Box Office - A Bad Start for 'Invictus'

Before we discuss the weekend's box office winner, let's talk about its biggest loser: Invictus. The Clint Eastwood-directed inspirational sports biopic did come in third, which you might look at and think that's OK. But that per-screen average - around $4,300 - is less than The Blind Side, an inspirational sports biopic that's in its fourth week of release. Per-screen numbers are crucial, especially for new movies. And that's not a very good average to have. So I think Invictus, while it may not show a big drop next weekend, is probably not going to do much more than $50 million, even if it's nominated for and wins a bunch of Oscars. As for the movie that took the prize, Disney's The Princess and the Frog earned $25 million, which is a fine start, but it's nothing special. What remains to be seen is how well the film holds over the holidays, and whether or not that gives a restructured Disney hope to remain committed to hand-drawn animation. It's cheaper than the Pixar movies (by about half), so does that mean it only has to do half as well? The Blind Side slipped to second place, only dropping 23% of its audience, and it's now over $150 million in a month. It's been a great year for surprise hits at Warner Bros. The Hangover, Gran Torino, and this film were just not expected to do anywhere near as well as they've done. We'll probably start to see the film taper off now, however, in spite of a $15 million weekend here. New Moon dropped to fourth and now has $267 million in US ticket sales, and almost $600 million worldwide. Big, big hit, even if over 50% of that money in the US is still opening weekend cash. A Christmas Carol is following Disney's plan for it, quietly staying afloat over a month after its release. The only bad thing from the studio's perspective is the slow start it got off to. I'm certain Disney has loved the results since Thanksgiving (almost $50 million in that time frame), but the studio had to be hoping for a bigger debut than $30 million. From looking at this weekend, I wonder what the gold statue fortunes will look like for films like Precious and Fantastic Mr. Fox. Both films have already peaked in terms of the number of theaters (Mr. Fox has already shed over 700 houses), so you've pretty much seen the last of both of them in the marketplace. We won't have a lot of commercials for either one, and Precious, a Best Picture candidate, could really use an extra push from Lionsgate at the end of the year and into January. Don't bet on it. It's already made about $40 million without the benefit of even 1,000 theaters, so the studio is probably happy with that performance and may just use the Oscars as a DVD sales tool. But will it have enough left in the tank after Oscar voters and critics have had a month or two to watch dozens of other movies? The Top Five:
1 - The Princess and the Frog ($25 million)
2 - The Blind Side ($15.4 million)
3 - Invictus ($9.1 million)
4 - New Moon ($8 million)
5 - A Christmas Carol ($6.9 million)