Other Crap

Daily Box Office for Friday, January 16, 2009

It is so close between three of the new films that any one of them may win the weekend.

The one that will NOT win is part 2 of the the Don Cheadle "Hotel" series: Hotel Rwanda for Dogs.

Still going strong is Dirty Harry's surprise hit, Gran Torino, which finished a solid fourth and has now banked nearly $60 million after only eight days of wide release. Eastwood's last three films, while all acclaimed to various degrees, only grossed 33/13/35.

Blondie's biggest gross as a director is still the $101 million for Unforgiven, from way back in '92. Grand Torino should beat that because his strongest films are always slow burners with big total/opening multiples. His third-best grosser, Space Cowboys, had a multiple of five. Unforgiven had a multiple near 7, opening with $15m on the way to $101m. Million Dollar Baby's multiple was more than 8. It opened with $12m on the way to $100m.

Grand Torino took in $29 million last weekend, which was easily Clint's best weekend ever, suggesting it may have the potential to reach $150m. In fact, Grand Torino's total this (second wide) weekend may end up his second-highest weekend ever! It has a shot at the $18m posted by Space Cowboys in week one, on its way to $90m total.

NOTE: The typical multiple is about 3 to 1, higher with good word of mouth, lower with disappointed audiences. Dark Knight was about 3.4, Iron Man 3.2, Indiana Jones 3.2, WALL-E 3.5. The only films among the top twenty to exceed 4.0 last year were Mamma Mia!, which ascended all the way to 5.3, and Tropic Thunder, which rose to 4.4. Hulk (2.5) and Wanted (2.7) were the lowest in the group.