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The holiday box office season was kicked off to a chilly start with the debut of Robert Zemeckis’ A Christmas Carol. Despite having Jim Carrey take on the lead and being pushed with the Disney Digital 3D tag, the performance-captured film was only able to gross a disappointing $31 million to take the top spot.
Considering its $200 million budget and Madagascar 2’s $63 million debut in the same frame last year, there wasn’t much merriment coming from Disney’s offices. However, Zemeckis’ last mo-capped Christmas film The Polar Express also had a shaky $23.3 million start before chugging to a $160+ million domestic gross over its holiday season run. Carol doesn’t have much direct competition through the winter season either, so it may find a foothold yet.
The Men Who Stare at Goats bowed above expectations with a decent $13.3 million haul for 3rd place. The Fourth Kind, meanwhile, came in right behind in 4th with $12.5 million. Richard Kelly’s The Box however was unable to find an audience, with the esoteric director’s third feature debuting in 6th place with a sub-par $7.9 million. As for last weekend’s number 1, Michael Jackson’s This Is It dropped to second with $14 million, while Paranormal Activity rounded out the top 5 with $8.6 million to come just short of the $100 million mark. Read»
Michael Jackson’s concert documentary This Is It won the top spot at the box office, grossing an estimated $21.3 million over the weekend to bring its five-day total to $32.5 million.
The total fell well short of expectations, which started out modest but ballooned after strong pre-sales and a $7.4 million Wednesday haul. It seemed most theatergoers itching to see the late King of Pop do his thing one more time showed up on opening day though; Thursday numbers fell to only $3.7 million. The doc did gross $68.5 million in foreign ticket sales however, which brings its 5-day worldwide total to an impressive $101 million. Though This Is It wasn’t able to top the single day or opening weekend figures of Hannah Montana: Best of Both Worlds, its worldwide sales have already topped the Disney pop princess’ lifetime tally to become the “biggest concert movie of all time” that it was promised to be.
Paranormal Activity continued its strong run, finishing second with $16.5 million. Its total sits at a lofty $84.8 million after 6 weeks. Saw VI meanwhile continued to disappoint, bleeding out to 5th place with $5.6 million for a $22.8 million two-week total. Rounding out the top 5 was Law Abiding Citizen in 3rd with $7.3 million and Couples Retreat in 4th with $6.1 million. Read»
Well, it looks like the Saw franchise’s reign of horror has lost a bit of its foothold in the late October box office. Micro-budgeted Paranormal Activity continued to steamroll the competition in theaters, finally taking the top spot in its fifth weekend of release with an estimated $22 million.
That brings Paranormal’s total to a hefty $62.5 million. To put that into perspective, that’s over 4000 times more than the $15,000 it cost to make. Ridiculous. Saw VI pulled in a not-disgusting $14.8 million in its 2nd place debut, but that’s less than half of what Saw V made in its bow last year in the same frame. Lionsgate execs probably paled visibly today after hearing that Paramount is considering a Paranormal Activity 2 (which, for the record, is probably about as good an idea as Blair Witch 2 was). As tired as I am of Jigsaw, I can at least see why the Saw formula works in a franchise. There’s a certain novelty to Paranormal Activity that I’m not sure can be captured in a sequel.
Meanwhile, Where the Wild Things Are, last week’s number 1, plummeted 56% to 3rd with a $14.4 million haul. It’s $54 million total is still well shy of its $100 million budget. Law Abiding Citizen dropped to 4th with $12.7 million, and Couples Retreat rounded out the top 5 with an $11.1 million weekend.
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