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MONDAY UPDATE: Actuals are in for the Christmas weekend, and the East Coast blizzards took their toll on box office. All the numbers were down 5% to 10% from studio projections, and Sunday’s moviegoing in the Northeast fell about 40%:
Top 10 Actuals
1. The Little Fockers (Universal) [3,536 Theaters]
Weekend $30.8M, Cume $45M
2. True Grit (Paramount) [3,047 Theaters]
Weekend $24.8M, Cume $36M
3. Tron: Legacy 3D (Disney) [3,451 Theaters]
Weekend $19.1M, Cume $87.3M
4. Chronicles Of Narnia 3D (Fox) [3,350 Theaters]
Weekend $9.4M, Cume $62.5M
5. Yogi Bear 3D (Warner Bros) [3,515 Theaters]
Weekend $7.8M, Cume $35.8M
6. The Fighter (Relativity/Paramount) [2,511 Theaters]
Weekend $7.6M, Cume $26.6M
7. Tangled 3D (Disney) [2,582 Theaters]
Weekend $6.4M, Cume $143.6M
8. Gulliver’s Travels 3D (Fox) [2,546 Theaters]
2-Day Weekend $6.3M, Cume $6.3M
9. Black Swan ( Fox Searchlight) [1,466 Theaters]
Weekend $6.2M, Cume $28.6M
10. The Tourist (GK Films/Sony) [2,756 Theaters]
Weekend $5.4M, Cume $40.8M
SUNDAY AM DAY-AFTER-CHRISTMAS UPDATE: Here are North American box office estimates for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday for the 5-day holiday weekend. Christmas Eve always means very soft moviegoing while Christmas Day gets going late in the day. An East Coast blizzard should hurt Sunday’s moviegoing overall. Fox’s not-very-anticipated Gulliver’s Travels starring Jack Black opened Saturday in 2,546 theaters and did the expected poor business, showing that 3D higher ticket prices are no help for bad buzz. The Weinstein Co’s Oscar-touted The King’s Speech widened to 700 runs after platforming 4 weeks and finished in 11th place. Interesting to note that, one week after opening and already Jim Brooks’ How Do You Know bomb for Sony has fallen out of the Top 10 (below) despite a top cast.
1. Little Fockers (Universal) NEW [3,536 Theaters]
Wednesday $7.2M, Thursday $7.1M, Friday $5M, Saturday $14.5M
3-Day Weekend $34M, Cume $48.3M
This was supposed to be the big get-out-the-audience Christmas weekend family comedy, and exit polling showed the audience was 57%/43% female vs. male, and 53%/47% under vs over age 30. Granted, the Christmas Day total was almost 3 times Christmas Eve. But these are Universal’s own less-than-encouraging numbers as well as 3-day weekend and 5-day holiday cumes for this third in the Meet The Parents/Meet The Fockers franchise starring Robert de Niro and Ben Stiller, with the Friday and Saturday estimates for Little Fockers only about 75% of the take for the same exact play period of Meet The Fockers which also opened during the Christmas holiday. Watching the sausage being made when it came to this major studio laugher wasn’t pretty. At one point, Universal contemplated replacing director Paul Weitz with producer-writer John Hamburg on The Little Fockers. But that would have resulted in a Directors Guild dust-up. Plus, Adam Fogelson had just taken over as Uni Pictures chairman and didn’t want to throw the already traumatized studio into a worse funk. So the decision was made to fix the movie in post. Weitz, Hamburg, Stiller, and Jay Roach spent two months going through the footage and finalized a week of pickups with all the principal cast. So Universal scheduled more than half a dozen full-blown scenes, including 4 with Dustin Hoffman who originally had been written out of the threequel when the studio couldn’t reach a deal with him. But Hamburg and Roach helped convince Dustin to reprise his role opposite Barbra Streisand and he didn’t come cheap. This is now at least a $100M budget film. Universal continued to spin that Little Fockers could have gone out “as is” but the studio “wanted to make it better as an investment in the future of the franchise.” I always thought this threequel would kill the studio’s golden goose — and with only 9% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes and a “B-” CinemaScore, it likely did.
2. True Grit (Paramount) NEW [3,047 Theaters]
Wednesday $5.5M, Thursday $5.6M, Friday $4.7M, Saturday $10.4M
3-Day Weekend $25.6M, Cume $36.8M
Given that Christmas Eve is more of an adult moviegoing time, it’s not surprising that the writer/director Coen Brothers’ Oscar-touted 2D Western take on the Charles Portis novel (and they claim not to have watched the first movie that won John Wayne his Oscar in 1969) jumped into the No. 2 spot Friday based on both male quadrants. But it stayed there Saturday, which was a shock. Turns out this is the biggest opener for a Coen Brothers film (passing Burn After Reading‘s $19.1M) and bigger even than that other Oscar-touted pic The Social Network‘s $22.5M weekend opener. “It almost doubled people’s expectations and it beat Tron: Legacy 3D for 2nd which no one saw coming,” a Paramount exec gushed, calling the result “excellent”. With only a $38M budget and a big 95% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, plus great acting and quirky dialogue, this pic has a good shot of making coin. And yet no one could understand why anyone would want to remake it in the first place. (And, yes, I consider this a remake.)
3. Tron 3D (Disney) Week 2 [3,451 Theaters]
Wednesday $5.6M, Thursday $6.1M, Friday $3.9M, Saturday $7.8M
3-Day Weedend $20.1M (-54%), Cume $88.3M
The jury is definitely out on its legs as rival studios don’t think tepid reviews will help spread any positive word-of-mouth to the non-fanboy crowd. No doubt Tron: Legacy 3D will pass $100M domestic grosses before the end of this year. But with a budget estimated as $150M, and a global marketing push estimated at another $120M, this Christmas gift from Walt Disney Studios’ previous Dick Cook administration but premoted by the present-day Rich Ross crew in charge will have to depend on international overperforming to break even. Abroad, Tron: Legacy is currently in release in 34 territories representing 65% of the international market and has done $65.5M, for a worldwide total now of $153.8M.
4. Narnia 3D/Dawn Treader (Walden/Fox) Week 3 [3,350 Theaters]
Wednesday $2.5M, Thursday $2.9M, Friday $2.2M, Saturday $3.7M
3-Day Weekend $10.8M, Cume $63.9M
With Yogi Bear failing, Narnia 3 may end up as the beneficiary since word-of-mouth is good. After a disappointing debut, it still could become the default family choice for moviegoing over the holiday period.
5. Yogi Bear 3D (Warner Bros) Week 2 [3,515 Theaters]
Wednesday $2.9M, Thursday $3.2M, Friday $2.1M, Saturday $2.5M
3-Day Weekend $8.8M (-46%), Cume $36.7M
When Yogi 3D can’t even muster much of a Christmas Day kid’s bump, you know this bear is a bomb. Pic will continue to play young which will limit its staying power.
6. The Fighter (Relativity/Paramount) Week 3 [2,503 Theaters]
Wednesday $1.3M, Thursday $1.5M, Friday $1.2M, Saturday $3.4M
3-Day Weekend $8.5M, Cume $27.5M
With only a $25M budget, this Oscar-touted movie will make money, though not as quickly as once thought.
7. Gulliver’s Travels 3D (Fox) NEW [2,546 Theaters]
Saturday $3.5M
2-Day Weekend $7.2M
Twentieth Century Fox moved Gulliver’s Travels back three days to Christmas Day to get away from some of the other 3D movies and in hopes of becoming “the only new present under the tree, so to speak,” as a Fox exec told me. Nope. Plus it gave the studio time to advertise more. One big plus: Jack Black was a trouper and went everywhere to promote. Didn’t help. Of its locations, 1,000 were 3D but even the higher ticket prices couldn’t overcome the bad buzz even though the studio is convinced the pic is “cute and satisfying”. Tracking had been lousy but I don’t get why Fox intentionally lost Wednesday and Thursday, which are good movie-going days with all the kids out of school for this film veery much aimed at families. The studio obviously thought The Little Fockers would be more of an event movie this week than it turned out to be. I understand that the Gulliver’s Travels budget with 3D conversion was right at $115M. (The pic was shot in the UK, so the studio got tax breaks there, though mostly the movie was created in post to get the right size and scale shots.) Since the book has great cultural meaning internationally, Fox is hoping the title translates to broad awareness and does well overseas, especially with those Star Wars and Transformers gags. (Audible groan.)
8. Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Week 4 [1,466 Theaters]
Wednesday $1.7M, Thursday $1.7M, Friday $1M, Saturday $2.5M
3-Day Weekend $6.6M, Cume $29M
This Oscar-tipped ballerina horror movie — never thought I’d use those words in the same sentence — keeps defying the odds. Then again, it’s playing only in upscale, sophisticated markets and theaters.
9. Tangled 3D (Disney) Week 5 [2,582 Theaters]
Wednesday $2.2M, Thursday $2.6M, Friday $1.7M, Saturday $2.3M
3-Day Weekend $6.5M, Cume $143.7M
This Rapunzel retelling, Tangled 3D, has now surged past DreamWorks’ Megamind ($142M) — something, frankly, that no one thought it could or would do. But Disney’s marketing machine widened the audience well beyond young girls. Again, this is another gift from the previous Walt Disney Studios’ Dick Cook administration for Rich Ross & crew. Overseas, Tangled is currently in release in 18 territories representing 45% of the international market for a total $118M or worldwide cume of $261.8M.
10. The Tourist (GK Films/Sony) Week 3 [2,756 Theaters]
Wednesday $1M, Thursday $1.1M, Friday $875K, Saturday $2.3M
3-Day Weekend $5.7M, Cume $41.2M
—
Specialty Movies
The King’s Speech (The Weinstein Co) Week 5 [700 Theaters]
3-Day Weekend $4.5M, Cume $8.4M
127 Hours (Fox Searchlight) Week 8 [115 Theaters]
3-Day Weekend $205K, Cume $9.8M
Somewhere (Focus Features) Week 1 [7 Theaters]
3-Day Weekend $142K, Cume $196K
Country Strong (Sony Pictures Classics) Week 1 [2 Theaters]
3-Day Weekend $34K, Cume $47K
Rabbit Hole (Lionsgate) Week 2 [34 Theaters]
3-Day Weekend $95K, Cume $176K
The Illusionist (Sony Pictures Classics) NEW [3 Theaters]
2-Day Weekend $58K, Cume $58K
Casino Jack (ATO) Week 2 [15 Theaters]
3-Day Weekend $61K, Cume $111K
The Tempest (Touchstone/Miramax) Week 3 [13 Theaters]
3-Day Weekend $33K, Cume $194K
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Oh Great,the moment i wrote the above , the top 10 came out.
Seems like this is the quickest place to get HW Boxoffice updates.
Wow, at a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes for Little Fockers, it looks like there are people out there with good taste (critics & audiences). Auds are gonna skip this one mainly because Meet the Fockers was so awful, and this one might be worse. It’s good to see audiences supporting Black Swan, True Grit, The Fighter. It gets more movies like these made and lets the studios know there is a hunger for good material and smaller films. Not to mention it gets the smaller movies wider releases so people like me in Alabama can see them.
“It gets more movies like these made and lets the studios know there is a hunger for good material and smaller films.”
True, but with two horrendously bad flicks — Fockers and Yogi Bear — in the top five, that sends a rather different message to studios.
I am tired of all the Yogi Bear bashing. It was a great time with my kid. He is almost 5. He loved it. I loved taking him to the movies. People need to realize that not every movie is made specifically for them.
Correct! And congrats to Karen Rosenfelt, the best producer in Hollywood at the moment.
When is Karen getting Emma Watts job and running Fox?
I assume that post was written by Karen Rosenfeld.
Yes, we should all hope for and aim for that key 5 and under demo. I have a stuffed bunny with floppy ears that should elicit the same reaction.
Fockers was not funny, in fact none of them have been funny, people should be able to rent the original MEET THE PARENTS that Greg Glienna wrote and directed. That one is very funny. Again hollywood rips off a film creates a franchise and blows it. Hamburg is a fraud!
With your taste and knowledge, thankfully you don’t make movies…..
Anyone know the budget for True Grit? It looks like it will have a better than I expected 5-day weekend.
Just got out of a screening for it. While I loved everything about the film, I doubt word of mouth will be great. It’s probably too slow for most audiences.
True Gripe is a long-winded bore !!
You would know. Don’t listen to this idiot- go see one of the best westerns ever filmed. There will be many nominations here: Picture, costume, score, Best Actor/Actress/Supporting, cinematography: All exceptional. Barry Pepper’s main scene is worth the price of admission.
John Wayne made True Grit. Therefore there will only be one True Grit. All others are fake.
We went with another couple and came out with mixed feelings. For one thing, we all agreed that the audio was TERRIBLE. We couldn’t understand much of the dialog. Jeff Bridges does a fine job and the young gal was fabulous.
Perhaps the best thing here, as another commenter observed, is that there are many, many fine Western novels that haven’t been made into movies. Maybe this movie will change all that.
you are a moron who would’nt recognize dialog if it bite you on the ass
There were a number of Academy members that complained about difficulty of hearing the dialogue at the Academy screening (and they weren’t old and infirm).
One probably improperly set up theater indicts the hard work of dozens of sound craftspeople?
I read yesterday that the budget was $38 million, so it looks like Paramount will have two hits this holiday/awards season if you include The Fighter as well.
I just saw True Grit tonight with my wife and we loved it. Steinfeld, Bridges, Damon, Brolin and Perry were great. Dialog was great and didn’t want it to end. Great big screen pic. Highly recommend.
Glad to hear the CBs came through on this one – I’d go to see them sit in chairs and fart – the odds of a great Coen film are usually very high. “A Serious Man” was sort of a Coen-quirky dud, but still worth seeing once.
I rewatched the JW version yesterday in preparation for seeing the CB take on it; I don’t remember Kim Darby sucking so badly in her role. It was just off-putting this time around.
Looking forward to the new one tomorrow.
Highly looking forward to True Grit but I will wait for next week.
True Grit was great. The young girl is fantastic.
How Do You Know not even in the Top Ten? Oh-Oh . . .
I thought the same thing. $120 million down the drain! Oh, well, at Amy re-upped her contract before How Do You Know tanked!
And Harry Potter will be out of the Top 10 by Christmas Day, by the look of things. There was a time when a Potter flick that opened on Thanksgiving would still be raking it in over Christmas. And box office pundits were telling us that this one would be “the biggest Potter yet”. I guess not.
Like clockwork Harry Potter has scored the same gigantic BO numbers it has since the first film. Despite making a faster exit from the BO scene franchise films burn more brightly early on there release cycle in recent years. Currently it sits at $823 million worldwide and will probably end up just north of $925 million. Considering they split the final film into two, thats a pretty big score for the franchise.
It’s still doing poorly compared to earlier flicks in the franchise. Come on, a Potter flick that’s gone and forgotten by Christmas?? And as far as overseas business goes, remember the percentages are lower for foreign box office.
Many fanboys (and a lot of the geekier critics) were predicting record-setting box office for this one, maybe as high as $400 million. It ain’t getting there, folks.
The only reason people were predicting records for the latest Harry Potter was because of the fact that it was originally going to be in 3D, and this is the type of movie that people would would be likely to pay more to see in 3D.
Once it was announced that it would not be in 3D, expectations softened and most were expecting between 290 and 310, just like the rest of the films. At this rate it looks to end up at somewhere between 285 and 295, which is down on the 6th film but in terms of dollars its about the same as the 4th and 5th and better than the 2nd and 3rd.
Definitely not under performing, I would say it’s meeting the lower end of expectations. Overseas it looks to end up with somewhere between 600 and 630, which is once again right in line with previous films. Worldwide should be around 900, perhaps a bit more.
Poor JLB, this will probably be the last film he’ll make. Six films in nearly 30 years, even Kubrick was more productive.
Kubrick didn’t write and produce 1000 episodes of TV in his time either so I think JLB is way more prolific that your example.
Roger Ebert gave two stars to How Do You Know. He knows.
And the Hollywood Foreign Press nominated Depp and Jolie for The Tourist. They know even less than Ebert.
God that’s depressing. Crap sequel beats instant classic
Um…which crap sequel do you mean?
I assume he means Fockers, though from what I hear Tron would also be a contender.
So much for that Tron franchise Dis has been banking on. Luckily another Pirates movie is around the corner. Fact is, the Mouse House should have followed thief own lead when re-launching the franchise. With Pirates, they hired a top notch filmmaker in Gore. For Tron they should have done similar, not hiring an architect who directed some video game commercials that looked like cut scenes from the games themselves.
The MAIN problem with Tron is Disney kept the original Tron in the Disney Vault and didn’t release it on DVD. They thought they’d get more home video revenue waiting to sell Tron and Tron Legacy as a 2-pack after TL’s theater run, but it’s killing TL’s box office revenue, since people want to know the full story. Terrible decision by Disney that makes the franchise stillborn.
Disney didn’t release Tron because it’s horrible and they didn’t want to taint the new movie. No matter happens at the box office, Tron has already been a huge success for Disney.
So True , the original Tron was awful.
what are you talking about? How has it been a success? It does mediocre to poorly in the box office, it got bad reviews&it’s not even certain it’ll make the almost 300million it cost! Where is the success in that?!
Didn’t release it on DVD! I got the 20th anniversay edition on DVD. I also think Tron Legacy was a good movie as well.
I don’t think TRON: LEGACY is suffering at the box office because many people are desperate to see the old one and won’t go see the new one for fear they can’t follow its intricate plot.
Disney rightly realized the old film had a small cult following of people in their 30′s, who would go see the new one regardless. They also knew they had a huge target audience who weren’t born when the old one came out, and may not even know there WAS an old one.
They don’t want the original’s now-dated effects keeping all those kids away from the new one.
TRON was terrific. don’t know what people’s problem’s are with it. was a lot of fun. saw it lat night.
i also don’t get why a 70 million first week is bad… their mid week numbers have been very strong.
The opening weekend was below expectation. $43.6 million might seem like a lot of money but in the backdrop of a $320 million cost, the movie will need at the very least $600 million to break even. At this point, it doesn’t look very likely.
I saw Tron: Legacy last night with my wife and brother. My brother and I LOVED the original as kids (although admittedly I remember very little of it).
I tempered my expectations of the movie after seeing the fairly low 48% Rotten Tomatoes score. I was surprised how much I liked the story, and despite some of the harsh comments about the lead actor Garrett Hedlund, I thought he did a good enough job.
The main problem I had with the movie was that “IT WAS NOT IN 3-D!”
The movie opens with an insert saying that many of the scenes are in 2D and I immediately thought to myself, “I paid $20 for IMAX 3-D and you’re telling me now that it’s not all in 3-D?” I was furious.
Even with the plot progresses with the characters entering into “The Grid” or the digital world, the 3-D was not just underwhelming, it felt completely non-existant. I took off my glasses several times during the movie to make sure that the theatre was showing the correct version.
Ladies and gentlemen, save your bucks and avoid this movie in the 3-D version. Disney, you lost a loyal fan in me by marketing this movie as a groundbreaking 3-D movie.
With all due respect Craig, your comments are idiotic in nature. If you back out the $2 million or more that Little Fockers made at the midnight showing then TRON would have clearly been still #1. Little Fockers only achived #1 yesterday with the help of the additional showing at midnight that TRON did not have. Secondly the poll done over on BoxOfficeMojo asked its online readers to vote for which movie they were more likely to watch this upcoming weekend at the theaters. TRON was a close second to True Grit. While not scientific for sure, it was at least an interesting indicator as to the mindset on that one particular site of people who follow movies. And more and more people who have gone to see TRON so far are speaking up more and more on various websites about how good the film actually is, so your negative, and somewhat ignorant, comments may be premature.
Right, it’s still possible, given the bad word of mouth for THE FOCKERS, that it will tank in the coming days and fall to third place by the end of Sunday.
TRUE GRIT seems to be overperforming and TRON is actually holding steady.
Just finished watching Little Fockers, and trust me what you think is bad word of mouth should be considered praise. This movie SUCKED.
Well, Tron will still end up being the top-grossing December release. Also, the director was perfectly competent. It wasn’t his fault he had to work with a poor script.
Because a director is given a script and says “gosh, guess I gotta shoot it exactly as written. I don’t have any thoughts that I’m gonna make them execute. They wrote it, I gotta shoot it. Darn.”
I think you’re severely overestimating the power of screenwriters in hollywood to shape what appears on screen.
(and by the way, the T:L script is being unfairly maligned all over the place… it’s actually quite layered)
Yea, the script is actually much better than what ended up on screen. It had some decent social commentary regarding man’s place in a world where technology seems to be taking over.
But ultimately it got dumbed down and also, Lasseter/Pixar came in and beefed up the father-son elements.
Lame.
Yeah, it’s funny…
Was it a sequel or a remake?
I am amazed at how well they achieved recreating the worst aspects of the original TRON, either through great writing, amazing technology or just plain dumb luck.
A Turd of a film, but a great vehicle to sell toys and spawn sequels…
Gore Verbinski is a top notch director? You really should just say no to drugs…
Al, what is the “instant classic”? “Tron: Legacy”? It’s really a shame for Disney that spending $175 million on marketing hasn’t even gotten them to $65 million after five days. They can’t get “Tangled” past $150, they couldn’t do a thing with “Secretariat,” their marketing of “Prince of Persia” was a disaster and now they are blowing a bunch of money in a fruitless effort to get “Toy Story 3″ a best picture Oscar. (With 10 slots, they could do nothing and get that!). Now, “Tron” is a disaster, not just in the US but worldwide, where it has disappointed in every single market. Hey Bob, how’s that regime change working out for you? Miss Dick Cook yet?
Not to mention how Disney made a complete hash of marketing Narnia. Not that Fox has done brilliantly, but the franchise was hurt by Disney’s idiotic decisions. Get a real marketing department already!
Narnia wasn’t hurt by poor marketing, Narnia was hurt by Prince Caspian being a really underwhelming film.
And next year…more revamps, with Pooh (yeah, it’s cute, but it’s NOTHING you haven’t seen before), Pirates (hmmm…might have a chance, now that the Turners are out of the series) and….Muppets…egad…that’s a disaster waiting to happen. Jason Segel going around on talk shows talking about how he had to leave the room when he first saw the Kermit puppet doesn’t help. It isn’t charming, he acts like he needs help. Yeesh. Pirates better come through for Disney, or Richie might be skipping out of the Mouse House next.
hey, didn’t Secretariat open to the same amount as The Fighter? And didn’t Tangle over perform? And won’t Tron get to 200 million, a good bench mark for any film?
I hope that more people see How do you know after Christmas — it’s a great adult comedy worth seeing — not as great as As good as it gets, but from the same writer and director and if anything — Paul Rudd is fantastic.
@craig – you think the problem with tron legacy was kosinski?
in the movie I saw the director absolutely shot the lights out and directed a BEAUTIFUL movie out of a script was a complete disaster.
srsly that script was terrible and they knew it. the number of writers they brought in to try and bring the dead back to life was what 2? 3?
and about gore and pirates 2 and 3 were pretty much unintelligible. the same issue with tron was the same issue pirates: the story, and the script.
but i agree with you, disney is fckd til pirates 4
Just saw tron again this time in Real3D, unless you see it in IMAX 3D just see it 2D but I still loved it. Its nerdy but fun but I see you either love it or hate it. I am happy Narnia is not losing steam as fast as it was and that Tangled is still getting $$$. Both of them deserve it as does Tron in my opinion. Little Fockers deserves to crash and burn… True Grit = amazing and I am glad it is overperforming.
I have full and abiding faith “True Grit” will win out the weekend when word gets out, via Tweet and other means, at how execrable “Little Fockers” is. That movie is bad BEYOND bad. The above poster is spot on in calling “True Grit” an instant classic, because it truly is. The Coen Bros. outdid themselves here.
The big surprise? That “Black Swan” is outperforming “The Fighter” even though “The Fighter” is in more theaters — 2,503 …. to ‘Black Swan” being in 959 theaters. I still think “The Fighter”, while critically acclaimed, lacks big Box Office legs, and it certainly is no “Blind SIde” hit.
“Blind Side” had a roughly similar budget — $29 million — to “The Fighter” and yet it opened at $34 million its first weekend en route to $255 million domestic.
“The Fighter” on a budget of $25 million opened wide with a Box Office take of just $12 million. I don’t know how the PR people keep saying its box office makes it a hit given how well a comparable sports flick did.
“The Fighter” is no “Blind SIde.” Hell, “The Fighter” may not even be a “Black Swan.”
Given all of the hype and free PR, “The Fighter” should be doing way, way better. It is NOT. Rarely have I seen such uncritical box office analysis for a movie. “The Fighter” is winning on points (with the critics) but it is not winning the fight at the Box Office (with the viewing public)
The big question is WHY?
It’s because Mark Wahlberg can not carry a movie. He just doesn’t have that ability. I promise you if they had Christian Bale as the fighter then this movie would be doing at least DOUBLE it’s business.
No. Double? Just no. You sound like a fanboy. It’s not like Christian Bale made Terminator Salvation a hit. (And his prestige films are usually utter flops — Rescue Dawn, The New World etc.) Wahlberg’s pretty reliable at pulling asses into seats for his movies — not a ton, but it’s rare that he’s headlined a flat-out disaster. I think The Fighter’s doing fine; surprised that Black Swan is ahead, yes, but I think that’s more about Black Swan than it is about The Fighter.
Maybe, but Bale was brilliant as his crackhead brother, so I’m not sure I’d want him to have played the lead.
I agree with you about Wahlberg. But I doubt Bale as lead would have done any better. Outside of Batman, Bale can’t carry a movie either.
It has nothing to do with Whalberg at all. The Fighter is doing poorly because nobody wants to see a boxing movie during the holidays, especially when there are so many other good films to choose from.
Too bad. “The Fighter” is fantastic. One of the years best movies. My friends who see it end up loving it!
The Fighter is R rated (hard R at that)-and it fell right in line with expectatioins it’s opening weekend. Comparing it to any film that isn’t R rated is idiotic. I feel like The Fighter doesn’t need to be in so many theatres-I doubt Black Swan would do any better with 1,000 more theatres and vice versa.
The film will for sure break even and make a small profit. What is there to criticize?
This is true. However, the same can be said for Black Swan. Actually, judging from content reviews, it doesn’t seem like too hard of an R. Unless you’ve seen it?
I think the Black Swan is this years Blind Side . great movie
Are you nuts? Have you seen either movie?
Blind Side was terrible and got a nomination for Oscar ratings. Black Swan is a quality film for 2010 and is a film that deserves a nomination for Best Pic.
It has nothing to do with Whalberg not being able to carry a movie. The Fighter is not doing as well as expected because nobody wants to go see a boxing movie during the holidays.
“The Fighter is not doing as well as expected because nobody wants to go see a boxing movie during the holidays.”
Um, Nerd….you DO realize that every “Rocky” movie except II and III opened at either Thanksgiving or Christmas right? That includes “Rocky IV”, the biggest grosser in the series.
“Raging Bull” opened in November of 1980. “Ali” opened on Christmas Day, 2001, “The Hurricane” opened in Dec 1999 and “Million Dollar Baby” opened in Dec, 2004.
“The Fighter is not doing as well as expected because nobody wants to go see a boxing movie during the holidays.”
Not even on Boxing Day?
I’m pretty sure that The Blind Side was at least a 35 million dollar picture, but ignoring that, your comparison is still way, way off.
A: The Blind Side was an easier feel good sell.
B: They were able to market it as a “Christian” film without tainting its mainstream appeal.
C: Football is a more popular sport than is Boxing.
D: Starring a woman made The Blind Side an easier sell.
E: The Blind Side had 3100 theaters to The Fighter’s 2500.
F: And this is the important one, The Blind Side was a PG-13 film while The Fighter is not just rated-R but it EARNED its R-rating.
Look a little closer next time, eh? The Fighter is doing very well (and it’s on
The Blind Side opened before Christmas AND Thanksgiving weekends, allowing it to collect heaps of money.
$25MIL or $11MIL? On Charlie Rose the cast stated it cost $11MIL and not a penny more. Where’s the extra $14MIL?
The specific quote on Charlie Rose was $11M below the line. With the above-the-line talent involved, that $14M atl number sounds accurate.
How does Paul Weitz keep getting movies? Fockers has HORRIBLE reviews – and he got that gig even though he had just directed a huge turkey for Universal – the Vampire’s Assistant – which cost $70 mil and didn’t even make $15 mil. And before that was American Dreamz which was awful – and before that, In Good Company which was medicre. And let’s not forget that terrible Chris Rock remake of Heaven Can Wait. His only two good movies were directed with his brother, Chris – that had really good scripts to start with.
the guy is a total hack
I think In Good Company is really underrated.
I know for a fact that Universal begged Paul to direct the film if only because he could handle all the egos on set. Uni has no franchises, this was one of the few left and they were going to make it one way or another. Blame John Hamburg for an atrocious script. True, Weitz needs a hit, but you can’t throw the dirty weight of LITTLE FOCKERS solely on his shoulders.
I love someone who “knows for a fact” and then gets all his facts wrong. Nikki’s facts are true.
Paul Weitz is an absolutely terrific director who inherited an overcooked turkey of a franchise, with egos to match. Nobody halfway intelligent can blame this on him — not sure why Nikki continues to bash.
Ok Chris, calm down.
3 original films in the top 10, and they’re 7-9. Sad.
I am not surprised(or diasappointed) by the ranking fors for Fighter or Swan. Neither or mainstream films and are doing very well.
You do know that the third film you called “original” is based on a novel don’t you?
I wouldn’t be so fast to write off TRON. Wait until the next two weekends are over. It’s actually done decent business early this week and now the kids will all be out.
Certainly it’s doing better than most of the other junk out there right now thats underperforming. Everything except for True Grit.
Wow, Black Swan keeps performing strong, not surprised, it’s probably the best film playing at the moment. Pity that something as stale and terrible as Little Fockers is able to do so well, people will watch almost anything that has a brand name. How Do You Know is such an embarrassment!
Any guesses how “Country Strong” will fare in the LA in limited release? Reviews don’t look good.
a little over $3,500 on two screens which ain’t great
18k then $9M next weekend.
Let’s see, you’ve got an awful title, Gwyneth Paltrow as your can’t-open-a-movie “star”, and a concept (beleagured country singer) which just doesn’t grab audiences, not last year (“Crazy Heart”) not in 1992 (“Pure Country”) and not in 1982 (Clint Eastwood’s “Honkytonk Man”)
I’m guessing it dies a quick death in theatres.
it did TERRIBLE! It did really poor in 2 theaters&it’s a 22% rotten in rottentomatoes.com! It’s supposed top go wide in over 1,500 theaters in 2 weeks, but I strongly doubt it will..
I love James Brooks. But why would anyone give him $120 million to make a movie after Spanglish?
Lets face it, Disney screwed up the marketing campaign for Tron. There is such a thing as over-marketing, fatigue and annoyance. And this campaign not only did it, but did more then any movie in recent memory. “Tron Tuesday”, online promos everywhere, outdoor for a year, three huge comic-cons and more trailers, posters and tv spots then two movies even need; seriously hurt this campaign.
Why did it happen? Lets face it, marketing is run by a bunch of people that don’t know what they are doing over there. And the inexperienced yahoo’s felt that over saturation would deliver, but instead it turned more people off then on. Next time Disney, practice your smarts and don’t put your multi-millionaire dollar campaigns in the hands of tactical people that pretend to know anything about strategy. Hanging yourself on poor digital campaigns and too many materials yielded you a dry and over cooked Turkey…..
I agree that Disney’s marketing department is run by inexperienced people that don’t know what they are doing. But I don’t think the problem here was necessarily oversaturation (although it could have contributed to turning off anyone that wasn’t a nerd/daft punk fan). I think the problem was people saw the trailer and it was boring as hell. It just fell flat. A big who cares, with Inception’s music thrown in as a last ditch effort (I would bet $100 that was a Rich Ross “suggestion”). Disney just can’t make any good movies lately and the a/v guys can’t figure out how to cheat it to look good.
I was shocked by how bad Tron was…how do you spend $175 mil and get something I wouldn’t watch for five minutes on TV?
easy, just go to michael bay film school…
Or you repeat the mistakes that made the original TRON not-great: hire a director more experienced with tech than actors and develop a script with characters you never get to care enough about. There was nowhere to go but up with this sequel, but when all a studio cares about is an easy cash cow, why bother to make the basics solid?
True Grit’s budget was only 35 million so it should do pretty good. Yay for the Coens who don’t usually get commercial success. Little Focker was going to win anyway, but the budget for that film was over 100 million.
Little Fockers = Huge Freaking Disappointment. If it comes out on top over the weekend, I’ll send the zombie corpse of John Wayne after DeNiro and Stiller.
True Grit is pure entertainement. I never saw the original and was pleasantly surprised by how funny the dialogue was. Lots of laugh out loud exchanges. Great acting, editing, and pacing. H. Steinfeld is poised for stardom. Mesmerizing on screen and went toe to toe with Bridges, Damon and Brolin. Damon and Bridges performances were nuanced and spot on! Great dialogue and story. It will make over 50MM. I hope Damon is nominated for best supporting actor. Fantastic performance.
Flack.
seriously, they don’t even seem to try and hide it!
Forgot to mention, the audience clapped at the end of True Grit. Unusual and deserved.
Yeah you also forgot to mention how many horses they abused in that movie. Absolutely disgusting.
Well, that wasn’t for real, was it, though that last ride after Mattie gets bit was a little hard to watch.
um…you DO know that they use digital tricks, editing and things like that in movies right? Not a single horse was harmed.
Yeah…I suppose next you’re gonna tell me PRO WRESTLING is fake too!
You mean they actually killed that one horse?!?!!? Wow, I guess the digital fx guys are going to protest, because they lost another job to animal cruelty. Good thing there’s watch dogs out there like you.
If you’re talking about the horse that dies at the end, you do know that whole thing was done with a puppet for the close ups, don’t you? There’s a big credit at the end for the dozen or so puppeteers who worked on the movie.
Don’t get so excited; “true shit” probably feels that putting a saddle on a horse is “abuse”.
Yeah, it’s sad about the horses that had to die for the film. But what about all the actors who died as well? Josh Brolin had such a promising career ahead of him!
Haha! Winner!
Plus One!
Who cares if the audience clapped at the end? Every movie I see people clap at the end.
Really? Well, just for the record, in most places, that doesn’t happen.
Are those the same people who clap when their plane lands (safely)?
really? I guess you’re really enthousiastic people in your town!
The Coen Brothers are exceedingly responsible filmmakers. The Humane Society is very strict in monitoring animal abuse in films and there is virtually no abuse of animals today. If you go to their website, you will find strict guidelines even to the use of insects. Many of the difficult scenes were probably digitally enhanced. The hysterical scene of the dog underwater in the Coen Brothers, OH BROTHER WHERE ART THOU was done digitally and the digital house had to prove that the work was indeed done in that manner. This is an exceedingly responsible organization and they continually monitor films, television shows, and commercials checking their records to see that the creatures have been treated properly according to their strict guidelines, even pet animals in innocent situations. It’s ironic that Spider- Man doesn’t have the same protection for actors.
Congrats on Paramount doing a full wide release for True Grit. The Weinsteins (or possibly Fox Searchlight) would have botched this, and it would have only been in 500 theaters right now. Smart movies go wide in their early weeks.
After the semi-disaster that has been Tron Legacy, the Mouse House are counting on Pirates 4. Guess what? Pirates 4 will also bomb if that trailer is any indication. Disney are in for quite a bruising because they didn’t hire top dollar directing talent for their franchises (Kosinski is a hack).
Pirates 4 will not bomb. It may not make 800 million dollars but it’s going to be a hit. Jack Sparrow is the reason those movies were popular…Not the god awful Turners. As far as Tron being a semi-disaster, why don’t we wait and see. It’s holding strong for the week before Christmas and it will probably do well next week with all the kids being off. I expect that Tron will get very close to it’s production budget by the end of its run, with the overseas taking care of the marketing budget. Sure, it won’t turn a profit until the DVD is released, but that is pretty much the case with most big budget movies.
You do realize that the boxoffice take has to be split with the theatre owners, right? RIGHT?
Where do you idiots come up with this stuff? Tron has been a huge success at Disney. Arguing that Tron hasn’t been successful is like arguing that Cars wasn’t successful because of it’s low box office number compared to other Pixar films.
This is starting to remind me of last year when these people were trying to convince themselves that AVATAR was doing poorly. It took them three or four weeks to finally admit that the film was doing well (and then these were the same people who would say that we shouldn’t take the box office serious anyway because it didn’t sell as many TICKETS as GONE WITH THE WIND.) Wait until they start inventing numbers that TRON has to hit in order to be successful. $500 million? $700 million? $800 million? Trust me, it’ll keep rising along with TRON’s international cume.
According to the DH box officer “experts”…
The first weekend it’s always a disaster.
The second weekend it’s only a semi-disaster.
The third weekend it’s an underperformer.
The fourth weekend doesn’t matter because it sucked anyway.
Welcome to Deadline Hollywood message board.
The truth about TRON is that it’s actually holding steady, which is good. If it hits $200 million in the US it’ll be a success. STAR TREK had a similar budget and only hot $200 million in the US and did less than that abroad and was a huge success. It’s outside the US which will, and would always ultimately, determine whether it was a financial success or failure and so far it’s doing well there too. In the US the numbers are about on target.
This is the best post so far on this subject,everytime there is a big budget movie out the deadliners come out of the woodwork to say it won’t do well,last one was clash of the titans,”watch it fail in it’s 2nd week” thing.
tron will make everything back with worldwide gross and clean up to a healthy profit on dvd/bluray home market sales-simple,and to point it out im seeing it for a 3rd time nxt week.
Thanks to the massive marketing costs, Tron isn’t close to being in the black yet. That’s why.
Huge success for Disney? Jesus, I can tell you don’t know much about marketing films. The movie budget was around $175-200 million, with an extra $125 or so tacked on for global marketing. With disappointing showings in places where a movie like this would make money (Japan, U.S.) it doesn’t look like Disney will make much of a profit, if that. Considering that at this time last year, when the economy was even worse, Avatar was making around $16-17 million a weekday.