Fearless Forecast: No Humbug for 'A Christmas Carol'

Michael Jackson's This Is It performed worse than expected last weekend, although you wouldn't know it to read the trades, many of which used way too many adjectives to describe a movie that did about as well as the latest Final Destination flick in its first stanza. Only that one had direct competition. So the question for this weekend is, can A Christmas Carol, which also looks like it could fall well below the projections, actually reverse the trend? I don't think we'll see the same kind of business, where a movie estimated to make around $50 million in five days does 60% of that and is congratulated. More than likely, there will be plenty of family business in standard format theaters and IMAX to push this one to around $40 million. With about 3,500 theaters in all, that sounds about right to me, within 10% or so. The week's other new releases should do reasonably well given their smaller number of theaters. The Fourth Kind, The Box, and The Men Who Stare at Goats are all in the mid-2,000s this weekend, and if I had to pick one with a decent chance of exploding for more money, it would be The Fourth Kind, possibly building off some Paranormal Activity genre heat. Conversely, The Box might do worse than I'm estimating, but probably not much better. This Is It will hang around the top two or three, depending on the business The Fourth Kind drums up, and Paranormal Activity will come up just short of a $100 million total when the weekend concludes. The Top Five:
1 - A Christmas Carol ($40 million)
2 - This Is It ($12 million)
3 - The Fourth Kind ($11 million)
4 - Paranormal Activity ($8 million)
5 - The Box ($7 million)

Comments

[Stiller]

It's been over a decade since anyone was interested in Cameron Diaz's Box.

[Get The Big Picture]

Hey-oh!

[Asana]

Ever since last Saturday or Sunday the commercial ads for Fourth Kind have been growing. Meanwhile, ads for The Box have fallen way off compared to what they were a week ago. Perhaps they decided to stay out of eachother's way in the Chicago market? Don't know but the only films that are really making any push at the moment are Christmas Carol and Fourth Kind. I've seen maybe one or two ads for Box this week, Carol has dropped off only slightly and Fourth is pouring it on.

Why not open a film like Christmas Carol on Christmas Eve or Christmas? Or at some other point in December? Sure, it has been proven that movies can be placed pretty much anywhere and if they're good they'll make money but holiday themed movies far flung from the holiday they represent? It just doesn't feel right. I think of Christmas Carol's November release in the same way that I view Christmas decorations the day after Halloween... too soon. Where are the Thanksgiving themed flicks anyway?

Tyler Perry's: Madea's Big-Ass Bird Buffet!

I mean c'mon! There has got to be something out there. At any rate, I think This Is It will fall to maybe a 3rd place spot but we'll see.

[Orinn]

No no no they moved past the christmas the day after halloween.
I saw mroe then one store sellign HALLOWEEN and christmas next to each other.
the greatest sin being if your going to pull that BS at least have some jack skelington stuff between the two, so you can pretend you made a logical conclusion to put it up.