Box-Office Wrap-Up: Barbarians, Vampires and Spy Kids are No Match for the Ladies of ‘The Help’
By
Brad Brevet
For the four new releases, it was not a pretty weekend, as the highest grossing film of the three wide releases managed only $12 million. DreamWorks moved to the top of the heap with The Help and Fox’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes remained strong, placing quality above all else. Let’s have a look and see what we can learn.
Laremy predicted the #1 movie correctly 4 Weeks In A Row
Only a 21.5% drop for The Help means this film is going to be around for a while, but if we wanted to talk about Oscar, I’m not sure if there is enough meat on this film’s narrative bones to stick with the Academy with their new Best Picture rules. It will definitely be in contention, but without ten automatic nominees it will be much harder for this one to get in there, that is provided the rest of this year’s Oscar crop proves to be as good as it should be.
The one thing that really could help this film out is a massive box-office haul. However, I don’t know how high it can go. It may stick around for a while, and it will definitely cross $100 million, but can it bring in much more?
Weekend: $20.4 million (-21.5% drop) Cummulative Total: $71.8 million RottenTomatoes Score:73% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #1 and his prediction of $18 million was $2.4m off for a percentage error of 11.76%.
The results for this film, for me, are shocking as much as they are encouraging. I love seeing that people are taking a chance on a film I wasn’t convinced there was an audience for. Only a 41.4% drop in its third weekend is impressive and I’m still excited to hear when the sequel will hit.
Weekend: $16.3 million (-41.4% drop) / Cume: $133.7 million / RottenTomatoes:82% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #2 with $16.72 million, which is $0.42m off for a 2.58% error.
Hey look! A new film, and while Laremy was rather spot on with his prediction he had two of this week’s other newcomers finishing ahead of it, which I guess is to say Spy Kids lived up to rather dismal expectations while the others failed on a spectacular level.
However, to be fair to Conan and Fright Night, Spy Kids isn’t all that impressive when you take into consideration the previous installment brought in $33.4 million back in 2003. I guess Spy Kids 3D left such a rancid smell in audience’s noses they weren’t about to see what 4D and Arom-a-scope would do to their sniffers. Can’t blame ’em.
As far as reader predictions go, John Debono’s $12.3 million prediction takes the cake.
Weekend: $12 million / RottenTomatoes:23% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #5 with $11.53 million, which is $0.47m off for a 3.92% error.
Like I said in yesterday’s article concerning this film’s $80-90 million budget, I think a lot of money can potentially come in from overseas and Lionsgate better hope so because apparently very little is going to be contributed domestically.
Laremy didn’t have a lot of confidence in this film as it was, but even his tiny prediction ended up being too high. John Debono, however, once again damn near nailed it with a $10.6 million prediction. Someone get that guy an Oracle job!
Weekend: $10 million / RottenTomatoes:28% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #4 with $13.56 million, which is $3.56m off for a 35.6% error.
The Smurfs may not be a critical hit, but they are a worldwide sensation with over $258 million being brought in from all corners of the Earth. We have ourselves another Alvin and the Chipmunks ladies and gentlemen.
Weekend: $8 million (-41.6% drop) / Cume: $117.7 million / RottenTomatoes:22% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #7 with $7.82 million, which is $0.18m off for a 2.25% error.
Ouch. This one really hurts, but this result isn’t all that surprising if you consider the marketing and the kind of vampire film it is. This isn’t a flashy film, it isn’t an overly funny film, it has some gore, but nothing outlandish, yet, it’s quite entertaining. The problem is, without the flash and particularly dark cinematography, it’s hard to sell it to audiences with glossy trailers.
Luckily for DreamWorks and Touchstone this one only cost $30 million, which means once all things are said and done it should come out the other end just fine.
On the prediction side of things, Laremy was way off and the readers were all over the board. Some even had it coming in #1 with one person saying, “Fright Night will beat Help… Why? Fright Night‘s got David Tennant, who will bring in the ‘Doctor Who’ audience.” That “Doctor Who” audience must be the only audience that showed up if that’s the case.
A reader going by the name Bustray, however, wasn’t fooled and his $7 million prediction was the closest on the board.
Weekend: $7.9 million / RottenTomatoes:74% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #3 with $14.01 million, which is $6.11m off for a 77.34% error.
I’m sad to see this film failing, primarily because the previous installment, which was quite terrible, did so well. A 57.2% drop in its second week is not a good sign and one that says word of mouth wasn’t as kind as I thought it would be.
Weekend: $7.7 million (-57.2% drop) / Cume: $32.3 million / RottenTomatoes:51% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #6 with $8.83 million, which is $1.13m off for a 14.68% error.
I wasn’t a fan, but with a budget of only $28 million this one is going to end up just fine even if it didn’t light the box-office on fire.
Weekend: $6.3 million (-52.6% drop) / Cume: $25.7 million / RottenTomatoes:42% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #8 with $7.53 million, which is $1.23m off for a 19.52% error.
I really don’t have anything to say about this movie. So if you have something to add please feel free.
Weekend: $4.9 million (-30% drop) / Cume: $64.4 million / RottenTomatoes:76% Laremy’s rank: Not Ranked
Next week sees three new releases coming to theaters in the form of Don’t be Afraid of the Dark, Our Idiot Brother and Colombiana. Of the three I have seen two of them already and I’m not expecting major results from any of them. The widest release among the lot, based on early theater projections, will be Colombiana with 2,500 theaters, but Screen Gems isn’t screening that for critics here in Seattle until 7 PM the night before release. Never a good sign.
Are we looking at another weekend where The Help will take the top spot? If it falls another 21.4% it’s looking at a $16.09 million weekend. Think one of those new releases can beat it?
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