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Sunday
15Mar2009

Box Office - 'Witch Mountain' Wins While 'Watchmen' Fades

DateSunday, March 15, 2009 at 11:10AM
There was no major surprise nor even a major victory at the box office this weekend. Disney's Race to Witch Mountain opened with $25 million, approximating exactly what it was supposed to do in order to get to number one.

The Dwayne Johnson family film had a really strong Saturday, and though every case is different, when Saturday is the big day in the weekend, that's indicative of a movie that might hang around a while. Usually, for whatever reason, movies that have a stronger Saturday in their first weekends tend to have more staying power, as opposed to a Friday the 13th,which made $19 million on opening day but fell out of the top ten at the box office two weeks later.

Watchmen rallied to take second place, although it would be more accurate to say that there wasn't enough curiosity in The Last House on the Left over the entire weekend to keep that horror remake in second place. You can hardly call losing two-thirds of your audience in seven days a success, and that's what Watchmen did, managing only $18 million in its second frame (compared to $55 million a week ago).

This goes back to that thing about having a strong Saturday in the first weekend. The Liam Neeson action flick, Taken, blossomed on its first Saturday and was in theaters six weeks until it finally lost 66% of its audience total from its debut. Now, Taken is a bit of an anomaly, having only lost 40% of its previous week's audience once in seven tries. That's a standard weekly drop for a lot of films.

The point is, Watchmen is done. It didn't perform up to the hype. Yes, it's going to make over $100 million, but it may not even hit Paul Blart numbers. It certainly won't do what Gran Torino has done ($143 million and still rolling). I have no idea how much was spent in advertising (tens upon tens of millions, certainly), but since this movie won't hit its $150 million production budget and isn't performing that well internationally, DVD sales will be critical. I think it's safe to say that since Warner Bros. likes to have a 300% return on its investment, Watchmen might be viewed as a loss.

As for The Last House on the Left, the numbers were steady but unremarkable after a strong opening day. There was no big drop off but no major surge, either.

The Top Five:
1 - Race to Witch Mountain - $25 million
2 - Watchmen - $18 million
3 - The Last House on the Left - $14.7 million
4 - Taken - $6.8 million
5 - Madea - $5.1 million

AuthorColin Boyd | | in , , , | Print ArticlePrint Article | | Comment2 Comments |

Reader Comments (2)

I'm just glad that watchmen was made. It's not like there was ever going to be a sequel, and the rumours of a 40min extra cut will certainly be held over for the DVD now.

I'm not sure why it didn't connect with people... it's stunning. Maybe it's too 'intellectual' ? Perhpas people were expecting it to be a slap-biff-sock-pow comic book movie.

Sunday, March 15, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterJoey-Elijah

Seems like it wasn't a big weekend for the movies in general. No one really got that good of reviews, and the numbers weren't too high.

Monday, March 16, 2009 | Unregistered CommenterErin

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