2009 at the Box Office

Friday Estimates

#1 "A Christmas Carol" $9.0 million
#2 "The Fourth Kind" $5.0 million
#3 "The Men Who Stare at Goats" $4.6 million
#4 "Michael Jackson's This Is It" $4.2 million ($48.0 million) 47% Friday-to-Friday drop
#5 "The Box" $2.9 million
#6 "Paranormal Activity" $2.9 million ($91.7 million) 53% Friday-to-Friday drop
#7 "Couples Retreat" $2.0 million ($91.6 million) 16% Friday-to-Friday drop
#8 "Law Abiding Citizen" $1.8 million ($56.5 million) 25% Friday-to-Friday drop
#9 "Where the Wild Things Are" $1.2 million ($66.2 million) 38% Friday-to-Friday drop
#10 "Saw VI" $700K ($24.9 million) 63% Friday-to-Friday drop
#11 "Precious: Based on the Novel by "Push" Sapphire" $585K (from only 18 theaters)

I'm still scratching my head over releasing A Christmas Carol in the 1st week of November. $9 million on Friday seems to re-enforce that head scratching. If they had released this on Friday, December 25th they would be making twice that, easily. Maybe triple. With a $30 million weekend the film will be forgotten by theater goers weeks before the actual Holiday, and most likely gone from the major theater screens. Heck, it may be significantly downsized in its presence by Thanksgiving.

But they could also double-dip in December for "A Christmas Carol" for a couple of weeks, even if it fades by Thanksgiving.

Avatar has a locked engagement in 3D and IMAX screens.  A Christmas Carol had to open now to get as much time in 3d theaters before Avatar is released.

It's got a few things working against it: the release date, the premium ticket prices (which increase revenue per ticket but decrease volume of tickets sold), the 19th century dialog, and last but not least the first truly Christian holiday blockbuster in a few years. I think the movie will have a long shelf life on home video and television airings, so the theatrical release isn't as important as it would be for a lot of movies. All of that being said, a $31 million opening weekend is nothing to sneeze at.

It will also probably help that movies aimed at kids tend not to have the dropoff that movies aimed at teens and adults have.

Terry...any idea what the studio is expecting 2012 to do domestically and worldwide?

With a rumored budget of about $200 million, Sony is expecting "2012" to be one of the biggest hits of this year's holiday season.  The studio is expecting a domestic haul north of $150 million to add to hoped for overseas grosses of more than $200 million.  Sony believes that "2012" should end up being the third biggest hit of the holiday season, behind only "Avatar" and 'New Moon'.  We'll see what happens.

This makes little sense to me. Why would Sony give 2012 a bigger budget than they expect the film to make back in its domestic release? Do the international and DVD/Blu-ray releases of the film have so much profit potential that they thought it was worth spending the extra $50 million on the movie?

I don't know if it's worth an extra $50 million but international business will likely be a huge chunk of this movie's gross. Especially since this seems like a mindless effects extravaganza that does great internationally (looking at Box Office Mojo, Transformers 2 made $400 million in the U.S. and $430 million internationally).

Movies like "2012" typically do gigantic business overseas.  What's also in Sony's favor is that director Roland Emmerich's movies are huge international draws.  Here are the overseas grosses of Emmerich's films...

"10,000 B.C." $175.0 million 
"The Day After Tomorrow" $357.3 million
"The Patriot" $102.0 million
"Godzilla" $242.7 million
"Independence Day" $511.2 million
"Stargate" $125.0 million
"Universal Soldier" $65.7 million

Sony is expecting international business for "2012" to come in between "The Day After Tomorrow" and "10,000 B.C."  The best cast scenario is if the movie ends up pulling in between the numbers of 'Tomorrow' and ID4.

And yes, the studio does believe that "2012" will be a very popular DVD/Blu-ray title next spring.

International grosses are becoming more attractive than domestic totals for many Hollywood studios.  I recall that Fox freely admitted that one of the main reasons they made the Garfield sequel, "Tail of Two Kitties," was for the international market. It only made $28 million domestic, but foreign grosses were over $113 million. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs is now the highest grossing animated film ever worldwide (passing Finding Nemo) thanks to a foreign gross of $682 million plus a domestic gross of $196 million (total $878 million).

As Terry notes, foreign audiences love big budget Hollywood spectacles and his list shows that Emmerich films have been very safe bets internationally. I think 2012 will likely be Emmerich's biggest success yet, or perhaps a close second behind ID4.

 "International grosses are becoming more attractive than domestic totals for many Hollywood studios."

This has been the case for many years now.

Thanks as always Terry.

You're very welcome.

Hollywood has put a much stronger emphasis on overseas grosses since the mid-90s.  While it is important for a movie to do well domestically, a film's international run often decides whether or not a sequel will be made.  Such was the case with DreamWorks "Monsters vs. Aliens" earlier this year.  While the film currently ranks as the sixth biggest domestic hit of '09 ($198.4 million), it's overseas run yielded a gross $181.5 million.  While a solid performance, it fell short of the $200 million-plus earnings that the studio had hoped for, which resulted in the studio shelving any ideas for a sequel.  Any further MvA adventures will be relegated to straight-to-video status.

Overseas grosses also (usually) decide whether a big budget movie such as "2012" will end up profitable for not. 

 I'd rather see the Monsters again than yet another Shrek sequel. Curse you, Hollywood bean counters!

The New York Times has an interesting article about the weekend box office for 2012. With a $225 million opening weekend worldwide, Sony Pictures has already made back its $200 million budget (before marketing costs, presumably) in just three days. It also set a record for a blockbuster that isn't a sequel or based on a preexisting brand. Impressive stuff. The global-friendly pic made nearly two and a half times as much internationally as it did domestically.

As usual, this assumes that every penny of the box office gross is sent back to the studio. That is not the case.

I was about to say the same, about 50-55% of that 225 in receipts returns to the studio.  They'll have to pay off marketing obligations in full first, probably a 100 million or so, then it gets very complicated.  Usually these big pictures have counter party agreements that help defray the risk, so different percentages of different takes (intl gross, dom gross, intl net, dom net) will go out to those various counter parties, some of these may not kick in until the studio sees black on the negative cost of the picture, many or most of them kick in after the marketing budget is paid off.  After certain levels of gross are reached, backend points tend to kick in. I would guess only Emmerich is a point player on this film, probably after 500 intl is hit, though it's possible Cusack may also have a point after 500, though doubtful.  And point players dipping their beak also affects the studio getting into the black on the cost of a picture.  In all likelyhood, a 400-500 ww gross would be enough to put the studio in the black from theatrical.  

Jason Squire's The Movie Business Book is a really good resource to understand how studios function in the modern world

ETA: I read the article and the NYT does not claim that 2012 is in the black because of the opening weekend.

Weekend Estimates

#1 "2012" $65.0 million
#2 "A Christmas Carol" $22.3 million ($63.3 million) -26%
#3 "The Men Who Stare at Goats" $6.2 million ($23.4 million) -51%
#4 "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" $6.1 million ($8.9 million) +225%
#5 "Michael Jackson's This Is It" $5.1 million ($68.2 million) -61%
#6 "The Fourth Kind" $4.7 million ($20.6 million) -61%
#7 "Couples Retreat" $4.3 million ($102.1 million) -31%
#8 "Paranormal Activity" $4.2 million ($103.8 million) -49%
#9 "Law Abiding Citizen" $3.9 million ($67.3 million) -35%
#10 "The Box" $3.2 million ($13.2 million) -58%
#11 "Pirate Radio" $2.9 million
#12 "Where the Wild Things Are" $2.4 million ($73.4 million) -42%

This weekend saw moviegoers shell out $130.3 million on the top 12 films at the box office.  Business about 7% lighter than this frame last year, but up 38% compared to this period in '07.  2009's year-to-date domestic haul now stands at a towering $8.898 billion marking a 7% increase over last year ($8.339 billion), up 8% over '07 ($8.259 billion), 14% stronger than '06 ($7.833 billion), and a 20% increase over '05 ($7.441 billion).  The next few days will see '09 pass the $9 billion in record-breaking time.  Overall ticket sales are estimated to be in the area of 1.24 billion, the most at this point in a year since '04.

Sony's "2012" dominated business this weekend as it became the seventh biggest November opening mark in history.  The $65 million launch also ranks as the second best for director Roland Emmerich, following his 2004 disaster flick "The Day After Tomorrow" ($68.7 million).  Globally, "2012" earned a whopping $225 million, thanks to the film's $160 million debut overseas.  Sony execs are over the moon as their $200 million-plus budgeted disaster opus is now expected to top the half-billion dollar mark worldwide.  "2012" will give Emmerich the fifth $100 million-plus domestic performer out of his eight films as a director.

oh man, that means there'll be many, many films that emmerich will be making =(.

anyways... it's crazy that 2009 is ALMOST over and that 2010 will be here soon!!!! it just seems like we just GOT STARTED w/2009 thread!!!! this is quite insane how fast the time flies =)

Unfortunately, the international run was not enough for a sequel to "The Golden Compass" to be greelit. Is there any hope at all?

The problem with 'Golden Compass' was that it did so poorly in the states that any talk of a sequel was scrapped as a result.  If the movie had done something more in the area of $135-$150 million domestically (it only netted $70.1 million) to add to the film's impressive $302.1 million run overseas, a sequel would've been greenlit.

Expect this weekend to be huge with 'New Moon' hitting theaters.  Check out this article...

http://thefilmstage.com/2009/11/16/new-moon-sets-advance-ticket-record/

Terry...what type of business are they expecting New Moon to do?

The movie is expected to open with no less than $70 million, with some estimates going as high as the $100 million-plus neighborhood.  Many also expect 'New Moon' to pull in more than the $191.5 million domestic haul of "Twilight", as well as that film's worldwide total of $383.7 million.  Summit Entertainment is looking for a domestic tally in the (wide) area of $200-$300 million and a hoped for global gross of $500 million.

Summit is waiting on this weekend's performance to decide the fate of the fourth (and final) book of the series, "Breaking Dawn".  The bigger the opening the more likely the studio will toy with the option of splitting the movie into two parts ala the two upcoming "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" films.  Outside of the first "Twilight" movie, Summit's only other hit movie was this year's "Knowing", which earned $80 million domestically and $183 million worldwide.  The "Twilight" series is pretty much the only thing the studio has to brag about right now and expect them to milk this franchise for all they can get out of it.

If 'New Moon' performs up to (or exceeds) expectations, I'd be blown away if 'Breaking Dawn' isn't split into two movies.  I'll also be surprised if the studio doesn't try to spin off any of the franchise's other characters into their own film vehicles.  We'll see what happens.

Summit's "Astroboy" just bombed, so they've probably got their fingers and toes crossed for "New Moon" to save their financial @sses. 

It's too bad there won't be a sequel, The set up was out of the way, so the next ones could have focussed more on the characters. The movie wasn't perfect, but I actually liked it a lot more than the Harry Potter movies.

Astroboy is too obscure a property for most North Americans and "Americanizing" the character probably killed it for fans overseas, especially in Japan, where the character originated. I would have liked to have seen it, but it never made it up here.

Adult Swim was running the original cartoon a while back, but in the wee hours of the morning where few were likely to see it. As was Gigantor.

I never saw AstroBoy when I was little. Was it even shown stateside in the 70's? The only black and white anime I even remember seeing back then was banished to the six am timeslot before vanishing for good.

It would seem like a good marketing move to get an obscure animated show back on tv for a limited run to raise some awareness for a movie version.