Saturday
01Nov2008
Box Office - Halloween Wins, Movies Lose
Saturday, November 1, 2008 at 12:20PM
Oof, did the box office feel the sting of Halloween
parties last night. The Friday receipts are way below where they would need to
be for any of the major films to hit their expected weekend totals, and beyond
that, there were a couple other surprises, as well.
Saw is the only film that showed a somewhat steady performance on Friday, winning the box office with just over $3 million in ticket sales. In its second weekend, Saw will probably top ten million with ease, and could win the weekend outright. Clint Eastwood's Changeling opening in second place, with $2.3 million, followed by Zack and Miri Make a Porno ($2.2 million) and The Haunting of Molly Hartley ($1.75 million).
It's tough to look at these Friday numbers as surefire predictors of the weekend. Obviously, ticket sales were going to be soft on Halloween because of parties and trick or treating, but that wouldn't necessarily be the case for Changeling, which aims at a much older crowd. So, even though it's in second place after Friday, that total may be more representative of how it will fare on the other days than its ranking. I don't think it will stay in the silver medal position the rest of the way.
All the other films probably suffered more from the external influences, and it would be a remarkable turn for the worse if none of the top five movies made $10 million. It's also tough to say if any of these numbers are truly disappointing. Perhaps you could argue that Zack and Miri should have done more business, because it was clearly the most heavily-marketed film of the bunch.
Will all of that audience come flooding in on Saturday and Sunday? No. That will hold true for all the movies. Nobody truly "makes up" for opening night business that doesn't show. They'll just get the normal Saturday and Sunday numbers they were going to get all along. There will be some spikes, of course, but a lot of people just go to movies on Friday or Saturday or Sunday and have the rest of their weekends already mapped out. The good news for all the movies is that only $1.5 million really separates first and fifth place, so none of them are dead in the water just yet.
But the Halloween numbers were way off, no question, and we'll see how that ultimately effects things tomorrow in our complete box office recap.
Reader Comments (4)
Could the election also have something to do with it? If so the numbers are going to stay low until Wednesday.
I wouldn't think so. People are still going to college football games today. Maybe, but I think we'd see that impact other stuff, too.
In odd other news, all of the big ticket new release movies, the ones that are usually no-where to be found, were readily available down at the local Red Box last night (Halloween). I think people wanted to be out with other people this year and Hollywood is suffering on all levels...
Everyone except me.
Maybe that's why my house got egged...
Again.
Yeah, I went out to dinner at an all-too-trendy and normally packed restaurant. We left at 10:30 and we were the only people in the place. I think it was a big Halloween this year.