Other Crap

Weekend Box Office Results for January 25–27, 2008

It was a great weekend in general. It marked the eighth consecutive week of year-on-year increases. Four of those weeks have been ahead of the previous year's comparable period by 30% or more, and this week was one of those four.

Three of the four new releases performed better than expected. The exception was the only one with good reviews (!), How She Move, which proved to have insufficiently broad appeal. Meet the Spartans, the film with the worst reviews (5% positive) had the best performance: first place, with a total gross 60% higher than expected. I guess people aren't really reading those reviews, eh?

The other big story of the week was Cloverfield. After setting a positive record last week, it may have set a negative one this week! It dropped 68.3% from last week, and the all-time record is 69.7% among films with an opening weekend over $30 million. The current numbers are estimates, so Cloverfield may yet take the record when the final tallies are in. As of now, it has the second-largest drop of all time.

OK, I know you're wondering. The only film to do worse was Ang Lee's ill-fated and much-despised interpretation of The Hulk.

If we open the "largest drop" category up to minor films, another of this year's films did even worse. In the Name of the King, the latest bomb from the U-Man, dropped 77%. That was far worse than Cloverfield's performance, because it was dropping from an opening weekend which was terrible to begin with! The second weekend it did only $690,000 in 1338 theaters, and dropped to 23rd place with a measly $516 per theater. Given 12-15 showings per weekend and eight dollars per ticket, that's four or five customers per screening!

Four of the Oscar nominees got into an expanded number of theaters. (The fifth, Juno, was already in 2500 theaters.) Three of those expansions were largely unsuccessful. Atonement pulled in only $2800 per theater, No Country for Old Men $2200, Michael Clayton $1800. The fourth film, however, kicked some ass. There Will Be Blood finished 8th in total gross and third in average per theater. It had the highest average per theater of any carry-over film in 100 theaters or more. Even with that boost, the film has grossed only $14 million altogether, the lowest of the five nominees. (Michael Clayton $41m, Atonement $37m, No Country $52, Juno $100m.)