2008 at the Box Office - Page 80

Re: 2008 at the Box Office

Tino, from what I understand, patrons were asked to pick their ten most anticipated flicks of '09 from a longer list of upcoming films.

Re: 2008 at the Box Office

After that massive 90% Friday-to-Friday decline (due to Halloween falling on a Friday this year), HSM3 bounced back in a big way with a near 400% uptick in business on Saturday. With nearly $62 million in the bank thus far, Disney believes the film can top out with more than $100 million domestically.

"Zack & Miri Make a Porno" gave writer/director Kevin Smith the second biggest opening of his career. The film debuted with $10.7 million, second only to the $11 million launch of 2001's "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back". The comedy earned a solid average of $3,906 from its 2,735 theaters, which was the third best per-theater mark of the top 12.

Universal's "Changeling" went wide this weekend and pulled in $9.4 million, finishing in the #four slot. The Oscar hopeful's scorching per-theater average of $5,085 from a very modest 1,850 locations was easily the best of the top 12. The film will expand further over the course of the next several weeks. Oscar-winning star Angelina Jolie continues to garner Best Actress buzz for her performance in the film.

Freestyle Releasing's "The Haunting of Molly Hartley" earned a very respectable $6 million this weekend. Not bad for a movie that had very little marketing. The thriller earned a decent average of $2,266 from its 2,652 theaters.

Overall, the top 12 pulled in $75.2 million, which was down 40% from last year, as well as being off by 35% from this frame in '06. Next weekend should be a different story as DreamWorks/Paramount's "Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa" debuts in about 4,000 theaters across the country. Next week will also see the releases of Universal's "Role Models" and MGM/Weinstein's "Soul Men" (the last film from the late Bernie Mac).

The 'Madagascar' sequel is expected to easily dominate the box office next weekend. DreamWorks is expecting an opening well north of the $30 million mark. The first film launched with $47.2 million back in '05, on its way to a sensational domestic haul of $193.6 million (it earned whopping $532.7 million worldwide).

Re: 2008 at the Box Office

As of Monday, '08 had passed the $8 billion mark faster than any other year in history (marking the eighth consecutive year that the overall box office has earned more than $8 billion domestically), total admissions currently trail three of the last four years. In fact, the current total of '08 is better than only two year-to-date marks ('05 and '97) of the last 11 years.

Through Monday, '08 has sold about 1.130 billion tickets, compared to the 1.159 billion '07 was sitting on at this same point. '06 had moved 1.146 billion, '05 sold 1.110 billion, while '04 was sitting on a whopping total of 1.245 billion theater admissions sold.

As you can see, '08 is only out-pacing '05 in terms of hard ticket sales, but thanks to inflation this year will more than likely end up being the biggest overall year ever at the box office in terms of total domestic gross.

2002 remains the biggest overall year in ticket sales since the 1950s. A staggering 1.607 billion admissions were sold that year behind the strength of such blockbusters as "Spider-Man", 'The Two Towers', 'Attack of the Clones', "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets", "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", "Signs", "Austin Powers in Goldmember", "Ice Age", and "Chicago". Those ten films combined to sell more than 433 million admissions, nine of them had sales of more than 30 million tickets apiece during their respective box office runs.

It may be a while (if ever) for the industry to repeat the kind of year they enjoyed in '02. That was just a massive year for the studios.

Re: 2008 at the Box Office

From the Collider.com site...

While “Twilight” doesn’t open till November 21st, with tickets already on sale at a lot of movie theaters, Fandango is reporting almost 100 sell outs. While that doesn’t seem like much….keep in mind it’s only November 6th. Trust me, it’s impressive.

Also, as people start reporting these sell outs on blogs and in the mainstream media…it’s a domino effect. All of a sudden people that were thinking about buying tickets will go online and buy them now. So instead of 100 sellouts…now you’ve got 500, and then 1000. The biggest question that’s still unanswered is how is the movie?

If “Twilight” meets or exceeds fan expectations, this thing is going to be a monster hit. If the film is a disappointment and fans don’t believe the chemistry between Bella and Edward…while it’ll still make a ton of money, it won’t reach epic proportions.

Anyway, the first press screening is tonight and while they’re not allowing guests as to try and keep reviews offline, I promise you someone will review it as it’s too big a movie not to entice someone to write something. I won’t be doing it….but you know someone will. And I won’t tell you where it’s playing…but it’s here in Los Angeles tonight…

Here’s what Fandango sent me:

Twilight doesn’t open until two weeks from tonight (at midnight), but Fandango is reporting that nearly 100 show times for the November 21 release are already sold-out across the nation, from Sacramento, California to Gainesville, Florida.

Twilight accounts for 63% of all ticket sales on Fandango, the nation’s largest movie ticketing destination, outpacing those of High School Musical 3 at the same point in that film’s sales cycle (two weeks before release date).

A few new stats from our ongoing Twilight moviegoers survey on Fandango.com (as of 11/6/08):

87% of respondents said they saw the trailers and clips online;
92% said the trailers and clips made they want to buy a ticket to the movie;
73% are most excited to see Robert Pattinson as Edward (respondents were asked to choose one Twilight character they were most excited to see portrayed on the big screen);
31% of Twilight moviegoers are 17 or under; 28% are 18-24; 22% are 25-34; 16% are 35-49; 3% are 50 or over.