New Records For ‘Contraband’ And ‘Beauty & Beast 3D’ On MLK Holiday; No Slump Yet

COMMENTS (75)

• It was always about the movies. Contraband, Joyful Noise and Beauty are all exactly what their audiences wanted. The only question is will the F-cinemascore Devil drop be more than 60%?

  Comment by There's No Business Like Show Business — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 5:14pm PST  Reply to this post

  • I would be surprised if we weren’t in for some kind of record in terms of percentage drop on that. It’s got a 25% audience approval rating on RT, one of the lowest I’ve ever seen. Even Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is only a point lower.

    Comment by Matthew — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 5:48pm PST  Reply to this post

  • THE DEVIL INSIDE

    HAS A 3.8 RATING

    OVER ON IMDB

    NOW THAT’S SCARY!

    Comment by 90ina30 — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 7:25pm PST  Reply to this post

    • Why, because it’s so high???

      Comment by J.D. Stutts — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 7:55am PST  Reply to this post

  • Speaking of F, I couldn’t believe the amount of f-words in Contraband. I’m no shrew, but it had to be at a rate of almost one per minute. It was way too distracting for me.

    Comment by ae — Sunday January 15, 2012 @ 7:28pm PST  Reply to this post

• I saw Beauty and the Beast today at an early afternoon showing and the theater was quite full. I wouldn’t be surprised to see this one take a run for the top with the Holiday weekend and all. Especially since kids aren’t out yet on Friday.

  Weird though that Contraband is doing so well… I never would have guessed it a couple of weeks ago.

  Comment by Geek — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 5:18pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Yeah, it’s safe to say Beckinsale’s gonna have the top 2 movies next week.

    Comment by Alex — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 8:08am PST  Reply to this post

  • Speaking of “overperforming”… TOY STORY 3, TANGLED, GNOMEO, CARS 2, LION KING 3D, MUPPETS and now BEAUTY. From wherever you’re sittin’, David Sameth is batting a thousand in marketing at Disney…

    Comment by Anonymous — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 11:24am PST  Reply to this post

    • Way to plug yourself David… Unfortunately, nobody knows who you are or cares… Just be thankful you’re not MT Carney…

      Comment by Incredulous — Sunday January 15, 2012 @ 2:12pm PST  Reply to this post

      • incredulous – don’t be a putz. sameth has toiled talentedly in this town and deserves the recognition. from Universal through DreamWorks (live action and animation) and now at Disney, he is a talent and class act.

        Comment by steven — Sunday January 15, 2012 @ 4:15pm PST  Reply to this post

• I’m glad to see “Contraband” doing so well. I think the slump last year was based on unoriginal sequels that felt too much like the original films (Sherlock Holmes, Happy Feet, Chipmunks, etc) — especially when the previous films werent satisfying for audiences. Films that felt different popped (Mission Impossible, etc).

  Comment by HN — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 5:19pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Eww. Both Mission Impossible and Sherlock are recycled sequels. And they’re making almost the same amount of business.

    Stop it with your promo already.

    Comment by Jana — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 4:22am PST  Reply to this post

• Anyone wanna guess what the dropoff is going to be on Devil Inside?

  Comment by Cash — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 5:33pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Probably not as steep as you’d think, given the holiday weekend. But who knows.

    Comment by My guess — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 7:12pm PST  Reply to this post

• 75% drop

  Comment by Kyle — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 6:43pm PST  Reply to this post

  • I was thinking 70%, but I’ll bet you’re closer.

    Comment by prakash — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 6:58pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Devil Inside even at 75% drop would still give it something over 45m domestic in 10 days. Internationally, exorcism movies in general do ok. Dare I say it might just creep up onto 100m worldwide? Certainly it should do 75m. I wish I had made this movie. I think we all could use some of that dough!

    I personally didn’t mind it. Sure it would have been great if there was more to it. Oscar worthy? no way. Better than Last Exorcism, or the ending to PA3? To me…. yes. There were no boos in the sold out theater I saw last weekend (arclight sherman oaks).

    With all the bad reviews and criticism, I took a look at the Facebook page and IMDB boards to see if I’m crazy or weird for liking it or if I was missing something. If you really look through the comments, it becomes apparent that while there is a lot of cool kid hate, there are a lot people that sort of actually liked the movie but were POd with the ending. They felt taken that they were just getting invested in the story and boom. gone.

    Honestly, this may be the weirdest response to a movie we might ever see?

    Surprised Contraband is on top. I thought Joyful Noise would come out of nowhere and go big.

    Comment by Mt — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 7:57pm PST  Reply to this post

• 77% drop

  Comment by chris — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 7:09pm PST  Reply to this post

• 75-80% drop for Devil Inside

  Comment by Leondre — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 7:14pm PST  Reply to this post

• 80%

  Comment by Pat — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 7:47pm PST  Reply to this post

• People honestly should not be surprised that CONTRABAND is doing so well. There hasnt been an urban friendly action thriller in weeks. The campaign has been everywhere and I think people are looking for non-sequel popcorn flicks to enjoy . . .People have to remember that people go to the movies to be entertained, and as someone that has seen CONTRABAND the film delivers what its supposed to. Rotten Tomatoes be damned!

  Comment by A Latino that liked ROB — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 8:29pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Nice retroactive analysis

    Comment by After the fact — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 10:21pm PST  Reply to this post

• I just saw Contraband and I liked it.

  I’m just so tired of sequels.

  Comment by Enos — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 9:28pm PST  Reply to this post

• R-RATED WIN.

  First three weekends of 2012 will be dominated by R-rated movies (Underworld or Haywire next week). Take a hint, Hollywood. We want more.

  Comment by Owen — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 10:17pm PST  Reply to this post

  • I dunno. Both Underworld and Haywire are tracking way below Extremely Loud opening wide…

    …which shocks me.

    Comment by Extremely Loud — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 11:23pm PST  Reply to this post

• Saw Contraband an hour ago and I liked it. It’s not perfect, but it was fun. Glad to see its doing good numbers

  Comment by Farzan — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 10:20pm PST  Reply to this post

• I despise Marky Mark and movies like Contraband that encourage criminality under disguised purposes. This is what America has come to? If we had a proper government, garbage like this wouldn’t be made.

  Comment by Roger C. — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 10:41pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Yes because the government plays such a big part in deciding what films to be made. In fact, it was Congress who wrote The Devil Inside, Transformers 3, Bucky Larson and every other terrible film you saw this year.

    Please go back to Drudge and take your political rantings with you.

    Comment by amt — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 11:08pm PST  Reply to this post

  • You want the government regulating films??? Your Drudgian overloads would be very disappointed in you, Roger!

    Comment by A. Mused — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 5:43am PST  Reply to this post

  • Comments like yours make me sick. Do you even watch movies? We have been making gangster movies since the beginning of the art form. (Check out The Great Train Robbery)
    Imagine a world where we couldn’t have Cagney, and Bogart, without films like The Killing, or The Godfather, or Scarface or Heat.
    You want the government to regulate what we can and can’t see? Go the f*&k away someplace like North Korea.

    Comment by James — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 11:26am PST  Reply to this post

  • Heil, Roger.

    Comment by Jack — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 1:20pm PST  Reply to this post

• Isn’t Beauty and the Beast a tad disappointing, considering the 3D uptick, and the fact that it has the family slot to itself?

  Comment by D.Z. — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 11:15pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Technically Alvin and Tintin have that slot as well. The former is still doing reasonable gangbusters.

    Comment by Jez — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 1:22am PST  Reply to this post

  • I don’t think that Beauty and the Beast 3D was expected to open as big as The Lion King since the former was a less popular film that the phenomenon that The Lion King was in 1994.

    But there could be a good upswing on Saturday once families head out to entertain themselves.

    But isn’t it nearly all nearly gravy for Disney anyway no matter what?

    Comment by Esquire — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 2:12am PST  Reply to this post

  • Lion King 3D rerelease was just meant to be a 2 week marketing campaign for the blu ray release but it pulled off a surprise. Beauty and The Beast blu ray has been available in the market already and this one didn’t have that 2 weeks only promo Lion King 3D had.

    and yes this is just all gravy for Disney anyway and this are quite good numbers for it

    Comment by forg — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 8:21am PST  Reply to this post

  • Beauty and the Beast is in theatres for the third time with this release as well, while it was Lion King’s second.

    Comment by r0ckmypants — Sunday January 15, 2012 @ 9:43am PST  Reply to this post

• I get it that most of you are in your own little worlds, but I got two things for you to take notice of…

  (1) Contraband is a remake and (2) Devil Inside has held up well over the week enough that it’ll do fine. In fact, I find it funny that you are all bitching about it making money when your bigger films like News Years Eve bombs.

  Comment by The Entire Internets — Friday January 13, 2012 @ 11:22pm PST  Reply to this post

  • Two things you should be aware of:

    1) Sure, CONTRABAND is a remake — of an Icelandic movie called Reykjavic-Rotterdam. Yeah, American audiences are so tired of remakes of Icelandic genre films, PLEASE. It was remade because of story and quality, not brand recognition or pre-awareness. Movies like A-TEAM and BATTLESHIP and FOOTLOOSE are the problem and what are audiences are tiring of, not movies like CONTRABAND.

    2) No, DEVIL INSIDE is not doing fine because it’s “holding up” during the week. What numbers are you looking at? Its hold this week was very poor. It’s doing fine because of a 34M opening weekend. It could have grossed zero dollars nationwide and it would still be “doing fine” for Paramount.

    Comment by Brett N — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 8:44am PST  Reply to this post

  • Indeed, Contraband is a remake but of a movie nobody in the U. S. saw. Big difference.

    Comment by Jack — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 1:21pm PST  Reply to this post

• I expect Joyful Noise will do better over Saturday and Sunday. You can’t count out the Sunday churchgoers or the Southern crowd esp. on a holiday weekend.

  Comment by Ronnie — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 12:04am PST  Reply to this post

• If DEVIL INSIDE, a sucky boring mess, drops -84%, it will top the 2nd week of Ang Lee’s HULK as the biggest 2nd week drop in studio history.

  Having seen it–and the aud hate first hand, a 90% drop is not an impossibility.

  Comment by Rulk — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 12:25am PST  Reply to this post

  • what now? Hulk highest ever drop? There are tons of studio movies that dropped more. For example
    Lawnmower man 2
    Gigli
    Friday 13th
    Star trek nemesis
    Cutthroat Island

    Comment by jake — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 5:43am PST  Reply to this post

  • A 90% drop is an impossibility. It’s a holiday weekend, so Sunday grosses will be better than usual. A 7%% drop is more likely.

    Comment by joe — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 4:11pm PST  Reply to this post

    • Meant to say a “75%” drop.

      Comment by Joe — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 4:12pm PST  Reply to this post

• 80%

  Comment by drop — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 3:36am PST  Reply to this post

• My fav movie devil inside; really well done for what it is, I’m glad alternative films are allowed into the bigtop. Even tho Having nightmares again.

  Comment by Rt — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 5:09am PST  Reply to this post

• I’m so sick to hear about the so called slump — every business has their lows and highs and everyone who follows box office knows this — and hollywood does not need to break the record every year do they? I would only be concerned if no movie grossed over 10 million on or near a christmas or new year’s weekend.
  Does anyone remember boxofficemojo begging that paramount move mission impossible to april — actually doing an article — because it would be clobbered by sherlock and alvin? So glad they didn’t listen to them.

  Comment by jake — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 5:42am PST  Reply to this post

  • @jake

    I so agree. There really is no slump to speak of. Historically any year where Hollywood raises prices compared to inflation attendance goes down, and vice versa when they don’t. The 3D effect is that prices have gone way up and attendance down. What matters is Gross, not attendance.

    Inflation adjusted gross in 2011 was actually higher than 5 of the preceeding 10 years, so no crisis, just not a great year.

    My own analysis is that they may have upped prices slightly too much for 3D movies AND the blockbuster movies in 2011 were simply not very good ON AVERAGE compared to most years, especially the family entertainment ones. 2010 had som really well liked ones like Toy Story 3, Tangled, Despicable Me, How to Train Dragon, Karate Kid, as well as most of Avatar’s gross ^^

    Comment by datruth — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 8:09am PST  Reply to this post

    • Ha, you two think that the movie industry isn’t in a slump? The total number of tickets sold last year hit a 16-year low.

      Comment by Justin Poppiti — Sunday January 15, 2012 @ 7:13am PST  Reply to this post

      • That may be true but isn’t every industry hurting right now? Yet, the movie industry has had made several records this year — and I just don’t think slump is the correct word for it. It’s like every weekend has to improve on the same weekend last year — no industry is able to do that. And I’m sorry but this is a billion dollar industry and the media frenzy that goes on that somehow the movie industry isn’t making money is so ridiculous. Expectations are part of the problem.

        Comment by simon — Sunday January 15, 2012 @ 2:15pm PST  Reply to this post

• I think that there are two interesting matchups this weekend. Beauty and the Beast 3-D vs. Joyful Noise, and Mission: Impossible 4 vs. Sherlock Holmes 2.

  Joyful Noise seems like it might have perfect timing for an MLK holiday weekend release, but competing with a Disney film is always a tough challenge for a film that’s trying to attract lots of families. Maybe Joyful Noise will get crowds of families with kids, but Beauty and the Beast will attract more families with little kids?

  Or possibly Joyful Noise will actually sell more tickets by Monday evening, but Beauty and the Beast will make more money because of the 3-D charge. One way or the other, if both of them do well, that’s an excellent sign.

  Four weeks in, and both M:I 4 and SH 2 are ambling towards $200 million. I wonder if the new and upcoming action/adventure/thrillers will draw more potential ticket buyers away from one of those films than the other.

  Comment by SMP Belltown — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 7:15am PST  Reply to this post

  • Mission is a lock now for passing $200 million (in theory it may even be able to set it’s sights on the unadjusted $215 million that Mission 2 made) but Sherlock is going to have a tougher road to get there.

    I don’t think it will. It’ll come up just short of it.

    Comment by Esquire — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 9:37am PST  Reply to this post

    • I don’t see Sherlock making $200 million but Mission should be able to get to $210 minimum. This might be a $600 million+ worldwide flick.

      Comment by Anonymous — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 2:10pm PST  Reply to this post

• The Devil Inside has not been holding up well. It fell to second place on Tues. and fourth on Wed.

  Comment by Leondre — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 7:38am PST  Reply to this post

• -84% is pretty steep, and about what I thought. I’ll be curious to see if it slides even more as the holiday weekend wears on.

  Comment by Cash — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 8:25am PST  Reply to this post

• Universal is back!

  Comment by Tito — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 8:31am PST  Reply to this post

• Yep what a huge huge failure devil inside is on its way to close to 50m domestic with what will likely be a big intl number. I know it gets it hate but this opens the eyes and doors at the studios. Can’t argue with making huge money on a small risk. The only thing this drop does is put a small question mark on the inevitable sequel.

  Comment by Lindsay — Saturday January 14, 2012 @ 9:15am PST  Reply to this post

  • This movie was made for a million — even if they spent 5 million, they would still make money on a sequel

    Comment by jake — Sunday January 15, 2012 @ 2:17pm PST  Reply to this post