Box Office - Big Start for Scorsese's 'Shutter Island'

This will be the biggest box office weekend in Martin Scorsese's career. Unfortunately, that's not saying much: Only two film has ever debuted with more $10 million. The Departed is his only movie that even looks like it had a real opening weekend. But now there's Shutter Island, and it appears that good reviews and lots of public interest will make it a hit. Last night, Shutter Island accumulated $13.5 million, which sets the film up for a mid-30s weekend. It could even be a little more than that; I'm a big believer in Friday word-of-mouth leading to bigger Saturdays, particularly in a text message/Twiter/Facebook culture that allows an opinion to spread like wildfire. So if Saturday matches or beats Friday, because the word-of-mouth should be excellent, then this might do closer to $40 million. If you're wondering how much it would take to make a profit with this film, only one source I can find, Dark Horizons, has any budget information available - $80 million. Seems about right. The Departed was slightly more than that. It's probably under $100 million, in any case. So based on the opening weekend, this will be in the black in probably two more weeks, and then you've got foreign box office, always substantial for Scorsese, to take care of the incidentals and deliver the real profit. The rest of the movies didn't make much noise. Valentine's Day dropped way off, and I'm a little surprised because it's the only romantic comedy around and the big ones in that genre tend to perform decently for a couple weeks. Not so here; it may drop below $20 million this time around, about a 60% drop. I knew it would take a hit, but I didn't think it would be quite this big. Still, it's better than The Wolfman, which could slump 70% (65% seems certain). Avatar? Still going strong. It looks like it might not get to $20 million for the first weekend, and it's about a full week away from $700 million. Doesn't look like $750 million is in the cards, though. That'd be $50 million in six weeks before it arrives on DVD, and it's losing IMAX on March 5th and is already starting to lose a few hundred traditional screens. What a slacker. Full results tomorrow morning.

Comments

[john gill]

---Boomer Hollywood -now enterring its thrd decade of sell-out and suck-up to the most
awesomely genocidal regime history has EVER seen ---across the Pacific -seems content
to offer retread after retread to the circle-jerks of our glutted and bankrupt comfort-zone.

Scorsese is out front in the race for 'Most utterly disappointing Boomer Director'.

TRUTH HURTS