website tracking
Search The Big Picture


« Check It Out: IMDB's Top 250 Movies Subway Map | Main | Gucci Family Unhappy About Ridley's Salacious Movie »
Sunday
01Nov2009

Box Office - A Win's a Win for 'This Is It'

DateSunday, November 1, 2009 at 11:00AM
The Michael Jackson documentary This Is It has done pretty well internationally, but the domestic numbers are nowhere near where they were expected to be. It's puzzling to me why there was still an air of dominance about the film's performance. Take for example yesterday's headline in Variety: "This Is It Continues to Transfix Auds." Well, look, $8 million on a Friday is commonplace. That's roughly what Paranormal Activity and Zombieland, and even less than Final Destination, Couples Retreat, and Where the Wild Things Are.

So yes, it won the weekend, but the ticket sales here in the US were not good. In fact, it's about 13% what AEG said the ridiculous number could be, and not quite 60% what the official estimates were. Again, the international numbers were strong - just over $100 million - but Sony just announced it will keep the movie in theaters longer than the two weeks it promised, a sure sign it won't make enough in that period to satisfy the studio. The five-day total here in the states is only $32.5 million, about $21 million of that coming over the traditional weekend.

Paranormal Activity, of course, finished in second place. It only dropped 22% to $16.5 million this weekend, taking its total up to nearly $85 million. So we know it will be a $100 million movie, and as we discussed on Friday, it's already the most profitable movie ever made, thanks to its incredibly low budget. That $100 million will almost certainly come in a week or so, meaning the total US box office for this film will wind up close to $120 million.

Law Abiding Citizen is narrowing the gap with its opening weekend competition, Where the Wild Things Are, with Citizen placing third and Wild Things falling to number six. Considering the difference in costs, expectations, and number of theaters, the advantage goes to Law Abiding Citizen.

Rounding out the top top five were Couples Retreat and Saw VI, easily the most disappointing entry in the series. In two weeks it has yet to match any of the previous films' opening weekend numbers.

The Top Five:
1 - This Is It ($21 million/$32.5 million five-day opening)
2 - Paranormal Activity ($16.5 million)
3 - Law Abiding Citizen ($7.3 million)
4 - Couples Retreat ($6.1 million)
5 - Saw VI ($5.6 million)

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | CommentPost a Comment |

Reader Comments

There are no comments for this journal entry. To create a new comment, use the form below.

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>