Saturday
29Nov2008
Box Office - 'Four Christmases' Heads Toward Weekend Number One
Saturday, November 29, 2008 at 11:47AM
Thanksgiving has been profitable for Christmases.
The new comedy
Four Christmases, starring Reese Witherspoon
and Vince Vaughn, has done tremendous business since its release on Wednesday,
earning $28 million over the three-day period beginning Wednesday, with a cool
$13 million of that coming on Friday, according to
Box Office
Mojo. It seems likely that the holiday-friendly movie will hit $40
million or more over the extended weekend.
The rest of the top five features Bolt, Quantum of Solace, and Madagascar, which is bad news for two other new releases. Australia, the sweeping, three-hour epic by Baz Luhrmann will be hard pressed to make $20 million in its five-day debut, a terrible sign for a movie that cost around $150 million. The reviews haven't been stellar, not good enough to support a big Oscar push, so Fox will probably back off of this film in the next couple of weeks; there's no sense throwing good money after bad.
As for Transporter 3, I'm a little surprised that it's a stiff. Of course, history tells me that the series has not been overwhelmingly successful and that Jason Statham's last film, Death Race, was also a bit of a box office loser, but we're again looking at maybe a $20 million debut over five days, after $11 million in the first three.
Actually, three smaller films are taking the spotlight away from those two ho-hum major films, with The Boy in the Striped Pajamas poised for its second straight top ten finish, Milk doing remarkable business in only three dozen theaters, and Slumdog Millionaire closing in on $3 million in ticket sales while never appearing in over 50 theaters in its three-week run. Of the three, Slumdog probably has the most chance to ride a wave of Oscar buzz to a terrific box office run. We'll break down the final weekend numbers tomorrow.
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