Box Office: Without Super Powers, You Are Nothing
Sunday, February 5, 2012 at 3:00PM The global love of superpowered young men hasn't even begun to decline as the star-less Chronicle, about three teenagers who develop uncanny powers opened at #1 for Superbowl weekend. It almost doubled its production budget on opening weekend. Harry Potter himself Daniel Radcliffe had to settle for second place with The Woman in Black but that's probably because he's no longer the most powerful wizard on earth.
Chronicle is unkind to cars.
BAKERS DOZEN (Estimates)
01 CHRONICLE $22 new
02 THE WOMAN IN BLACK $21 new
03 THE GREY $9.5 (cum. $34.7)
04 BIG MIRACLE $8.5 new
05 UNDERWORLD AWAKENING $5.6 (cum. $54.3)
06 ONE FOR THE MONEY $5.2 (cum. $19.6)
07 RED TAILS $5 ($41.3)
08 THE DESCENDANTS $4.6 (cum. $65.5)
09 MAN ON A LEDGE $4.5 (cum. $14.7)
10 EXTREMELY LOUD AND INCREDIBLY CLOSE $3.9 (cum. $26.7)
11 CONTRABAND $3.4 (cum. $26.7) (cum. $62.1)
12 THE ARTIST $2.5 (cum. $20.5)
13 BEAUTY & THE BEAST 3D $2.4 rerelease
Someone's wearing lifts... Janet McTeer is 6'1". Daniel Radcliffe is 5'5"
Talking Points
• It's a good weekend for Janet McTeer, huh? Not only did she finally feel some major industry love again post Tumbleweeds (1999) with her Albert Nobbs Oscar nomination, but she's co-starring in The Woman in Black. What's more Albert Nobbs held up well in limited release, according to IndieWire suggesting it has more life in it yet. Will it expand further now?
• The Descendants may soon surpass Sideways to become Alexander Payne's biggest hit yet. It's just 6 million behind it now.
• A Separation has crossed the 1 million mark which is a big deal these days for a foreign film. Hopefully they'll keep expanding since they've just been adding a tiny number of screens each week.
• The Artist is slowing down a bit in wide release but it's already tap danced its way clear of being called "lowest grossing Best Picture winner ever" (should it win) since it's a bigger hit than The Hurt Locker. That said anything that wins this year beyond The Help is going to end up in the 10 lowest grossers list. The Atlantic did some tallying and adjusting for inflation a year ago and they claim that these are the lowest grossing Best Pictures ever. All of them are superpower free (unless you count Javier Bardem's "Chigurh" as a supernatural evil force which maybe you can):
- The Hurt Locker (2009) $15
- All The Kings Men (1949) $60
- Hamlet (1948) $61
- An American in Paris (1951) $67
- Crash (2005) $67
- Marty (1955) $70
- No Country For Old Men (2007) $85
- lt Happened One Night (1934) $86
- The Last Emperor (1987) $89
- The Great Ziegfeld (1936) $95
What did you see this weekend?
Reader Comments (16)
Not surprising to see Gigi in the bottom 15. The only way Gigi could be a morally forgivable movie is if it had dark cinematography and metal instrumentation and vocals.
I'm always surprised at how little The Hurt Locker made. I feel like it would have been much more financially successful if it hadn't been marketed as such a prestige piece. It's such a great action film! Of course, it probably wouldn't have won any awards that way and maybe they're worth more in the long run.
Saw A SEPARATION and CHRONICLE this weekend. Obviously both are very different, as evident by the respective audiences I saw both films with, but both are also so very worth your time and money.
Has anyone else never heard of "Chronicle"? Literally the first time I'd heard of it was when I saw it on the marquee of my movie theater on Friday afternoon. I don't think that's ever happened to me before.
But it's nice to see that a star-free movie that's not already attached to an existing brand can come in at #1. So congratulations to them.
Liz -- i hadn't heard of it either til like Thursday. but then this time of year I enter that Oscar Wormhole and I get really confused as to what's happening outside of the red carpet world.
I watched Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 2 and Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf this weekend. I thought Elizabeth Taylor was awesome in Who's Afraid Of Virginia Woolf, but I didn't like the movie itself very much.
Finally managed to see the third film from the 1927-28 Academy Awards' Unique and Artistic Production nominees: 'Chang: A Drama of the Wilderness'. Quite amazing film, despite obviously staged sequences. Makes an intriguing trio of nominees, together with (the superior) 'Sunrise' and 'The Crowd'. Now only 'The Racket' left from the Best Production nominees, and I will have watched all first Oscar Best Picture nominees :-)
Also watched A Separation at last, boy, what a fantastic film! The studio should really have pushed it more for more Oscar attention.
I was a dutiful actressexual, and finished off this year's list of the ten nominated ladies with Albert Nobbs. The consensus is very true-poor film, solid Close, excellent McTeer. Though I spent at least half of the film wondering how heartbreaking its going to be to watch Close lose again this year at the Oscars-I know that she shouldn't win for this year against the likes of Viola Davis, but she should have an Oscar, and how easy would it have been if she'd been nominated for Best Song this year? It would have been a blowout against these two nominees.
I've been on a Malick kick. It's been "The New World" this weekend. I have both the original cut DVD and the extended cut, so I'm planning on doing something about that, writing-wise.
MALICK = GOD
http://f---nobuttheresaposter.blogspot.com
I saw Chronicles and The Woman In Black on Friday. Chronicles was surprisingly strong, providing a refreshing take on the super powered sub-genre. As for The Woman In Black, it was nicely shot and had good art direction but the pacing was dreadful, the story meandered and Radcliffe's performance wasn't enough to shake the specter of Harry Potter (I hate saying that because I like Radcliffe but the performance didn't work... Then again, the script didn't give his character much to do anyway).
Shocking that Daniel Radcliffe (All 5'5 of him!) has more cache with female moviegoers than the Twilight guys. Impressive numbers.
I remember some people saying that The Artist would be a big sleeper hit ala Midnight in Paris, but I frankly don't see it happening. No matter how many awards it wins, the majority of people just won't see a black-and-white silent movie. The inevitable Best Picture victory will give it a small boost, I'm sure, but I seriously doubt it will cross the $50 million threshold even then, meaning it will almost certainly end up being the 2nd-lowest grossing Best Picture winner of all time.
Does anyone have numbers for how much The Hurt Locker made on DVD, Blu-ray, and/or on-demand rentals? Because remember, it had already been released in those formats prior to the Academy Awards, meaning it didn't get a chance to have a post-Oscar boost in theaters. I wouldn't be surprised if it's made quite a bit more money by now.
Also, just in case anyone is interested, here are the estimated number of tickets sold for the Best Picture winners of the past quarter-century:
2010- The King’s Speech- 17.6 million
2009- The Hurt Locker- 2.2 million
2008- Slumdog Millionaire- 19.7 million
2007- No Country for Old Men- 10.6 million
2006- The Departed- 20.1 million
2005- Crash- 8.5 million
2004- Million Dollar Baby- 15.7 million
2003- The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King- 61.6 million
2002- Chicago- 28.3 million
2001- A Beautiful Mind- 29.4 million
2000- Gladiator- 34.8 million
1999- American Beauty- 24.9 million
1998- Shakespeare in Love- 19.8 million
1997- Titanic- 128.3 million
1996- The English Patient- 17.3 million
1995- Braveheart- 17.4 million
1994- Forrest Gump- 78.5 million
1993- Schindler’s List- 23 million
1992- Unforgiven- 24.4 million
1991- The Silence of the Lambs- 31.1 million
1990- Dances with Wolves- 43.7 million
1989- Driving Miss Daisy- 25.2 million
1988- Rain Man- 43.3 million
1987- The Last Emperor- 10.8 million
1986- Platoon- 35.4 million
For contrast, the biggest hit nominated this year, The Help, has sold approximately 21.4 million tickets, and The Artist is currently at about 2.6 million.
I saw The Iron Lady yesterday and the movie was atrocious. Meryl Streep as usual was good, but the movie was so bad that half way through the movie I was so bored, I wanted to leave the theatre. I don't understand how can Meryl work with such a bad director like Phylida loyd. She needs to stop making movies. This point has been made many times before that If Meryl wants to win her third Oscar, she needs to be In a best picture nominee or be in a great movie. This movie could have been a great with a different director like Stephen Frears.
In trying to catch up with this year's Oscar-nominated films I screened "A Better Life," "Warrior," and "Beginners." Clearly, the Academy has a hard-on for forlorn patriarchs this year. I honestly can't say that I absolutely loved any of the performances, though Bichir, Nolte, and Plummer all do admirable work, but I can definitely understand why they were cited. I will say that Bichir's penultimate scene did reduce me to tears, which is very rare for me.
I saw Margin Call this weekend. I thought the screenplay mostly worked except for a few clunkers where it called attention to itself (like poor Paul Bettany having to constantly stand with his back to the other actors soap-opera style while uttering lines like "It ain't pretty."). I really liked how tense and even suspenseful it was with minimal music and no big, overdramatic temper tantrums. It was so STILL, sometimes even quiet. Plus Spacey, Irons, Quinto and even Penn Badgley were all good.
Although it still amazes me, with so many talented actresses in their 40's who can barely find work, that Demi Moore ever gets cast. I mean, she was fine, but when is she ever the best choice for a role?