Weekend Wrap-Up

Holdovers Blind Side Openers at Thanksgiving Box Office

By John Hamann

November 29, 2009

She probably could coach college football as well as some of these guys.

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Surprisingly, Lionsgate's Precious gets the squeeze, as despite the long weekend, it sees the first drop of its run. After grossing $10.9 million last weekend, Precious dropped 34% to $7.2 million this weekend. Lionsgate chose to expand the feature by only 34 screens this weekend, and may have cost the early Oscar fave some momentum. Financially, this one is secure, as the production cost was only $10 million and it has a gross so far of $32.5 million. Next weekend could be interesting for Precious.

Unfortunately, The Fantastic Mr. Fox finishes in ninth this weekend, as sadly the best features aren't seen by the most people. Since expanding on Wednesday, Fox earned $10 million, and over the Friday-to-Sunday portion of the weekend, the Wes Anderson feature earned $6.9 million. This is a movie we should all be seeing – a solid film with something for the whole family, and a movie that is actually good, not useless drivel. The Fantastic Mr. Fox is 92% fresh at RottenTomatoes, and has a crack at winning the Best Animated Oscar this year. Go see it!

Finishing tenth is The Men Who Stare at Goats, as George Clooney makes room for The Fantastic Mr. Fox and the soon to be released Up in the Air. Goats earned $1.5 million in its fourth weekend, and drops 45% compared to last weekend. Goats now has a total of $30.6 million.




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The Road finishes outside of the top ten this weekend, but was only out to 111 venues. From that limited venue count, the Viggo Mortensen flick earned $1.5 million, and garnered a venue average of $13,495. Look for this one to be a player in the weekends to come.

Overall, the box office was quite strong this weekend compared to other years. At Thanksgiving, the trend is for the top 12 films to earn about $150 million, with last year being the Thanksgiving high point at $154 million. This year, the box office was much stronger, with the top 12 films taking in an estimated $179.3 million. Next weekend openers include Brothers, with Natalie Portman, Jake Gyllenhal and Tobey Maguire, Armored, with Matt Dillon and Laurence Fishburne, and Everybody's Fine with Robert DeNiro.


Top Weekend Box Office for 11/27/09-11/29/09 (Actuals)
Rank Film Distributor Estimated Gross Actual Gross Weekly Change Running Total
1 The Twilight Saga: New Moon Summit Entertainment $42,500,000 $42,870,031 - 70.0% $230,947,696
2 The Blind Side Twentieth Century Fox $40,125,000 $40,111,364 + 17.6% $100,238,841
3 2012 Paramount $18,000,000 $17,651,729 - 33.2% $138,451,427
4 Old Dogs Walt Disney Pictures $16,846,000 $16,894,511 New $24,228,546
5 Disney's A Christmas Carol Walt Disney Pictures $16,003,000 $15,758,273 + 28.4% $104,927,816
6 Ninja Assassin Warner Bros. Pictures $13,135,000 $13,316,158 New $21,193,565
7 Planet 51 Sony/Columbia $10,200,000 $10,218,641 - 16.8% $28,487,409
8 Precious Lionsgate $7,090,000 $7,081,032 - 34.9% $32,433,482
9 Fantastic Mr. Fox 20th Century Fox $7,020,000 $6,965,267 +3322.5% $10,024,072
10 The Road The Weinstein Company $1,522,870 $1,502,231 New $1,977,453
11 The Men Who Stare at Goats Overture Films $1,525,000 $1,501,837 - 46.9% $30,521,930
12 Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day Apparation $1,250,167 $1,301,197 New $5,728,399
  Also Opening/Notables
  The Princess and the Frog Walt Disney Pictures $712,000 $786,190 New $1,216,860
  De Dana Dan Eros N/A $577,381 New $742,377
  Me and Orson Welles $64,780 $63,638 New $85,422
  Small Change Film Desk N/A $4,624 New $7,487
  Broken Embraces Sony Pictures Classics $117,005 $117,986 + 10.2% $312,966
  The Fourth Kind Universal Pictures $626,520 $618,265 - 64.6% $24,605,935
  Couples Retreat Universal $974,276 $960,995 - 50.5% $106,700,205
Click here for all weekend data
Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations

Top 12 for Weekend of November 27-29, 2009
Rank
Film
Number
of Sites
Percent Change
Estimated
Gross ($)
Cumulative
Gross ($)
1 The Twilight Saga: New Moon 4,042 -70% 42,664,000 231,188,000
2 The Blind Side 3,140 +18% 40,597,000 100,916,000
3 2012 3,444 -32% 17,765,000 138,691,000
4 Old Dogs 3,425 New 17,077,000 24,377,000
5 Disney's A Christmas Carol 3,013 +33% 16,259,000 105,674,000
6 Ninja Assassin 2,503 New 13,293,000 21,168,000
7 Planet 51 3,035 -17% 10,191,000 28,503,000
8 Precious 663 -34% 7,193,000 32,549,000
9 Fantastic Mr. Fox 2,033 +3,244% 6,917,000 10,005,000
10 The Men Who Stare At Goats 1,119 -45% 1,547,000 30,561,000
11 The Road 111 New 1,498,000 1,976,000
12 The Boondock Saints II: All Saint's Day 373 +114% 1,287,000 5,702,000
Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations

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