Daily Box Office Analysis for August 21, 2007
By David Mumpower
August 22, 2007
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Cop rock!

Day five of the Superbad era concluded much the same as the first four. The Seth Rogen/Judd Apatow comedy finished in first place yet again. It earned $4,755,124 yesterday, giving it a running total of $43,252,359. Yesterday's discussion focused upon comparisons to other recent blockbuster comedies, and we won't veer from that path the rest of the week. Box office behavior modeling is the best way to anticipate future behavior, and Superbad follows in the footsteps of several strong titles.

The recent comedies being used as gauging tools for Superbad are Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, The Break-Up, Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, American Wedding, Wedding Crashers, The 40 Year-Old Virgin, and Knocked Up. There are two aspects for comparison. The first is actual box office revenue for Tuesday. The other is percentage decline from Monday-to-Tuesday. We discussed yesterday that Superbad's Saturday-Sunday decline was the stuff of myth and legend. Obviously, it wasn't quite as successful on Tuesday, as the $4,755,124 represents a decline of 12.7% from Monday's $5,444,824. How does that compare to the others? Let's find out.

Knocked Up earned $4.1 million on its first Tuesday, a decline of 7.1% from its first Monday. American Wedding earned $4.5 million, which was a drop of 10.4% from the previous day. So, Superbad has those beat in actual dollars, but it's losing the percentage decline war. Is that the case across the board? Pretty much. The 40 Year-Old Virgin earned $2.9 million, but fell only 3.8%. The Break-Up earned $4.0 million, an increase of 2.0%. So, two thirds of Superbad's models held up better on their first Tuesdays. Meanwhile, a couple did better across the board. Dodgeball earned $5.2 million, a decline of 6.0% while Wedding Crashers blew the curve with $5.5 million, an increase of 18.4%.

Summarizing the above, the news isn't quite as glowing for Superbad as it had been yesterday...not that this was realistically possible. It had the steepest drop of any title listed here. The good news is that it had the third highest initial Tuesday in terms of actual dollars. When push comes to shove, that's the total that matters. And the other aspect that should not be ignored is that Superbad's drop from Monday-to-Tuesday is lower than Rush Hour 3's 14.0% decline last week. Superbad also earned more in actual dollars than Rush Hour 3's $4.47 million last Tuesday. In the end, Superbad's Tuesday performance is only alarming if it becomes part of a trend the rest of the week. For now, I'm inclined to write it off as a blip on the radar, but reserve the right to see it as a pattern if it keeps up another couple of days.

Box office for the top ten earned combined receipts of $14,609,942, which is as good a sign as any that summer is winding down. Keep in mind that last year's Tuesday in the same time frame (August 22, 2006) had combined receipts of $9.16 million. So, while the today's box office seems relatively weak compared to recent weeks, it's still an increase of 54% from 2006.