How's the Box Office Doing?

The impact of 3D (higher revenues) vs. the impact of HDTV / Netflix (staying at home).



Source: BoxOffice Mojo

Movie Business Still Golden

Box Office Guru details another strong weekend, in a year that is handily beating the record year that was 2009:

The Red Queen ruled once again as Disney's Alice in Wonderland remained at number one for the third consecutive frame beating out another pack of new releases. Fox's tween comedy Diary of a Wimpy Kid beat expectations to open in second place while Sony's Jennifer Aniston-Gerard Butler vehicle The Bounty Hunter enjoyed a solid debut of its own close behind in third. But Universal's new action entry Repo Men flopped in fourth with a miserable showing. The overall box office was up over 2009 for the fourth straight weekend.

YTD box office results are now a whopping 33% higher than just 4 years ago.



Source: Box Office Mojo

Avatar Takes the "I'm the King of the World!" Crown

The Hollywood Reporter reports:

"Avatar" is the winner and new worldwide boxoffice champion.

After six rounds on the foreign circuit, "Avatar" is now the biggest-grossing film of all time, as earlier predicted.

Distributor 20th Century Fox said the James Cameron mega-budget blockbuster's worldwide cume -- excluding Puerto Rico -- was through the weekend just $2 million shy of "Titanic's" global boxoffice record of $1.843 billion. (Boxoffice in Puerto Rico, although generated offshore, is considered by Fox as part of its domestic total.)

The distributor confirmed that "Titanic's" historic benchmark fell as of early Monday.

The chart below shows the top ten grossing regions of the world and as can be seen, the breakdown of revenue for Avatar is much more broad and diverse than that of Titanic (take note of China and Russia).



With less dependence on a number of markets to date, this tells me that haven't seen anything yet. Boxoffice Guru projects total revenues of ~$700 million domestically and well north of $2 billion worldwide when all is done... I think that may be a low ball estimate.

Source: Box Office Mojo

Avatar Rounds Out Record Year at the Box Office

NY Times details the epic run (thus far) by Avatar:

Critics may be at odds about the meaning of Fox’s 3-D science-fiction epic “Avatar,” but its meaning to the box office is clear: It started the new year at No. 1 in domestic ticket sales. With just over $68 million for the weekend, “Avatar,” directed by James Cameron, finished its first 17 days in theaters with $352.1 million, a record for a film in its third week of release, according to Variety.

More amazing is that worldwide, Avatar is already the fourth highest grossing film of all time.



Although ticket sales did not break the all-time record, the success of Avatar (and higher ticket prices) propelled the 2009 domestic box office to the all-time record in terms of $$ grossed. Reuters details:

Sales rose more than 8% to a record $10.61 billion, while the number of tickets sold (i.e. admissions) climbed almost 4%.

Paramount's "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen" ($402.1 million), Warner Bros.' "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" ($302 million) and 3D phenoms such as Fox's "Avatar" ($352.1 million) and Disney/Pixar's "Up" ($293 million) helped set the new box office mark.

But admissions in the United States and Canada -- at 1.41 billion, compared with 1.36 billion in 2008 -- fell a bit short of beating the all-time record of 1.60 billion set in 2002. The box office year began January 5, with tracking firm Nielsen EDI always starting its calendar on the first business day after New Year's.

Source: Box Office Mojo

The New Moon... The Power of the Women Filmgoer

"Monster" weekend for The Twilight Saga: New Moon. Per the AP:

The vampire romance "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" sucked up $140.7 million in its first three days and pulled in a total of $258.8 million worldwide, according to studio estimates Sunday.

The No. 1 domestic debut for Summit Entertainment's "New Moon" was more than twice the $69.6 million haul over the same weekend last year for "Twilight," the first in the franchise based on Stephenie Meyer's novels.

"New Moon" placed third on the all-time domestic chart behind last year's $158.4 million opening weekend for the Batman blockbuster "The Dark Knight" and 2007's $151.1 million haul for "Spider-Man 3."

Among the top-10 all-time openings, "New Moon" is the only one that came outside of Hollywood's busiest time, the summer season. The movie adaptation of Meyer's next "Twilight" chapter, "Eclipse," arrives in the heart of summer, next June 30.

On Friday, "New Moon" set an all-time domestic high for opening day with $72.7 million, topping the previous record of $67.2 million by last year's "The Dark Knight.

And the devoted (teen / tween / female skewed?) fans could not wait until Saturday to see the film. As detailed above, the film broke the record for the largest grossing Friday of all time and while Saturday was nothing to sneeze at, the drop from Friday was the 6th largest of all time (in percent... in $$ it was by far and away the largest).



So what kind of business can we expect from the New Moon going forward? Well, the next stage is typically driven by word of mouth based on the quality of review. And the viewers were split by just about as much as I've ever seen. Well, not viewers... just the sexes. Females LOVED the film for its Abercrombie'ish models acting. Men... not so much.



So my guess... females will continue to come out in droves. Men... not so much.

Source: Box Office Mojo / IMDB

Tarantino Scores Big

CNN with the details:

Score a personal best at the box office for Quentin Tarantino this weekend.

"Inglourious Basterds," his revisionist take on WWII starring Brad Pitt, grossed an estimated $37.6 million, besting the reigning box office champ "District 9," and giving beleaguered studio The Weinstein Co. a little financial relief. "Basterds'" opening far surpasses Tarantino's previous best opener, "Kill Bill Vol. 2," which brought in $25 million in April 2004.

More broadly, this is the second largest opening weekend ever for a World War II film (I'm surprised this genre hasn't done better).

Source: Box Office Mojo

Bruno Ist Nicht Borat

Some lighter news...

The NY Daily News predicted two weeks back that Bruno's opening week haul wasn't as strong as it may have first appeared:

Sacha Baron Cohen's "Brüno" sashayed to first place at the box office, but in the end its debut weekend wound up not being so wunderbar.

"Brüno" earned a very respectable $30.4 million, but took in nearly half of the weekend total on Friday night as earnings tumbled Saturday and Sunday.

Revenues for hit movies typically go up on Saturday, so the nosedive for "Brüno" could be a sign that it lacks the shelf life that made Cohen's "Borat" a $100 million smash.

And they were right. But, I'm not even sure they realized how large the fall would be. After that $30.4 million opening weekend, the movie has cliff dived and was down more than 70% each of the past two weekends.



Maybe the world is just not ready for a gay Austrian celebrity wanna be...

Source: Box Office Mojo

HP Grosses $104 Million on Wednesday... Harry Potter that Is

Reuters reports:

The latest "Harry Potter" movie cast a $104 million spell over worldwide box offices during its first day in theaters, setting a new record for the boy wizard, distributor Warner Bros Pictures said on Thursday.

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince," the sixth in the film series based on the popular books by J.K. Rowling, grossed $58.18 million in North America and $45.85 million overseas on Wednesday, the Time Warner Inc-owned (TWX.N) studio said.

Source: Box Office Mojo

"More Than Meets the Eye" at the Box Office

Box Office Guru with the details:

Robots ruled the box office as the highly-anticipated action sequel Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen generated the second biggest opening in history with a gargantuan $201.2M in its first five days, according to studio estimates, sending the overall marketplace to its highest gross of the year. The eye-popping figure included $112M over the traditional Friday-to-Sunday period plus an additional $89.2M since its Wednesday launch. Playing ultrawide in 4,234 theaters including 169 IMAX screens, the Paramount release averaged a stunning $26,453 over the Friday-to-Sunday period and a gigantic $47,531 over five days.

The only other film to ever gross more in its first five days was last summer's The Dark Knight which hauled in a slightly better $203.8M from 4,366 venues. The first Transformers bowed to $155.4M in 6.5 days and needed 12.5 days to break the double-century mark on its way to a $319.2M finish.

The Michael Bay-directed pic set a number of other box office milestones. It set new records for a June opener, beating the $93.7M of 2004's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and for a live-action film from Paramount exceeding the $100.1M of last summer's Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

This continues 2009's hot streak (why spend money on a vacation when you can see a terrible movie about robots?)



Source: Box Office Mojo

Movie Bonanza Historical Context

As we've detailed a few times prior, 2009 is on pace to be one of the best years of the past 30 years (all the data I have) in both nominal and real terms.

Top Grossing Movie - Year - Actual $$ - 2009 $$


I'm still trying to grasp how Three Men and a Baby was the #1 grossing film of 1987...

Source: Box Office Mojo

Box Office Boom Continues...

As mentioned a few times already at EconomPic, the box office continues to show strength during this economic downturn as movie goers look for a cheap source of entertainment to forget about their surroundings. Even with the amazing weather on the east coats, this week was no exception. Time reports:

Enough customers were transfixed by the fatal-distraction drama Obsessed to place it at the top of the weekend's box office chart with a surprisingly robust $28.5 million, according to early studio estimates. The PG-13 thriller more than doubled the take of its nearest competitor, 17 Again, and earned nearly as much over the weekend as the total of the three other movies that opened in wide release. It is the all-time highest grosser (surpassing the 2004 Lindsay Lohan-Tiny Fey comedy Mean Girls) for the last weekend in April, when traditionally hardly anyone goes to the movies.

Obsessed marks the fourth release from 2009 that makes up the top 11 April openings ever.



Source: Box Office Mojo

Box Office Bonanza Continues

We've mentioned the strength the box office has shown in recent months a few times. Box Office Guru details the continued strength:

Following a very pricey marketing campaign, DreamWorks Animation's 3D animated film Monsters vs. Aliens delivered on its promises and attracted the largest opening weekend of any film this year leading the overall marketplace to its best performance in over a month. Big muscles were also flexed by Lionsgate which enjoyed one of its biggest horror openings ever with The Haunting in Connecticut which landed in second place with a powerful launch of its own. The top ten films sold $135M worth of ticket stubs making it the best non-holiday tally of 2009.

Source: Boxoffice Mojo

Box Office Continues Hot Streak

The box office continued its hot streak. Box Office Guru reports:

The adult-themed superhero film Watchmen seized control of the North American box office posting the biggest debut of the year with an estimated $55.7M in ticket sales over the Friday-to-Sunday period. Directed by Zack Snyder (300, Dawn of the Dead), the R-rated film based on the acclaimed 1986 comic series averaged a muscular $15,413 from 3,611 theaters. It was the third best March opening ever trailing 300 ($70.9M) and Ice Age: The Meltdown ($68M) and the sixth largest bow for an R-rated film after The Matrix Reloaded ($91.8M), The Passion of the Christ ($83.8M), 300, Hannibal ($58M), and Sex and the City ($57M).

Box Office = Recession Special

Source: Box Office Mojo

Most Profitable Superhero Movie Franchises

Interesting analysis regarding the most profitable 'Superhero' franchise of all time per Max-Bro.net:

Just how profitable are these superhero films for the Hollywood studios making them?

It’s easy to point to large numbers like the ones TDK generated, but then studios invest hundreds of millions of dollars into making these films. I performed some research into the matter and discovered some interesting finds. Below, in descending order, are the top ten most profitable superhero films starting from 1978 to the present day, with a big surprise at the end.

The most profitable Superhero? Those heroes in a halfshell...

Hollywood's Most Overpaid Movie Stars

Per Forbes:

To calculate our payback figures, we took half of each film's worldwide box office (to roughly approximate the studio's cut of each ticket). Then we added the first three months of DVD revenues and subtracted the budget to derive the film's gross income. After that, the actor's total compensation (upfront pay plus any money earned from sharing in the film's profits) was divided into the gross income to get the actor's payback figure for the film. The payback for the last three movies for each actor was averaged to calculate ultimate payback. We deliberately used gross income rather than net income in our analysis because the latter figure is so easily manipulated by studio accountants, with marketing expenses treated differently for almost every film.

I just took their payback figure and inverted it to create a "salary as a percent of gross income". Not Nicole's year...

Box Office Recession?

A recent CNN article claims When Times get Tough, Consumers Beeline to the Movies:

With "The Dark Knight" setting a record for highest-grossing opening weekend and "Pineapple Express" and "Step Brothers" also doing well, 2008 is on track for a record box office summer - suggesting once again that the movie business may be counter-cyclical to the economy.

After reading that, I expected to see very different results when I broke down box office performance going back to 1980. Instead, what I see is a market that peaked in 2002 and is on pace to sell the least amount of tickets since 1996 (even with the massive turnout for The Dark Knight).


With the high price of gas, an average ticket of more than $7, and $5 for greasy (yet tasty) popcorn, many families do not see the value proposition...

Source: Box Office Mojo

Dark Knight to Come up Short?

Now it's time for some REAL economic analysis... will the Dark Knight pass Titanic as the top grossing movie of all time (in absolute terms). While I understand the economics of film have changed since Titanic (much higher grossing in the first few weeks / rush to DVD), but Dark Knight's unbelievable start had me thinking Titanic was toast. Apparently that's not a sure thing...

At this point, it appears that The Dark Knight, the latest film in the Batman franchise, will not be able to sink the Titanic. The Dark Knight film is beginning to close in on the 1977 hit Star Wars, and is fully expected to become the No. 2 movie of all-time. As of right now though, experts feel that The Dark Knight will not be able to actually sink the great Titanic. The Titanic stands as the No. 1 movie of all time, grossing $601 million total. As of right now, it is expected that The Dark Knight will earn around $520 million before it is all said and done.

Source: eCanadaNow, Box Office Mojo