2011 at the Box Office (1 Viewer)

[RobertR]

Originally Posted by TerryRL

I completely agree with you, sadly the rest of the industry doesn't. Studios exploit 3D for one reason and one reason alone, it's an excuse to bump up ticket prices. Most every major release this year (action, FX laden, CG animated, etc.) will be presented in 3D. This will be the case for the foreseeable future I'm afraid. Sadly some films may only be presented in 3D during their theatrical runs, although this is something I'm hoping studio execs rethink.

For years, I was saying that a good presentation in a real movie theater was my preferred way to watch films. This damn 3D craze has changed my thinking on that. I will NOT pay extra to see something in 3D, nor will I I go to IMAX. If I can't watch a film in 2D, I'll simply wait for the Blu Ray. My home theater has such good sound and picture quality, I don't feel like I'm missing anything.

 

[benbess]

Originally Posted by Brandon Conway

Of course, the main problem this year has been that there haven't been any films I've been interested in seeing in a theater. The last movie I saw in the Theater was The King's Speech in early February. That's gonna change soon, because I do want to see the following:


5/20 - Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides

5/26 - The Hangover Part II

5/27 - The Tree of Life

6/3 - X-Men: First Class

6/10 - Super 8

6/17 - Green Lantern

7/15 - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II

7/22 - Captain America: The First Avenger

7/29 - Cowboys & Aliens

10/14 - The Thing

11/23 - Hugo Cabret

11/23 - The Muppets

12/16 - Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol

12/16 - Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

12/28 - War Horse

TBD - J. Edgar

Nice List. I'm looking forward to most of those (minus Cowboys and Aliens), plus Jane Eyre, Tin Tin, and Water for Elephants

 

[Malcolm R]

Looks like "Hop" will repeat at the top with another $20 million or so. "Arthur" and "Hanna" battling for runner-up.


The biggest surprise on the list for me is "Insidious" showing some legs. The film only seems to have dropped about 30% from last Friday, an amazing hold for a horror film. Must be some good word-of-mouth giving it a boost.

 

[Malcolm R]

Weekend Ests:

1. Hop $21.7 mil (-42%)
2. Arthur $12.7 mil (new)
3. Hanna $12.3 mil (new)
4. Soul Surfer $11.1 mil (new)
5. Insidious $9.7 mil (-27%)
6. Your Highness $9.5 mil (new)
7. Source Code $9 mil (-39%)
8. Limitless $5.7 mil (-39%)
9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid $4.9 mil (-51%)
10. The Lincoln Lawyer $4.6 mil (-33%)

Hop repeats at the top, while all new releases see mediocre to poor debuts. Crazy second weekend hold for Insidious, topping the debut of Your Highness (by the current estimates). Horror flicks generally drop by 50% or more like clockwork in the second weekend. Should be immensely profitable for the studio, considering it cost only about $1.5 million to produce.

 

[TerryRL]

While "Hop" continues it's surprising run, the real story this weekend was how both "Arthur" and "Your Highness" underperformed. Both films cost in the neighborhood of $50 million and will need to have strong runs overseas if either hopes to see a profit. "Hanna" came just above what the studio had expected (they were hoping for a $10 million weekend) and should have little difficulty in seeing a return on the film's $30 million budget if it does decent business overseas.


"Insidious" will end up being one of the most profitable hits of the year going into the summer session of business.


Next weekend the industry should see stellar returns with both "Rio" and "Scream 4" hitting theaters. At least, that's what everyone is hoping.

 

[mattCR]

It won't be a big hit, but "Hanna" was better then I expected.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I was impressed with Hanna as well. Of the new releases, it's the only one that exceeded expectations at the box office. It was always going to make its profit in home video, anyhow. Wright put a lot more thought, attention and care into it than he had to.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by TerryRL

"Insidious" will end up being one of the most profitable hits of the year going into the summer session of business.

I wonder how Insidious would have done if it had opened in October. Assuming there isn't something big that would have eclipsed it, I think it would have really caught on with a larger audience. Either way, it's not like anyone is going to complain when they're going to make $40 or $50 million on a $1.5 million budget. On the plus side, maybe not being THAT big of a hit will mean that they won't sequelize it to death.

 

[TerryRL]

Do not ever underestimate the industry's all too eager willingness to make a sequel to even a moderately successful movie.


If "Insidious" does big business on home video, I'd be shocked if they didn't make a sequel. And if (I stress if) they do go down that road, expect them to take your advise and target an October release date.

 

[TerryRL]

http://www.deadline.com/2011/04/hanna-passes-arthur-for-2-at-box-office/


Focus Features said that its thriller Hanna overperformed on Sunday at the box office, helping it overtake Warner Bros' Arthur and claim No. 2 overall for the weekend in the charts. Hanna, which dropped only 37% from Saturday to Sunday to gross $3.2 million on the final day of the frame, finished with $12.37M. Heading into Sunday, Arthur was No. 2 and Hanna was No. 3.--Nikki Finke

 

[Malcolm R]

Originally Posted by TerryRL /forum/thread/307416/2011-at-the-box-office/30#post_3799542

 

[TerryRL]

Exactly!


The general rule in Hollywood is that if your movie A) is a huge box office hit and/or B) is extremely profitable, you make a sequel. In fact, you make sequels until said cash cow runs dry. Nowadays, if a series winds down in terms of box office, you can always reboot it later on.

 

[mattCR]

Originally Posted by TerryRL , Arthur was No. 2 and Hanna was No. 3.--Nikki Finke

I don't count for enough people, but when friends asked, I told them I thought Hanna was a lot better then I expected. The box office didn't have a lot of "action" oriented flicks and Hanna was pretty good spring action. I look forward to the Bluray.

 

[Malcolm R]

The box office recession continues with two new wide releases failing to excite moviegoers to the levels Hollywood would like. Friday's estimates:

1. Rio $10.2 mil
2. Scream 4 $8 mil
3. Insidious $2.33 mil (-29%)
4. Hop $2.29 mil (-57%)
5. Hanna $2.14 mil (-49%)
6. Soul Surfer $2.13 mil (-42%)
7. Arthur $2.12 mil (-53%)
8. Source Code $1.8 mil (-34%)
9. Your Highness $1.3 mil (-67%)
10. Limitless $1.1 mil (-36%)

Another great weekly hold by Insidious, which is apparently receiving great word of mouth.

 

[TerryRL]

http://www.deadline.com/2011/04/box-office/


Here's the latest news about the start of the Summer Box Office... North America's #1 movie is Universal's Fast Five which will have a debut Friday of $33M to $34M, putting the weekend estimate at $79M to $81M. That's blowing away the $71M opening weekend of fourquel Fast & Furious. The 5th installment in the street racing franchise breaks the studio's uninterrupted non-toon losing streak in recent years. Right now, the rest of the Top 5 are bunched up with grosses between $5M, $4M, and $3M each for Friday: 2. Rio (Blue Sky Studio/Fox), 3. Madea's Big Happy Family (Lionsgate), 4. Water For Elephants (Fox 2000/Fox), and 5. Prom (Disney). Full analysis and refined numbers coming...---Nikki Finke


"Fast Five" is going to give the industry a much needed shot in the arm heading into the summer season.

 

[TerryRL]

April 2011 was able to stop the bleeding so-to-speak as the period earned the biggest marks ever for the month (about $790 million), as well as selling the second most amount of theater admissions (more than 98 million) the month has ever enjoyed. Other than the massive success of "Fast Five", the month only suffered one really big high profile flop ("Scream 4"), while enjoying an unusually high amount of solid (as well as moderately budgeted) box office performers ("Rio", "Hop", "Source Code", "Insidious", "Madea's Big Happy Family", "Hanna", "Soul Surfer", and "Water for Elephants").

This bodes well heading into this weekend's launch of the summer season with "Thor".

 

[Patrick Sun]

As far as I'm concerned, summer was launched by Fast Five!

 

[TerryRL]

No doubt that's what the industry will be saying should "Thor" fail to open as big or bigger than the (official) $86.2 million tally of "Fast Five" this past weekend.

 

[barbera123]

hey i have followed the movie calender till 6th may...i have seen movies till 6th of may and now i am planning to sincerely follow the upcoming movie calender dates......

 

[TerryRL]

http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b240737_hey_america_would_it_kill_you_go_movies.html


So, it's official: Thor's off to a blockbuster, $242 million-grossing start.

Thanks to the rest of the world.

What's America got against the Norse god of thunder?


It's nothing personal, probably. Just overall superhero fatigue, perhaps. As Exhibitor Relations box-office analyst Jeff Bock reminded, "This is the umpteenth superhero movie to open the summer season."


And so Thor's estimated $66 million weekend domestic debut was "decent," as Bock put it, but it wasn't anywhere near a record summer start. Not here, anyway.


Overall attendance, in fact, was at a five-year low for the summer kick-off weekend.


None of this likely matters to Thor, which opened May 1 overseas, and has already made back its reported $150 million budget—and more—from moviegoers outside the United States.


"The blockbuster mentality is hitting a peak over there," Bock said. "…The experience is much fresher."


So, pretty much Captain America doesn't have a thing to worry about.


Except maybe America…


Elsewhere, Fast Five took a dive, but only dropped one place in the standings, down to No. 2, and upped its domestic total to nearly $140 million.


The romantic comedies Jumping the Broom and Something Borrowed got off to nice-enough starts. And since we just called Something Borrowed's debut "nice enough," we should say the same of Mel Gibson's and Jodie Foster's The Beaver, which sold about as many tickets at each of its 22 theaters as the Kate Hudson flick did at each of its its 2,904. Overall, The Beaver grossed $104,000.


Jake Gyllenhaal's Source Code was out of the Top 10 after five weekends of struggle. The $32 million drama eked past $50 million domestically, and, per Box Office Mojo, was at about $91 million worldwide.

Here's a complete rundown of the top-grossing films, per Friday-Sunday numbers as compiled by Exhibitor Relations.

1. Thor, $66 million
2. Fast Five, $32.5 million
3. Jumping the Broom, $13.7 million
4. Something Borrowed, $13.2 million
5. Rio, $8.2 million
6. Water for Elephants, $5.6 million
7. Tyler Perry's Madea's Big Happy Family, $3.9 million
8. Prom, $2.4 million
9. Soul Surfer, $2.1 million
10. Hoodwinked Too! Hood vs. Evil, $1.9 million

Read more: http://www.eonline.com/uberblog/b240737_hey_america_would_it_kill_you_go_movies.html#ixzz1LpWCncAT