Weekend Wrap-Up
Taken Dominates Super Bowl Weekend
By John Hamann
February 1, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Super Bowl weekend at movie theatres has been a quiet place for male adults over the last few years. Last year, Hannah Montana's 3-D concert movie opened huge, earning $31 million over three days, while Jessica Alba's The Eye (female-oriented horror, much like The Uninvited) opened to $12 million. That weekend, returning male-oriented films like Rambo and Cloverfield dropped 61% and 62% respectively. The year before, The Messengers (again, female-oriented horror) opened to a soft $14.7 million, and was followed closely by chick flick Because I Said So ($13.1 million opening), and Smokin‘ Aces fell 58%. In 2006, chick-horror When A Stranger Calls opened to $21.6 million (a Super Bowl weekend record until Hannah Montana showed up), and the romantic comedy Something New bombed with $4.9 million. Can you say trend? 2005 brought a horror movie (Boogeyman) and a rom-com (The Wedding Date). So finally this year, 20th Century Fox took a chance on males with Taken, and the gamble paid off in a very large way.
Taken is our number one film of the weekend, as it took a man with a gun to push Paul Blart: Mall Cop out of top spot and off his Segway. Taken earned a strong $24.6 million from a quite wide venue count of 3,183 and had a per-location average of $7,736. Fox used some smart scheduling to propel the thriller to the top, as the top movies in release have been bereft of a male actioner since the Tom Cruise vehicle Valkyrie was released at Christmas (it finished 19th last weekend). Combine that with an extremely strong marketing campaign (that TV ad got my blood going), and an actor whose last wide release live action work was a Batman film, and you've got a Super Bowl weekend winner in Taken.
Liam Neeson has never been a huge box office draw on his own, but has made some excellent choices over his 25 plus years as an actor. Notable in the '80s for his early work in films like Excalibur and The Mission, Neeson became an even bigger name after headlining Darkman in 1990, the dark super-hero type flick from director Sam Raimi. This was Raimi's biggest hit until Spider-Man (I don't count For the Love of the Game). Darkman opened to $8 million almost 20 years ago, and finished with four times that amount. Neeson headlined Schindler's List three years later, earning a Best Actor nomination as the movie made over $300 million worldwide. In the years following, Neeson tried to headline a few projects but had little success commercially as Rob Roy and Michael Collins struggled domestically with $31 million and $11 million respectively. Then in 1999, he took a large role in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (and was the only thing good in that movie), and it grossed $431 million. He followed that up with The Haunting ($73 million), Gangs of New York ($77 million), and Batman Begins ($205 million). Most recently, he has lent his voice to the Narnia films as Aslan. With Taken, Neeson proves he can draw an audience as the top liner again.
In the review department, Taken did okay - better than the usual male action film, but lower than a usual Liam Neeson flick. At RottenTomatoes, 107 reviewers chimed in, and 61 found something to like. That gives it a 59% fresh rating at the time of this writing, good enough to keep folks coming out to see it. Next weekend delivers four new wide openers, but Taken should still do okay, as none of them are male-oriented action movies. Taken should end up as a $75 million dollar winner for Fox; budget data isn't available, but a good guess puts this one at about $50 million, and Taken has already earned $70 million from overseas sales.
Finishing second is our consecutive weekend champ, Paul Blart: Mall Cop. It was an interesting weekend for Paul Blart, as it had a very broad audience over the last few weekends, and now it had a Super Bowl to contend with. Despite the Sunday spectacle, Paul Blart still did very well, earning $14 million, and dropping a not bad 35%. Over the last few frames, Paul Blart has had weekend multipliers (Friday gross divided by weekend gross) around 3.8, which means it's playing to a very broad audience from the very old to the very young. This weekend's (estimated) multiplier was 3.5, which tells us that Super Bowl had little effect on Blart's performance. The $25 million Sony/Happy Madison co-production has now earned $88.4 million, and it will hit $100 million in no time.
Third goes to The Uninvited, this year's horror flick counter-programming to the Super Bowl. Like the rest of the examples listed above, The Uninvited did only okay, earning $10.5 million from 2,344 venues. This is neither blow out success or sad flop; anything over $10 million has to be considered a success for Paramount, as production costs are most likely in the $25 million area. Reviews were expectedly poor, and a good guess has this one leaving the top ten after next weekend.
Hotel for Dogs is in fourth place this weekend, just as it was last weekend. This can surely be attributed to the fact that it skews differently than most of the movies that are vying for attention against football. The dogs earned $8.7 million, and dropped a solid 32%. The $75 million Paramount production has now earned $48.2 million.
Fifth spot goes to Gran Torino, the Clint Eastwood "get off my lawn" movie. Gran Torino became Clint's biggest movie ever this weekend, as it took in another $8.6 million. It dropped 47% compared to last weekend (the Super Bowl didn't help), but now has amassed a domestic total of $110.5 million, Eastwood's biggest haul. Gran Torino should earn $135 million before it's through, all against a production budget of $35 million.
That keeps Slumdog Millionaire in sixth, the same spot it held last weekend. My current Best Picture fave earned $7.7 million and was off a slight 28%, despite Fox Searchlight adding 222 venues. Slumdog has now earned $67.2 million domestically, and about $30 million overseas. This one should finish as a $100 million picture for Searchlight, against a $15 million pickup cost.
Seventh goes to Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, as the monster movie gets eviscerated in its second frame. Underworld 3 earned $7.2 million and falls 65% compared to its opening frame. Underworld: Evolution, the second film in the series, fell 58% in its second weekend, but opened higher, at $27 million compared to $20.8 million for Lycans. Look for the $35 million Rise of the Lycans to top out at about $55 million.
That leaves Lionsgate's New In Town in eighth, as moviegoers abandoned it. The Renee Zellweger flick earned a meek $6.8 million from a decidedly low (and telling) venue count of 1,941 theatres. The comedy was 16% fresh at RottenTomatoes and leaves me wondering why Renee is still opening films. This one was shot in 2007 and shelved, left to open over Super Bowl weekend. Leave it alone, folks.
My Bloody Valentine 3-D manages a final top ten appearance. It earned $4.3 million and tumbled 58%. Surprisingly, this one is going to outgross New In Town the other horror film from Lionsgate (really, what's scarier - a 3-D pickaxe or Renee Zellweger doing the face crunch?). So far, Valentine has earned a respectable $44.6 million.
That puts Inkheart down to tenth after a seventh place finish last weekend. Inkheart is a big miss, as it earned only $3.7 million and was off 51%. Maybe Brendan Fraser should do something other than a green screen film, as this one has a total of $12.8 million.
Oscar-type films continue to reap some benefits from their recent nominations. The Wrestler earned $2.4 million from 722 screens, as Paramount Vantage added another 156 venues. Benjamin Button earned $3.6 million for a 11th place finish (but did drop 41% in the process); Milk re-expanded to 832 venues and earned $1.4 million; and The Reader blew up its venue count to 1,002 and earned $2.4 million.
Overall, things remain very good at the box office. Taken's gross propelled the top 12 films to $110.2 million this weekend, a record for this frame. Until last year, this weekend usually finished in the $70 million to $80 million range, but last year Hannah Montana increased that to $101 million. Next weekend brings four new releases: Pink Panther 2, Coraline, He's Just Not That Into You, and Push, which should deliver the fifth consecutive rise over last year.