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Box Office Prophets is proud to present our sixth annual Twelve Days of Christmas Box Office analysis. As we have stressed every December around this time, the period between December 20th and January 2nd is historically the most lucrative on the box office calendar.

Since BOP is chiefly comprised of a freakish number of numbers wonks, we live for this time frame. We cannot wait to get into the minutiae of daily numbers, but the focus for today will be on a different topic. There was an opener on Wednesday, so that's the topic of Day One of the Twelve Days.

The movie in question is Rocky Balboa, the final installment in a series that seriously regrets ever casting Tommy Morrison or - *gulp* - Sage Stallone. When the project was announced, it was universally derided as the desperate act of a long faded star in Sylvester Stallone. The 1980s A-List actor has the last laugh, however, as the sixth installment of Philadelphia pugilism has been shockingly well received by critics (currently 78% at Rotten Tomatoes as I type this).

In addition, he has earned major bragging for opening the film to the number one spot at the box office. Rocky's total of $6.2 million on Wednesday must make Stallone feel like it's 1985 all over again. Nobody remembers this now, but the film that spawned the deadly Living in America ear worm was a record shattering success upon its debut. With $127.8 million in domestic receipts, that production still stands as the most successful title in the franchise, edging out Rocky III by $2.8 million. Considering all of this, $6.2 million probably isn't going to buy Stallone that shiny new Van Gogh he's had his eye on (the actor's art collection is world class if you didn't know), but it does buy him back no small amount of credibility. This project could have been a joke but it has instead proven to be an early success story.

Before we get too excited, however, let's flash back five years. On Christmas Day of 2001, another heavily hyped boxing project made an impressive debut with $10.2 million in receipts. That title, Ali, appeared to be a major box office factor and a likely Academy Awards dominator. After the dust had settled, the Michael Mann project had proven itself to be pyrite. It wound up with only $58.1 million in domestic receipts, meaning that almost 20% of its total box office was accrued on opening day. The fallout was that the movie managed only two Oscar nominations and was shut out in the wins department. Rocky Balboa clearly has no aspirations in the latter regard, but it does bear noting that a brilliant first day performance by no means guarantees long term success for a holiday release...particularly not a late-December boxing title.

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