Box Office Continues to Beat 2008 Numbers

The troubled economy has not slowed Hollywood in 2009, not one bit. It turns out that this past weekend was not just big for Fast & Furious, which topped out a little south of the Sunday projections but still over an astonishing $70 million. In fact, it was the biggest April weekend in the history of April weekends. All told, the top 12 films at the box office this weekend accounted for $149 million, which is a great number for a non-peak month like April. If you rewind a year, this weekend in 2008 was nearly $70 million below that mark, according to Media By Numbers, which means that even if Fast & Furious hadn't beaten even the most liberal estimates by around $30 million, this weekend would have still been significantly better than the same stanza last year. Blame that on the two big debuts last year, Leatherheads and Nim's Island. I say this a lot, but the only thing keeping Hollywood from having movies this big 12 months out of the year is Hollywood. Summer movies could be summer movies in November or February if they're marketed correctly. Fast & Furious is a case in point; it was supposed out come out in June originally, and then it put up the second best opening weekend ever for a movie not released in May, June, July, November, or December, the five biggest months for moviegoing. This might surprise you, too, but the overall box office is way up over 2009, having already taken in $2.5 billion in U.S. theaters. Attendance is up almost 15 percent, and we haven't even hit May yet, which could be a top five month all-time.