WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Four American Christmases and an Australian Turkey

Ah, Thanksgiving. You can always count on this special holiday, even in times of crushing economic woe, to reinvigorate the marketplace and get people spending again. It just makes me feel so warm inside. After all, there are now less than 30 days until the mother of all holidays. You can avoid putting up the lights or block out the holiday tunes at the mall but Christmas has hit the theatres. In fact, four Christmases have hit.


FOUR CHRISTMASES opened behind last week’s champ, TWILIGHT, on Wednesday, when it and a number of other releases entered the marketplace to capitalize on the holiday. It quickly took over on Thursday and led through the weekend for a $31 million debut and a $46 million five-day take. The critically-panned feature is Witherspoon’s return to comedy and a blatant attempt to recapture America’s hearts and it is Vince Vaughan’s second holiday feature in a row in his apparent course to be America’s family man. As obvious the choice is, FOUR CHRISTMASES has opened better than anything either has put out in ages so I’m sure the eggnog is flowing freely by the fire for these two this weekend – that is if they didn’t hate each other. I’m just telling you what I heard.


The next three positions in the Top 5 went to holdovers, which meant that the week’s two other wide releases had to settle for much less prestigious debuts. Baz Luhrmann returned to theatres for the first time since his 2001 Best Picture nominee, MOULIN ROUGE! with AUSTRALIA, a $120 million epic love story. Expensive epic disaster sounds more appropriate right now. This was considered to be a major box-office and award season contender and now it looks like it could end up being neither. Earning a modest but respectable $5,600 per screen average would ordinarily be a solid start but this costly mess needed a grand slam debut to recoup its costs. The fact that critics are split on it certainly didn’t help matters much and without award season kudos, Luhrmann won’t be getting any second helpings. Meanwhile, the TRANSPORTER series starring Jason Statham went back for thirds. The third and likely last installment brought in about $8 million less than its predecessor did in its opening frame. Even TRANSPORTER 3’s five-day take didn’t match the $20 million debut of TRANSPORTER 3. Still, the franchise is relatively cheap to produce so Jason Statham is still sitting pretty at the head of the B-list celebrity action stars table.


There was much to be thankful for if you almost any other movie in the Top 10. As expected (and desperately wished for by the Disney people), BOLT improved upon last week’s take and inched up a notch to the number two spot. Bond’s QUANTUM OF SOLACE saw a slight decline of just 27% as good working folk who had not had a chance to catch their favorite international spy finally made their way out to catch him. The cuddly if not irritating animals of MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA caught another wave of kids out of school for the break and only slipped off a scant 7%. And ROLE MODELS continued to make good on its strong word of mouth, dropping off just 28%. The most troubling stumble was also somewhat expected as the front heavy TWILIGHT plummeted over 62% in its second week. Still, $120 million is 10 days is a bloody mouthful.


Sure it’s great that a little film like THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS can spend two consecutive weeks in the Top 10, even improving in its second week. But it’s hard to take too much notice when two other even smaller releases are producing mind boggling numbers. Danny Boyle’s SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE is becoming a surprise Best Picture contender and is stuck just outside the Top 10 for a second week at number eleven. On just 49 screens, SLUMDOG pulled in an average of almost $28K for a grand total of $3.6 million. All this before it has even gone wide. One other film though shut it out from the Top 10 it is gunning for so badly and that film is MILK. The buzz on this one is almost deafening and considering the controversial vote on Proposition 8 earlier this month in California, MILK, a biography of the first openly gay American politician, Harvey Milk, could not be more topical. Gus Van Sant and Sean Penn will likely see many reasons to celebrate as the weeks ahead unravel but whether they can reach BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN numbers remains to be seen.

NEXT WEEK: One needs at least one week to recover from this much consumption. This would explain why next week is pretty quiet. The widest release is the new PUNISHER movie (huh?). Aside from that, there are a couple of mid-size releases, CADILLAC RECORDS and NOBEL SON. At least the art house crowd can get excited over FROST / NIXON but it seems pickings will be slim so eat up now.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Twilight's Big Bite

Every now and then I am reminded that I am not a teenager anymore. I don’t have a favorite Jonas Brother; I couldn’t get through the first 20 minutes of the first HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL; and up until this past spring when I first saw posters appearing in the city, I had never heard of Stephanie Meyer or TWILIGHT. Little did I know, it was a phenomenon amongst the younger folks. Even going in to this weekend, I thought it was going to be that big. It was a crowded weekend and the trailers looked pretty flat. When I read that 2,000 advance screenings had already sold out though, I knew I was bloody wrong about the whole thing.


And so TWILIGHT flew out of the cave with midnight Thursday screenings tallying $7 million and rode that wave to a total of $35 million on Friday alone. That’s $8 million more than Bond brought in last Friday. TWILIGHT finished the weekend surpassing everyone’s expectations (and essentially annihilating mine) with a grand total of over $70 million, becoming the fourth biggest November opening of all time, behind three separate Harry Potter installments. I wonder if the Potter people regret the move out of this weekend now.


Meanwhile, Bond got banged by bad word of mouth and tumbled nearly 60% in its second week to just $27 million. This kind of fall means QUANTUM OF SOLACE will struggle to surpass CASINO ROYALE’s $165 million domestic total. Overseas, Bond has nothing to cry about as the film is seriously outpacing the last installment but this is definitely a different story on the home front. QUANTUM OF SOLACE barely came in second place, and may very likely end up in third after the final numbers come in tomorrow. Considering Sony over inflated last weekend’s gross to look as though QUANTUM OF SOLACE had done better numbers than THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM, it would not shock me if they did to save face for losing to an animated dog.


The dog in question is BOLT, Disney’s 3D animated film featuring the voices of John Travolta and Miley Cyrus. I’m sure the Disney peeps were hoping for a bigger haul this weekend than $27 million but BOLT’s bite was no match for that of TWILIGHT. With very little strict family fare coming in the weeks to follow though, BOLT could surprise with strong legs. The Thanksgiving holiday is certainly going to give BOLT a big boost.

Two particular arthouse films have much to celebrate this weekend. The first is THE BOY IN THE STRIPED PAJAMAS. The WWII drama debuted last week to strong numbers and expanded this week into 368 screens to see its haul increase by 252%. The even bigger success is hiding just below the Top 10 at number 11. One of this year’s biggest crowd pleasers, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, added 22 screens this weekend and saw another week averaging over $31K per screen. The Danny Boyle Oscar hopeful shot up over 176% and looks poised for the Top 10 next week.

Speaking of … NEXT WEEK: It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without holiday film fare. Enter Vince Vaughan and Reese Witherspoon in FOUR CHRISTMASES. Baz Luhrmann returns to cinemas after a seven-year absence with AUSTRALIA, starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. And for those who think holidays are for guns and explosions, Jason Statham returns with TRANSPORTER 3. Mmmm, pass the turkey, please.

WEEKEND BOX OFFICE: Escape 2 the Bank

Wow. I totally missed this one. I knew the Dreamworks MADAGASCAR sequel would do well, that it would be the king of the forest, or desert or wild kingdom or whatever the African animals preside over but I did not see this much money coming its way. MADAGASCAR: ESCAPE 2 AFRICA outpaced the original right out of the cage, I mean gate, on Friday with $17 million. It then went on to crush every competitor out there, with its mammoth $63.5 million haul (compared to a first weekend of $47 million for the first outing) but audiences showed up in meerkat or lemur or lemming or “whatever that thing that likes to move it, move it is” size numbers for many other titles as well, making this a huge early jump to the holiday season.


Another title that surpassed expectations this week, hold its own very well against the family friends toon, was ROLE MODELS. The comedy, starring Paul Rudd and Seann William Scott, skews slightly older but does certainly have a kid-friendly appeal to it, making its near $20 million take pretty impressive considering the competition. Rudd, who incidentally also co-wrote the screenplay, does not usually place himself in lead roles but this success will certainly make that more likely in the future. Meanwhile, Scott got some much needed love that has been lacking for him with recent misses like THE PROMOTION or MR. WOODCOCK.


The only other Top 10 debut this week was an unfortunate misfire for Bernie Mac’s last screen work before his death earlier this fall, SOUL MEN. This film opened in sixth place, thanks to strong holds for CHANGELING and ZACK AND MIRI MAKE A PORNO that shut it out of the Top 5. This title is a sure fire rental hit so audiences will get their chance to see Mac’s last show before this title drifts into obscurity but it would have been nice for his memory to be honoured in a larger fashion.


Below the Top, this week’s biggest success story was THE BOY IN STRIPED PAJAMAS. The WWII story about two boys, one on each side of a fence to a concentration camp, pulled in $15K per screen for the second highest per screen average of any film this week, behind the MADAGASCAR sequel. The most unlikely of art house heroes, Jean Claude van Damme saw a promising start for his self-referential fictionalized account of his current life, JCVD. The film opened to $11K per screen on just two locations. I’VE LOVED YOU SO LONG, SYNECDOCHE NEW YORK and NOAH’S ARC: JUMPING THE BROOM continued to pull in averages just below $10K. And, the wedding of the year, RACHEL GETTING MARRIED, added another 258 screens, bringing it ever so closer to the Top 10 with a 133% increase. If you haven’t RSVP’d to this one already, you should get on that. You wouldn’t want to miss this dessert table.


NEXT WEEK: Huge week! Only one major mass market release and one art house release worth noting. What? That doesn’t seem huge? Well, you haven‘t considered the titles we’re talking about here. For the art crowd, the audience winner at this year’s TIFF, SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE, from Danny Boyle. And for the masses, Bond, James Bond, in QUANTUM OF SOLACE. They didn’t even try to counter program. Welcome back, Mr. Bond.