The Growing Importance Of Opening Weekend

by Furious
May 22nd, 2009

Since starting this site, I’ve had a growing fascination with metrics by which movies are measured. Being mathematically inclined, I guess it was a nice fit. Plus it’s more interesting to look into the numbers behind some of these movies than it is to watch them.

My history delving into movie numbers only goes back to last September, so I don’t have a long history of knowledge to draw from, but it seems to me that even since just last year, there’s been a noticeable increase in the importance of a movie having a big opening weekend. Sure, having a big opening weekend should always be the goal of a movie, but it takes several weeks for most movies to get near breaking even, that’s generally not even close after one weekend. It follows that of course the first …

Popularity: 43% [?]

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Weekend Report: Angels Keep Star Trek At Bay

by Furious
May 19th, 2009

It was a contentious battle for first place at the box office this weekend. The Hollywood big shots faced off against the scifi spectacle, with millions of dollars hanging in the balance.

Angels & Demons managed to hold off Star Trek and claim first place, pulling in $46,204,168. My prediction was only about $18 million high, but I’m not upset- it’s always good to get knocked down a peg after a string of successes. It was a little hard to know exactly what A&D was going to do because 1) The Da Vinci Code had a huge opening weekend and 2) it was the first big non-scifi movie in a couple weeks. Both of those factors made me think it could be a big weekend, but a lack of buzz and controversy hinted at an average weekend. Before I had adjusted my prediction, the calculated total was $42,741,461. Sometimes it’s best …

Popularity: 46% [?]

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Weekend Report: Star Trek Got Beamed Up

by Furious
May 11th, 2009

I’m not sure what to make of it, but I’ve been getting pretty close on my predictions lately. Is it just luck or is it my secret blend of 11 herbs and spices I call Adjustments? Logic tells me it’s the former. My ego insists it’s the latter. I’ll go with my ego. Who better to trust than the voices in my head?

A week after X-Men Origins: Wolverine saw the biggest opening of 2009, Star Trek sidles right up behind it in second place. It hauled in $75,204,289 for the weekend, my prediction off a minuscule $5 million, easily becoming the biggest opening in the franchise and will probably become the overall highest-grossing next weekend. But what does that really mean? It’s not like this Star Trek has a lot to do with anything that has come before. If it weren’t for the names of people, places, and things, you …

Popularity: 54% [?]

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Weekend Predictions: 05-01-09

by Furious
April 30th, 2009

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is going to kickoff a string of big weekends at the movies. Until the middle of June there will be one movie a week that’s going to be aiming for $50+ million. But this May 1st weekend will be one of the most interesting.

When the all but finished print of Wolverine was leaked at the beginning of the month, it set the stage for us to get a real test of how much piracy impacts ticket sales. Despite all the bitching and moaning by Hollywood and the FBI and X-Men fanboys, research is showing that interest in the movie is actually increasing after the calamitous leak. Isn’t there some old saying about there not being any such thing as bad press? For some reason, people have heard so much of all this Wolverine ballyhoo that it’s actually piqued their interest. I think it’ll …

Popularity: 29% [?]

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Weekend Report: And You Thought You Were Obsessed

by Furious
April 28th, 2009

Take from this what you will, but currently on Rotten Tomatoes, The Soloist has a 60% rating, Fighting has 36%, and Obsessed has 20%. A rational person might conclude that the money earned by the movies would follow a similar pattern, with the most favorably reviewed movie earning more money. But no, the inverse is true: the lower the rating, the more money the movie made. And then you’ll notice that Crank: High Voltage has a 62% rating and probably ask yourself if those ratings really mean anything at all.

Obsessed, in spite of generally poor reviews, came out big this weekend, to the tune of $28,612,730, $9 million more than my prediction. Now, I’m wondering whether the bigger draw was Beyonce Knowles or the promise of a huge catfight. I’m thinking it may have been a little of …

Popularity: 26% [?]

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Weekend Report: Hannah Montana Not As Popular As Jesus

by Furious
April 14th, 2009

With this past Sunday being Easter, it finally provided the ultimate showdown we’ve all been waiting for: Hannah Montana versus Jesus. You’d think that if The Beatles were more popular than Jesus, well Hannah Montana was a shoe-in. As it turns out, God’s kid is still more popular than Disney’s.

Hannah Montana the Movie got off to a relatively big $17.5 million Friday, but by Sunday had dropped to a scant $4.5 million, a drop so precipitous that it takes the record for the most front-loaded opening weekend away from Twilight. I’m not exactly sure what comment this makes about the world or movies, but having the two most front-loaded movies in history occur this year has to mean something. My take is this illustrates the extent to which Hollywood is going to cater to niche audiences. Hannah …

Popularity: 24% [?]

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Weekend Report: Knowing What The People Want

by Furious
March 24th, 2009

It’s a pretty down time for movies, not just during this time of year, but in the quality and variety of movies in general. This past weekend took in $105 million overall, down $8 million from last year, $30 million from 2007, and $4 million from 2006, a time when tickets were about 10% cheaper. My predictions were all off in the neighborhood of $4-5 million.

Knowing came in first with $24,604,751, awfully close to the same number Race to Witch Mountain did last week, despite getting pretty bad reviews. Nicolas Cage used to have a reputation for taking on very diverse and interesting roles, but since he won Best Actor for Leaving Las Vegas, he’s plunged himself headlong into generic action-y movies, only really resurfacing in Adaptation. People still seem to like him, though: for every $18 million Next, there’s a $200 million National Treasure. He’s got …

Popularity: 31% [?]

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Weekend Report: I Thought The Jonas Brothers Were Popular

by Furious
March 3rd, 2009

Last year, the Hanna Montana 3D concert movie pulled in an unreal $45,561 per screen on it’s opening weekend. That was kind of the baseline most people were looking at for the Jonas Brothers movie. No one really thought it would go quite that high, but still, most people thought it might be in the ballpark. The Internet is full of arguments about the popularity of Miley Cyrus versus the Jonas Brothers, so you’d expect fans would’ve turned out in droves this weekend.

As it turns out, not that many people really give a shit about the Jonas Brothers. The movie made $12,510,374, averaging $9,843 per theater. That’s good for most movies, but it’s barely more than one-fifth the per-theater average Hanna Montana did. Even though it pales in comparison, the Jonas Brothers movie will end up as the second highest

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Popularity: 12% [?]

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Weekend Report: Madea Shanks The Competition

by Furious
February 23rd, 2009

Despite only opening two movies and having the second lowest weekend box office total of the year, somehow it was still a record-breaking weekend. I had predicted $14,363,931 for Madea Goes to Jail, but I must have transposed some numbers or something because this movie, it took in $41,030,947. It crushed anything Tyler Perry has put out before. Crushed by $11 million. I guess more people were looking forward to this than expected. Or at least more than anything else showing this weekend: the next closest movie was $30 million back.

As for the record, it’s said that this was the biggest ever opening on the fewest number of screens. What the hell that means, I know not. How do you even calculate something like that?

As far as Fired Up!, it missed my $6,882,407 prediction by $1.4 million. FU Fired Up!

My favorite number of the

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Popularity: 16% [?]

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