Box Office - 'Train Your Dragon' Will Win, But...

Even though 3-D ticket prices ballooned this weekend in some theater chains, How to Train Your Dragon isn't enjoying a windfall. Oh, it's still going to make good money over the next couple of days, but it's not one of those opening weekends that looks augmented by higher prices. I guess if you're DreamWorks, the trouble is, these numbers actually do reflect people paying $3 - $5 more about half the time. On Friday, Dragon did about what predicted on Thursday, and with a $12 million start, it's looking like a $40 million weekend or thereabouts. Saturday is usually the big day for new animated films because there are two or three more convenient showtimes for parents. So $12 million on Friday becomes $16 - $20 million on Saturday. However, we made our prediction based on what was at the time an incomplete theater count. This thing's in over 4,000 houses, which is about 800 more than what I used to figure its $40 millionish weekend the other day. Again, that's certainly not bad as a raw number, but DreamWorks spends way too much on its animated features, and if this really did cost $160 - $180 million, $40 million with 4,000 theaters - half of which are 3-D - is not all that great. International box office will help, of course, and it's not like this won't make some money, but will it be enough to kickstart a franchise? It appears headed for a lower domestic gross than Monsters vs. Aliens, so if that's the measuring stick, it doesn't look promising. Still, $40 million this weekend is more than enough to win, but how will it fare over the next four to six weeks? Proving that it's not entirely a 3-D fluke (which underscores the problem with making every goddamn movie 3-D hoping it pays off), Alice in Wonderland won't drop through the floor this weekend. With nearly $5 million on Friday, it's poised to do about $18 million, maybe $20 million in its fourth weekend, and that's with losing some 3-D and IMAX screens to Dragon. If those numbers hold, Alice will lose less than 50% of its audience from the previous weekend, when dropping well more than that would have been acceptable, given the conditions. It will get with a couple days of $300 million domestic, and probably over $650 million globally. Hot Tub Time Machine will finish the weekend in third place...maybe. It's ahead of The Bounty Hunter for third after one day, but it seems like the kind of movie that starts stronger and fades almost immediately. A $4.7 million start is more bad news for MGM, which is specializing in that department lately. There's still a chance Time Machine could get over $15 million, but it's not likely. Not other major news to report; Shutter Island will need about $12 million after this weekend to surpass Scorsese's The Departed to become his highest-grossing film in the US, Avatar might be completely out of the top ten for the first time, and one wonders if it can get another $10 million in the US to hit $750 million before the DVD comes out in a month. We'll update the whole ball of wax on Sunday morning.

Comments

[Brian]

Can't wait to see this movie!!! How was it anyone???