 3404 theaters, but I guess due to last week’s influx of films and most theaters saving screens for Twilight, there was not as much room. Next week there will be a drop more than 50% but I don’t think the TWILIGHT audience will overlap and 2012 will have a nice Thanksgiving low drop.
2. Xmas Carol – Typical low drop as expected, but I don’t see an increase like POLAR EXPRESS has next weekend. No way this will top $200M, closer to $165M final.
3. Men Who Stare at Goats – I am surprised by how big the drop it. Looks like it will fall more than 50%. Should have opened up with a lower theater count and it would have probably had a better hold. Next week I think a lot of theaters will drop it but have a lower drop.
4. Precious – So glad this film is excelling, even with a bigger theater count, but the weeks ahead will be rough. Lionsgate is doing all the right moves so far and was smart to have a bigger expansion this weekend. This might top GOATS I think and come in at third which will be a giant victory.
5. Fourth Kind – Typical horror flick drop. Thought it would have held better though.
6. This Is It – Big drop which I suspected. I think the word of it being more than two weeks has not got out yet. It might even out next week, but I doubt it.
7. Paranormal – Down about 50% and performing typically finally. Don’t know why they expanded it by almost 200 theaters though. Kind of late.
8. Couple Retreat- This is amazing to me how such a bad film is having some of the best holds ever. Down less than 30% from last Friday, it should be down the same for the entire weekend. Congrats to Universal for their marketing b/c something is working.
9. Law Abiding Citizen – Good hold yet again. Should finish around $75M.
10. Box – BIG drop and thank god. One of the worst of the year. $3.4M tops this weekend.
11. Pirate – Same as TAKING WOODSTOCK. No surprise.
I saw Pirate Radio last night and LOVED it. Fully developed characters, brilliant humor, incredible soundtrack. A complete 3 minute scene enacted without words – just expression and gestures and everyone ‘got’ it. Loved it, loved it, loved it.
What have Working Title done that wasn’t worth seeing? They take the time to get the script right (God Forbid!), cast it with the best actors as opposed to the latest vacuous blond out of Hollywood and then go on to create a moving, engaging, intelligent story.
Go out and see this film – particularly if you love music.
Four Weddings and A Funeral took a while for audiences to find it, this will be the same.
Oh come on this is an embarrassing rehash of Good Morning Vietnam and other oldies-driven crap…oh yeah man rock and roll fight the power…only senior citizen boomers could watch that trailer and not cringe…a pandering screwball comedy…the most effort put into it was securing the moldy oldies’ rights…do not expect anyone under age 50 to step foot in the theater
I thought 2012 was a terrific entertainment. If you like disaster films its a MUST see. The audience loved it. LOVE how Emmerich pays homage to Earthquake and The Poseidon Adventure. WELL worth the price of admission.
chuck
2012 was such a disappointment. 2 and a half hours of continuous blowing things up, just for the sake of CGI. I haven’t seen this much unnecessary CGI since the last Pixar kids movie I was forced to sit through. I think that this movie must have had about the same target audience.
Roland Emmerich took possibly the best story of the past few millenia, the Mayans prediction of the inevitable end of the world in 2012, as evidenced by the expiration of all of their calendars and predictions of the future on a precise date in that year, and defiled it with this trash. He somehow even managed to ruin a movie with good casting. Stephen King might have been able to write a decent screenplay for this, which a talented director could then bring to life. Roland Emmerich obviously could not.
I find myself upset in many ways. Upset that I was dragged to see this CGI fest a-la-Transformers with my boyfriend who just wants to see anything where “stuff gets blown up”, upset that we wasted the ticket price to get in, upset that I’ll never get that 2 and a half hours on a Sat. night back, upset that my butt hurts from sitting in the uncomfortable theater seat for so long, upset that this guy keeps getting the right to make movies, and people in this country are childlike enough of mind to keep gobbling it up, but most of all, upset that this movie has already been made by a crummy director, thereby preventing a good director that actually focuses on plot from having a crack at bringing this to life for the first time on the big screen to the general public.
I expected soooo much more from this movie. I’m going to go watch the much more interesting documentary on the real 2012 predictions on the History Channel, and try to block the memory of this film out of my mind.
“The last Pixar kids movie I was FORCED to sit through.” I think I can pretty much dismiss your taste in movies right there.
There are a lot of things wrong with this post (Stephen king? Mayan apocalypse predictions being a legitimate theory?) but I think the one that sticks out the most to me is that you take a dig at PIXAR, one of the only consistently original and superb studios (animation or otherwise) working today.
I mean, really? I might have gone along with it if you had said Dreamworks.
Emmerich=Bank. No money=No Industry.
Um, kaye? The geek in 16 candles was played by Anthony Michael Hall. NOW, you can hate EVERYTHING John Cusak has done. And the tiptoeing around the destruction of Muslim icons in 2012, SHOULD expose it for the liberal piece of shit that it is, but it won’t.
John Cusack WAS in 16 Candles and did play a geek… a geek named Bryce…
http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0071078/
When Emmerich wipes out Mecca, I’ll buy a ticket to one of his movies.
Next time, Roland, don’t puss out.
Update on 2012′s budget issues:
Production – Peg it at $260m. That’s been circulated and is pretty much splitting the difference.
P&A – Give it $150m. Yeah, right.
Total: $410 million charged to this thing.
Let’s say this does $700 million worldwide. 3.1x multiplier.
Roland’s take: $175 million (!)
Remaining gross: $525 million.
Give Sony half of that (conventional splits and this needs a long play for any chance in hell): $525m *.5 = $262.5 million
So that $700 million gross leaves Sony (410-262.5) $147.5 million in the hole on this project coming out of theatrical. That’s a material loss on the balance sheet, even if you’re Sony.
When you can make $700 million worldwide and still lose a mint, you have major structural problems with what you produced. That gross deal in particular is just killing them. If they didn’t have it, they’d be $87.5 million closer to breaking even.
If this is true, then how can anyone make money on tentpoles and why are they still making them?
Everyone break down the numbers and it always ends with a studio losing a mint of money.
So how does anyone make money?
The short answer is that the profit margins in the movie business are terrible and have been terrible for years. Budgets have skyrocketed while grosses have at best held even (and that only through ticket price inflation).
Longer version:
Compare Independence Day’s cost ($75 million production stated budget in 1996 dollars) to gross ($817 million worldwide 1996 dollars) versus, say, Transformers 2 ($200 million production budget, $833 million worldwide in 2009 dollars). You’ve had only ~ 25% inflation since 1996 – meaning that gross is SMALLER on something that cost at least twice as much. The loss in profit is obvious.
And that’s a good one. G.I. Joe, Terminator Salvation – these are unmitigated disasters. It doesn’t have to tank like Stealth to be one.
Blockbuster budgets have WELL outstripped inflation while movie attendance, particularly in the US, drops every year; it’s only somewhat held up by ticket price inflation.
Gross points, particularly on the order of what Emmerich is getting, can be an obvious additional disaster. How in the world are you supposed to make that up in theatrical? You can’t.
The answer has been to let the ancillary streams take care of things – toy sales, DVD’s, Blu-ray. Unfortunately, that’s been collapsing for sometime now and no one really knows how to fix it. Maybe you can’t fix it. But it’s a big issue if you listen to anyone in this town talk on the subject.
Essentially, the transformation of the industry revenue streams, the declining attendance and the soaring costs are eating the old tentpole doctrine alive. Since you can’t easily boost attendance, you NEED to reign in costs. A lot. You simply cannot spend $200m+ to produce a movie, let alone $300m when you’re giving principles significant gross participation.
Nikki when will you stop taking Sony’s BS spin? I mean you barely mention the budget and RE’s gross points. How is $225mm a decent opening in 2/3 of the world? Do you know how much P&A that eats up? And losing 25% even if it’s just domestic doesn’t help Sony’s profitability at ALL. This is reckless on their part and just goes to show they’ll do anything to make a splash even if it leaves them in the red. With declining DVDs it’ll take years for this to make it’s money back, if it ever even does with a mighty beast like Twilight coming in behind it. Even if you lowball the budget at 200, lowball domestic P&A at 50, and take into account the 25%, then Sony still has 50MM to make just to recoup it’s domestic costs. That’s not even counting all the new prints you have to ship to 2/3 of the world, press tours, media buys worldwide, etc. Shame on you for glorifying what is undoubtedly a failure.
I expect New Moon to surprass 2012 when its released this weekend. Now I saw 2012 and I enjoyed it.
This movie was nothing more than a bunch of liberal propaganda.
The acting was horrible and the idealogical over tones were down right insulting. How fitting that Africa is the last place left on the world for humans. The whole movie is a complete joke. Save your $$$ for Avatar.