Twelve Days of Box Office
By David Mumpower
December 26, 2008
After a lackluster month of box office to date, Christmas Day saw the release of five new titles into the marketplace. Four of them absolutely tore it up with three of those becoming the most successful Christmas Day releases of all-time. Happy holidays, Hollywood!
2008 should be remembered as Hollywood's Year of the Dog. Following on the heels of Beverly Hills Chihuahua's $92.6 million success, Marley and Me has surpassed Ali's $10.2 million to become the biggest Christmas Day opener ever with $14.5 million. And unlike Ali, a title that immediately flamed out with less than $50 after its strong debut, Marley and Me is poised to be a strong performer the rest of the holiday season. The combination of Jennifer Aniston, Owen Wilson and a dog is apparently a dream come true for the Pet Smart crowd, making this one the surprise heavyweight of the December box office campaign.
Second and third place yesterday went to two other titles that would have laid a claim to the biggest Christmas Day opening ever if not for that bitch Marley. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a current favorite for the Academy Awards, opened to a solid $12.0 million yesterday, good enough for second place. Meanwhile, the expected favorite not just on Christmas Day but for the entire month of December, Bedtime Stories, managed $10.5 million in the face of stiff competition. BOP usually finds the concept of competition overrated but given the similar demographics between Bedtime Stories and Marley and Me, this could have been at least a slight issue for the Adam Sandler comedy. We'll know for sure in the coming days.
Fourth place on Christmas Day went to one of the other two remaining openers, Valkyrie. I've been joking all week about the difficulties in marketing a Tom Cruise-in-an-eyepatch Nazi movie right now. To MGM's credit, they managed a respectable $8.5 million debut, which may not sound like much given the above. If, however, you consider that the last film Cruise headlined, Lions for Lambs, made roughly $15 million domestically, $8.5 million on day one sounds pretty good. It's possible that this one follows the Ali path of a quick flameout. Even if that happens, Cruise's decision to play against type in an over the top comedic role in Tropic Thunder appears to have put a makeshift bandage on his career. Audiences were in a forgiving mood about Oprah's couch by the time Valkyrie came around.
Rounding out the top five is Yes Man, which tripled from $1.98 million on Christmas Eve to $6.0 million on Christmas Day. Even with this gaudy performance, the Jim Carrey comedy's running total after a week in theaters is only now what was expected of opening weekend, $33.0 million. The news is similar for the sixth place entrant, Seven Pounds. It also tripled and then some from $1.5 million to $4.8 million. Currently sitting at $25.5 million, Seven Pounds is looking at a finish in the Ali range, not the $100 million territory the rest of Will Smith's 2000s releases have seen.
Seventh place is where the fifth and final new Christmas Day release, The Spirit, wound up. Facing the type of horrific buzz that generally indicates a Razzie winner or a Uwe Boll flick, the Frank Miller film managed only $4.0 million from 2,509 locations. Its time in the top ten will be short and less than sweet.
The only other entry of note in the top ten was The Tale of Despereaux. The heroic mouse with the big ears experienced a huge plunge from second place on Christmas Eve to tenth place on Christmas Day. Whereas all of the other titles acquired huge box office gains yesterday, Despereaux's bump was much more modest. It went from $1.57 million to $2.0 million. Rare are the clearly distinguishable instances of box office competition negatively impacting a title. There are but a handful over the past half a dozen years, but Christmas Day 2008 appears to have one. All of the new competition for family dollars appears to have derailed the Universal release, at least temporarily.
| 1 |
Marley & Me |
Twentieth Century Fox |
$14,500,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$14,500,000 |
| 2 |
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button |
Paramount |
$11,800,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$11,800,000 |
| 3 |
Bedtime Stories |
Walt Disney Pictures |
$10,500,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$10,500,000 |
| 4 |
Valkyrie |
United Artists |
$8,500,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$8,500,000 |
| 5 |
Yes Man |
Warner Bros. |
$6,000,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$33,000,000 |
| 6 |
Seven Pounds |
Columbia Pictures (Sony) |
$4,750,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$25,500,000 |
| 7 |
The Spirit |
Lionsgate |
$4,000,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$4,000,000 |
| 8 |
The Day the Earth Stood Still |
Twentieth Century Fox |
$2,750,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$55,750,000 |
| 9 |
Four Christmases |
New Line Cinema |
$2,250,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$106,750,000 |
| 10 |
The Tale of Despereaux |
Universal |
$2,000,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$18,500,000 |
|
Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations
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