Cannes: The Weinstein Co. Books ‘Suite … 
BBC Confirms ‘Doctor Who’ Season 8 
‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ $22M Friday For Lower … 
Finally, Cannes Dealing! Radius-TWC Nabs Director’s … 
Hammond On Cannes: Wet Fest’s Official Competition … 
‘Vampire Academy’ Adds ‘Modern … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Shark Tank’ Finale Up, … 
Cannes: Worldview Options Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn … 
UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
‘Mike & Molly’ Creator Mark Roberts To … 
Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts Set For … 
Hammond On Cannes: Weinstein Brings Out Stars For 2013 … 
Cannes: Fake Gunshots Interrupt Canal Plus Live Broadcast … 
‘The Great Gatsby’ Starts With $5.4M … 
Cannes: Music Box Snags Competition’s ‘Michael … 
UPDATE: Amazon Studios Begins Pilot Pickups; … 
Bruce Rosenblum Bids Classy Goodbye 
RATINGS RAT RACE UPDATE: ‘American Idol’ Hits … 
UPDATE: ‘Iron Man 3′ Box Office Crosses $1B … 
Upfront Market: Will Auto Makers Subsidize TV … 
Cannes: Thief Makes Off With $1M+ In Chopard Jewelry Meant … 
THURSDAY 7 AM UPDATE: Several movies opened Wednesday for the start 
of the all-important holiday moviegoing season as 2012 draws to a close. This is when multiples really strut their stuff. The normal multiple for a movie the rest of the year is 3x opening weekend, with a great-playing pic getting to a 4x multiple. Granted, films opening the weekend before Christmas open to much smaller box office (what with shopping, travel, family) but play to a much higher multiple. So the studios insist that a 4x multiple is the worst they’ll do, and many of their movies do 6x, 7x or 8x multiples. (Think of Fox’s We Bought A Zoo last holiday season; it opened at just $9M and then did $75M.)
No surprise, on the wide release front, Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey still rules the domestic and international box office by a lot. That’s $6.4M more from U.S./Canada for the MGM/Warner Bros/New Line epic (-19% from Tuesday’s cume) for $106.6M cume. The Middle Earth trip’s worldwide total now rounds $300M after joining the domestic $100+M club in its first 5 days of release. Quite another story is Skydance Productions’ cheap $40M comedy The Guilt Trip (2,431 theaters) pairing odd couple Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand for Paramount. Oracle scion David Ellison’s opener ranked #2 with an underwhelming $1.1M. And that’s with clear air in front of it. Given the onslaught of film openings about to take place, it’s hard to expect much. But let’s see the multiple. Problem is, audiences gave it only a ‘B-’ CinemaScore which won’t help word of mouth for a double-lame genre of road trip and mother movie. By contrast, Pixar’s Monsters Inc 3D release (2,618 theaters) has better prospects after placing #4 for about an $800K opening. Considering how little fresh family fare there is in theaters over the next holiday weeks – and wassup up with that, moronic moguls? — raiding the Disney vault for a cheap-to-add 3D premium to its 2001 hit toon is sound strategy. On the other hand, why such a low-key debut, especially when there’s a fresh prequel arriving in theaters in 2013?
But Wednesday’s most interesting opening was Sony Pictures’ Zero Dark Thirty platforming in NYC and LA before going wide on January 11th, the day after Oscar nominations are announced. Not many movies receive a publicity bonanza via condemnation by U.S. Senate heavy-hitters on the day of their debut. And film critics are giving it awards buzz. But this reteaming of The Hurt Locker‘s Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal starring Jessica Chastain in a 2 hour, 37 minute semi-fictional hunt for Bin Laden looks to have scored the biggest Wednesday limited opening ever without a stage show. (You know… Disney’s El Capitan film+stage shows for stuff like The Lion King…) Early numbers indicated a giant $124,848 its first day from just 5 runs for a per screen average of $24,969. Sony tells me that’s bigger than American Beauty (6 runs for $73K) and Little Miss Sunshine (7 runs for $66K). “Pretty spectacular,” a Sony exec gushed.
Related: Oscars: Will Criticism And Praise Affect Contenders?
Related: U.S. Senators Slam Sony For Zero Dark Thirty Torture
Here are the Top Five films based on Wednesday estimates. Fuller analysis on Friday:
1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (NL/MGM/WB) Week 1 [Runs 4,045]
Wednesday $6.4M, Cume $106.6M
2. The Guilt Trip (Skydance/Paramount) NEW [Runs 2,431]
Wednesday $1.1M
3. Lincoln (DreamWorks/Fox/Disney) [Runs 2,285]
Wednesday $835K, Cume $110.3M
4. Monsters Inc 3D (Pixar/Disney) NEW [Runs 2,618]
Wednesday $800K
5. Skyfall (Eon/MGM/Sony) [Runs 2,924]
Wednesday $765K, Cume $274.3M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
Loading ...
They are using Cape Fear as a comperative? Why not Goodfellas? And Guilt Trip is a wreck, the first of their four underperformers this week.
Cause this is about box office average/theater? D’uh.
Christmas day will feature Zero Dark Thirty, Jack Reacher, Django Unchained and the re-release of End of Watch. Really? Can we just take a break from a year of gun porn (historical or not) for just a couple of weeks at the end of the year? Society, look in a mirror.
Hear, hear! I was going to write something like this, but now I don’t have to. Thank you. Listen up, America.
Thanks Stephen. And may I add one more thing…. how on Earth did “Hyde Park on Hudson” get an R rating when it had no sex (sorry but a shot of two people in a front seat of a car fully clothed and upright 50 yards away behind them is NOT a sex scene), absolutely no violence and absolutely no profanity? FDR may have had more than one mistress? Pass the smelling salts. Yet the MPAA will give PG-13 ratings to scenes of horrendous violence and gunplay left and right and put them in front of our kids. Enough.
totally agree. seems very out of touch. what the hell happened to the Holiday spirit, hollywood???
After marketing onslaughts for all the other Disney 3D rereleases, the studio decided to keep the MONSTERS, INC opening quiet for some strange reason.
Barely any ads and no press screenings, losing media coverage.
Odd approach. Especially when they have a prequel opening in seven months.
I saw The Guilt Trip at a well attended matinee yesterday. I loved it. Funny and touching. It helps that I could see a lot of my mom in Joyce. The ending had me in tears. For sons, its the perfect movie to take your mom to over the holidays. I snuck into Monsters Inc afterwards. There was 4 people in the theatre.
I’d imagine that studio paycheck increased it’s entertainment value for you.
And a weekday matinee showing for a kid’s film was near empty? You DON’T say.
And it’s “WERE 4 people in the theater,” not WAS.
Hey genius…”increased it’s entertainment value”? That makes no sense. That means “increased it is entertainment value”. You should not have used a contraction. It shoud read “I’d imagine that studio paycheck increased the entertainment value for you?”
You also forgot the question mark. Plus, I dont have a job at the moment so I would love that studio issued paycheque.
You have to be a real loser to sit around and correct strangers grammar..and not even have correct grammar in your post.
Good try, though.
I was a theater manager in a mall complex, no less. Couldn’t find a parking space, but nobody was there for us. We all knew the week before Christmas was dead, kids aren’t out of school, either. The only reason to open a picture this week is to secure your screens.
I’m just not convinced on Zero Dark Thirty to a wider audience. Most people I know still aren’t even sure what the movie is about, since 80% of the early marketing and the poster all gave little to no indication of the cast, what it was about, etc.
The fact it’s being tossed around as “Zero Dark Disappointment” by the part of the U.S. critics pool that doesn’t live on the East or West coast how the rest of the country will welcome it when it is released wide.
Personally, I hope it’s as low performing as Bigelow’s last movie, if only for the sheer entertainment value of watching her try to place blame on the Pirate community again.
Really, Nervis? 71/75 critics on Rotten Tomatoes liked it, and the four who didn’t are apparent non East/West coasters Rex Reed, USA Today, the Christian Science Monitor, and some blog called “Spirituality and Peace”. Also, google gets exactly one hit on “Zero Dark Disappointment”, and it’s you my friend.
I guess you have an axe to grind, huh?
Nothing can really be judged on box office potential until the day after Christmas. People are still holiday shopping. Moviegoing is always down right before Christmas Day (except for exclusives) and then the box office explodes and all the slow starters pick up dramatically. The Guilt Trip will find its audience and do better than expected. Monsters Inc. will only do a fair amount because there is nothing else to take kids to over the holiday.
Setting the bar low for Zero Dark Thirty are we? It’s competition Lincoln had a per screen average of $85,000 in 11 theaters compared to Zero Dark Thirty’s per screen average of $25,000 in 5 theaters.
Sony lowered expectation before the film’s release so they can get headlines of “over performing”. Congratulations for doing their PR work for them.
That 85k/screen was for Lincoln’s whole opening weekend. It scored about 25k/screen on Friday. Here we’re talking about 25k/screen on a Wednesday. Definitely impressive.
Except that Lincoln’s average is over a three-day weekend period as opposed to Zero Dark Thirty which hit $25,000 per theatre on a single weekday.
I really enjoyed The Guilt Trip too. Especially the chemistry between Barbra and Seth. It is a real shame that Barbra has worked so little in film, so still has the comic timing, the something special. She is wonderful in this small little film. I recommend seeing this over all the other violent films..
I’ll get flamed and flagged for saying this because censorship is alive and well on this site, but there always seems to be a certain lack of sensitivity on the part of the moderately non-Christian film industry – is that politically correct enough? – to release violent films on Christmas and Easter weekends. It’s spiritually sick and disrespectful.
I agree. I’m surprised a studio didn’t release the usual “demonic murdering Santa”-style flick on Christmas weekend this year. It’s as if they think they’ll attract all Christmas-haters who are dying to get away from all happy things.
you’re right, Les Mis is so violent!
Ummm, that Lincoln average was for its three-day opening weekend. ZDT’s average was for a one day Wednesday opening.
You aren’t forced to see any movie you don’t approve of on Christmas Day. You’ve wrapped yourself in a cloak of tolerance and sensitivity and then want to force your beliefs on us. Hypocrite.
Huh?
Lincoln did that on a whole weekend. Zero dark has done a little less than a third in one day, a weekday no less.
Free bashing…
I have a secret hope that The Guilt Trip does well and maybe the studios will actually make a few more 25-70 million dollar films instead of throwing 150 million at everything and then buying up the decent indies that come in around 10-15 million.
We need some midrange product that works and makes some money. I know they are a pain the ass to market but guess what, that’s what the marketing department is supposed to do, not just make deals with McDonalds for toys.
Saw Zero Dark Thirty. Good, not great. Big conceptual flaw is that the lead is almost invisible in the last 45 minutes of the film. I have Lincoln and Argo above it, maybe also Silver Lining.
I’m just waiting for Django like everyone else
Guilt Trip: “Problem is, audiences gave it only a ‘B-’ CinemaScore which won’t help word of mouth for a double-lame genre of road trip and mother movie.”
A bigger factor is the tens of millions of us who wouldn’t walk 10 feet to pee on Streisand if she were on fire.
I really enjoyed The Guilt Trip as well. Streisand is really terrific and her chemistry with Rogen is spot on. It is a small film, to me closer to an indie in feel. I liked it much more than Ted or Magic Mike which got raves. I predict word of mouth will grow. Not sure why Paramount opened this on a Wednesday but the audience for this type of film is a weekend crowd.
$40 mil for guilt trip? Did they really think anyone outside of N.Y. and L.A. would want to watch it? Really? Bombs away. Rightfully so. Lucky for those involved that at $40mil, those huge salaries for the lackluster stars came through for them. Seems a good title though…yet I doubt anyone involved feels too guilty now that their enormous checks have cleared the bank.
I dont understand. Are there no mothers and sons outside of New York and LA? I live in neither but there was a good crowd at my theatre.
Saw “Zero Dark Thirty”, or I should say, slept through “Zero Dark…” What a joke. Would have made a better one hour episode of “The Unit”. Not even close to worth seeing, IMO.