'The Oogieloves' have the worst opening weekend in box office history

'The Oogieloves' has the worst opening weekend in box office history

I thought that Delgo's record was unassailable. Coming into this weekend, Delgo was in last place with $512K, and the next worst film was above two million dollars. Given four years of inflation since Delgo's release, that film seemed to be in a league of its own.

No longer.

Oogieloves grossed $448K in 2160 theaters - the exact same number of theaters that Delgo was in!

Using IMDb's annual adjustment for average ticket prices, we can calculate that Delgo sold about 33 tickets per theater while Oogieloves sold only 25. To be fair, that's not as disastrous as it sounds. Our local theaters are screening Oogieloves only 2-3 times per day, and never later than 5:00, so it is not taking a screen away from another film, but is simply giving the theater additional kiddie matinee screenings earlier in the day, making the Oogielove business incremental. Having noted that, let us still chuckle at the miniscule size of that increment.

In semi-serious news, The Possession (CinemaScore: B) opened in first place with $17M, a bit better than expected. Lawless (CinemaScore: B+) was in second place with $10M, a hair below expectations.

Obama's America officially settled down into "just another release" status, finally falling from its former niche as a box office juggernaut. It gained 659 theaters but dropped 21% from last week because its per-theater average fell to half of last week's level. It dropped from 7th place to 9th, meaning that it should now fade away and we can probably stop thinking about it.