Other Crap

Weekend Box Office Results for January 19-21, 2007

The analysts predicted a bad weekend, and they were right, but they were off on the details.

The one and only new release with any major distro bombed to high heaven. The Weekend Warrior had predicted The Hitcher to come in first with about $17.6 million. That was a perfectly reasonable prediction considering it was the only new movie, and was competing against a sorry group of top carry-overs. The top two last week were the critically-panned Stomp the Yard and the shopworn Night at the Museum, a solid hit which has grossed more than $200 million, but has been around about as long as Gone With The Wind. Surprise! The Hitcher could do no better than fourth, losing to those two and to Dreamgirls, which got a nice lift from a Golden Globes win and actually did better than last week.

The good news is that there are people who go the movies every weekend and when there are no new movies to see, they catch up on ones they missed. Each of the top six carry-overs did better than predicted.

Pan's Labyrinth did much better than predicted. It managed to make the top seven, although it is only in 600 theaters. It easily took the #1 spot in "revenues per theater."

The Queen, arguably the best-reviewed film of the year, disappointed a bit in its expansion. I suppose that may have something to do with the fact that it has been around for four months and many of those who want to see it have already done so.

Babel, the other film fueled by a Golden Globes win, failed to crack the top ten and did not impress with its tepid average per theater. That's not so much of a surprise. This film has been out for three months, and is a depressing, arty, small-audience film to begin with, so one might assume that much of its small audience has already found it.

The Pursuit of Happyness had another solid weekend, and has reached $146 million overall.