Twelve Days of Box Office
By David Mumpower
December 29, 2006
The rest of the top ten saw the uniform behavior I had anticipated. Eragon's Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday totals were $3.1 million, $2.7 million and $2.6 million respectively. We Are Marshall started at $2.9 million Tuesday, fell to $2.3 million Wednesday, then fell ever so slightly further to $2.2 million on Thursday. The impeccably cast romantic comedy The Holiday, earned $2.2 million on Tuesday then accumulated $2.0 million each on Wednesday and Thursday. All of these titles fell within the few hundred thousand of deviation I stated should be expected in the day seven analysis.
That leaves us with only Dreamgirls to discuss. I thought that this was a Beyonce musical that would behave similarly throughout the week. Instead, its behavior has been more easily identified with Eddie Murphy's batch of lackluster comedies (Holy Man, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Metro, Vampire in Brooklyn, and Showtime to name a few). Okay, that's an exaggeration but only a slight one. While everything else in the top ten has been holding its own, Dreamgirls has been acting like a mob informant plunging into the ocean as he tries to remove the cement shoes.
The movie's fall from $8.5 million on Monday to $5.8 million on Tuesday was to be expected. The declines to $4.0 million on Wednesday followed by $3.6 million on Thursday are harder to explain. Simply put, this should not be happening. A simple look at all of the empirical data for the rest of the top ten over the past two weeks shows that movies make relatively similar money each day. How, then, are we to explain the fact that a movie with huge Oscars buzz fell from $8.5 million to $3.6 million in 72 hours? And even if we remove the opening day out of the equation, the plunge from $5.8 million on Tuesday to $3.6 million on Thursday would still be the largest out of the top ten. Hopefully, Dreamgirls will stabilize over the weekend and will gain its second wind as we move further into awards season. At the moment, however, it seems like another Ali.
|
Box Office for 12/28/6
|
Rank |
Film |
Number
of Sites |
Change from 12/27 |
Estimated
Gross ($) |
Cumulative
Gross ($) |
|
1
|
A Night at the Museum
|
3,688
|
-5%
|
11.3
|
79.0
|
|
2
|
The Pursuit of Happyness
|
2,863
|
-6%
|
5.4
|
79.0
|
|
3
|
Charlotte's Web
|
3,728
|
+2%
|
4.3
|
40.8
|
|
4
|
Dreamgirls
|
852
|
-11%
|
3.6
|
23.2
|
|
5
|
Rocky Balboa
|
3,017
|
-9%
|
3.0
|
37.4
|
|
6
|
The Good Shepherd
|
2,218
|
-10%
|
2.7
|
24.1
|
|
7
|
Happy Feet
|
2,565
|
+3%
|
2.7
|
168.3
|
|
8
|
Eragon
|
3,030
|
-3%
|
2.6
|
48.2
|
|
9
|
We Are Marshall
|
2,606
|
-5%
|
2.2
|
17.0
|
|
10
|
The Holiday
|
2,635
|
-2%
|
2.0
|
43.4
|
Continued:
1
2
|
|
|
|
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