Weekend Box-Office: ‘Real Steel’ Hangs On for Second Week Victory Over ‘Footloose’
By
Brad Brevet
It’s a tight call at the top of the box-office, but with new releases performing this poorly who really cares? Focusing on how close the race at the top is avoids the fact I haven’t had the impression for a couple weeks that there’s all that much interest in the new releases. Am I wrong on that?
That said, the big winners this weekend were the previous releases as we have several sub-30% drops from last weekend showing word of mouth on these films isn’t as bad as their openings would let one believe. Let’s take a closer look.
Laremy predicted the #1 movie correctly 2 Weeks In A Row
Dropping only 40% from its opening weekend win, Real Steel enjoys the number one spot at the box-office… for now. Actuals could easily drop Real Steel to #2 should Footloose perform even slightly better than estimated. That said, a 40% dip isn’t too shabby, especially if the film can hold on for a little while. Of course, that large budget, rumored to be around $150 million looms as the film’s worldwide total is now at $108.3 million.
Weekend: $16.3 million (40.3% drop) Cummulative Total: $51.7 million RottenTomatoes Score:60% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #1 and his prediction of $18.35 million was $2.05m off for a percentage error of 12.58%.
Well, Laremy is all smiles right now as he not only picked the winner in a close one, but he damn near nailed Footloose‘s total. The film, though, is coming in under expectations and dipped a little over the weekend after a Friday win. Budgeted at $24 million, which doesn’t include the massive marketing campaign, this film will still come out in the black and it makes you wonder, will Paramount begin working on a sequel and try to tap into their Step Up franchise?
As far as the reader predictions go, give a hand to SquareMaster316 and his $16.5 million prediction.
Weekend: $16.1 million / RottenTomatoes:73% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #2 with $16.5 million, which is $0.4m off for a 2.48% error.
Crash and burn… yowsers. Tracking had this one around $12 million or so and that’s where Laremy went with his prediction, but the audience just wasn’t interested. I don’t blame ’em, I love Carpenter’s 1982 film and this prequel excited me very little, and even less after seeing it.
On the reader side of things, John PT had the closest prediction on The Thing with an $9.8 million guess.
Weekend: $8.7 million / RottenTomatoes:33% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #3 with $12 million, which is $3.3m off for a 37.93% error.
A $12.5 million production budget, a 27.9% dip and a cume at $22.1 million. This political thriller is having a good time at the box-office and based on that small drop it would seem audiences are as well.
Weekend: $7.5 million (-27.9% drop) / Cume: $22.1 million / RottenTomatoes:83% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #5 with $6.4 million, which is $1.1m off for a 14.67% error.
Why Dolphin Tale? Why couldn’t you have done a little better and only had a 29% drop so it could have been five films in a row in the heart of the weekend with drops under 30%?
Weekend: $6.3 million (-30.8% drop) / Cume: $58.6 million / RottenTomatoes:83% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #6 with $5.29 million, which is $1.01m off for a 16.03% error.
I would probably say this is my favorite new release in the top ten and it has not performed the way I expected it to. This is a very good film and for it to only be at $57.7 million is shocking for me. I would have thought $100 million easily. Too bad.
Weekend: $5.5 million (-25.7% drop) / Cume: $57.7 million / RottenTomatoes:95% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #7 with $4.9 million, which is $0.6m off for a 10.91% error.
This one I expected to struggle as it’s hard to sell a cancer dramedy, but it’s hanging in there and the 23% dip says people are recommending it.
Weekend: $4.3 million (-23.2% drop) / Cume: $24.3 million / RottenTomatoes:93% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #8 with $3.9 million, which is $0.4m off for a 9.3% error.
I can’t wait to go watch a little football once I’m done with this box-office report.
Weekend: $3.4 million (-29.2% drop) / Cume: $21.3 million / RottenTomatoes:29% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #9 with $3.5 million, which is $0.1m off for a 2.94% error.
I don’t understand why the RottenTomatoes ranking on this one is so low except maybe everyone gave it a “C” rating, but I just don’t see why that would make it “rotten” if that’s the case. This is a perfectly fine film, soothing and never abrasive… comforting is a good word and yet critics, I guess, just weren’t impressed.
Even more curious is the way Fox just plopped it into theaters and hoped for the best. I guess that didn’t work out too well as it only made half of what Laremy predicted. However, reader Chris Etrata wasn’t fooled, making up for his disastrous $40 million prediction on Footloose, he almost nailed Big Year with a $3.5 million projection. Redemption is his!
Weekend: $3.3 million / RottenTomatoes:40% Laremy’s rank: Laremy picked it to finish #4 with $6.6 million, which is $3.3m off for a 100% error.
And I think we can finally say good bye to The Lion King, but never fear, you’ll have a chance to embrace a 3D re-release soon enough once Star Wars: The Phantom Menace hits theaters in February.
Weekend: $2.7 million (-40% drop) / Cume: $418.9 million / RottenTomatoes:89% Laremy’s rank: Not Ranked
Elsewhere, Pedro Almodovar’s The Skin I Live In made $231,000 from only six theaters giving it an impressive $38,500 per theater average. Joel Schumacher’s awful Tresspass landed On Demand an in a whopping ten theaters bringing in a total of $18,200 from the theatrical bow for a $1,820 per theater average.
Now all eyes turn to next weekend. Will we finally have a breakout release in Paranormal Activity 3? The second one opened to $40.6 million. The last time we had a movie open over $40 million this year was back at the beginning of August when Rise of the Planet of the Apes brought in $54.8 million. Will we finally see a big number next weekend?
Competing against Paranormal will be The Three Musketeers and Johnny English Reborn, the latter of which I missed a screening of this weekend, but don’t really mind.
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