|
And the Winner Is...Jesus!John Hamann's Weekend Wrap-UpFebruary 29, 2004
Mel Gibson definitely has a friend in Jesus this morning, as his new film The Passion of the Christ blew the doors off movie theatres and the box office this weekend, scoring one of the biggest opening weekends in history.
Despite the Oscar ceremony Sunday night, it was the perfect weekend to open a film like The Passion of the Christ. Box office was slow in the weeks leading up to this all-of-a-sudden mega-release, slow to the point where major studios needed a miracle to pull the box office out of its doldrums. In a cute little twist of fate, it wasn't a major studio that scored the uber-surprise hit, it was Newmarket Films and Mel Gibson's Icon Productions. It's no secret that Gibson spent about $30 million of his own money to make his Passion project, and that Newmarket got lucky being the distributor for The Passion of the Christ after the majors turned it down due to the controversy surrounding it. Newmarket spent only $20 million on distribution and marketing for the film (a tiny amount in today's "never let up" advertising style). The business of the film is simple: Newmarket keeps 10% of the studio-side box office receipts, with Icon keeping the rest. After the out-of-this-world gross in its first five days, Icon is going to be rich, and Newmarket Films will be thankful for the exposure over a historic weekend for the upstart studio. For argument's sake, and in the simplest of terms, let's say Passion grosses $500 million stateside. After theatre owners and other costs take about 60% of the gross, Icon and Newmarket will be left with about $300 million.
You've read our Wednesday and Friday Numbers Analysis so you know Newmarket reported Wednesday-to-Thursday grosses for The Passion of the Christ at an unbelievable $41.3 million, with another $22.9 million coming in on Friday. The Saturday estimate from the mini-distributor came in at awesome $33.3 million, the eighth-biggest single-day gross ever. This morning, the estimate released has The Passion of the Christ earning $76.2 million over the three-day Friday-to-Sunday portion of the weekend and an unbelievable $117.5 million in its first five days. Let's talk records: the three-day venue average comes in at an unseen $25,041 from 3,043 venues, the fourth best ever. The Passion is the seventh biggest three-day open ever, behind only Spider-Man, The Matrix Reloaded, the two Harry Potter films, X2, and Star Wars Episode 2: Attack of the Clones. It's the biggest three-day opening gross in February, easily passing Hannibal's $58 million (basically doubling it in five days), and it grossed more in its first five days than any film has totaled in 2004. In terms of market share for 2004 studio releases, Newmarket has come out of nowhere and is now ranked number two behind only Sony. The point is, this box office take is simply revolutionary, throwing out ideas about how rating and release date effect box office. Give the people what they want to see, and they will trek to the movie theatre.
So, how did they do it? How were they able to get an R-rated film with mixed reviews at best to sell so many tickets? The answer to those questions is that they were able to use those two elusive things all studios so desperately seek: buzz and built-in audience. The Passion of the Christ had one of the loudest buzzes in the history of movies, and obviously a huge built-in audience. Icon Productions hired Paul Lauer, who the NY Times describes as a "religion based marketer," to promote the film. In August 2003, Lauer said of the controversy around the film "The controversy has built a considerable buzz about the movie - You can't buy that kind of publicity." That was seven months ago, and the back and forth on how Jews are portrayed in the film never let up. Now Newmarket and Icon have a film that should be able to gross $400 million at the very least in North America, with foreign grosses on top of that. Many have compared the buzz for The Passion to the Blair Witch Project. While the loudness of the buzz is similar, the creation of it was different. Blair Witch used limited release screenings and a smart marketing campaign to build its incredulous word-of-mouth. The Passion used CNN and Fox News as its outlets for domination.
Upstart Newmarket Films started distributing small films in 2001 with Memento, the $1 million project that Newmarket picked up for $5 million. The small film went on to make $25 million domestically, enabling Newmarket to stay in the movie game. Memento was followed by a few disappointments: Donnie Darko, despite its cult following, failed to engage a wide audience and grossed less than $1 million. The up-and-comer then released Real Women Have Curves, which grossed a decent $5.8 million. In 2003, the distributor released three misses before starting a big winning streak. In June 2003, Newmarket released Whale Rider, the small Australian film with a big heart. The film was a hit, grossing $20.8 million during its run, and Oscar rewarding star Keisha Castle-Hughes with a nomination. Next up for Newmarket was Monster, the hard-to-market Charlize Theron film. As of today, that movie has grossed about $27 million, and is the odds-on favorite for a Best Actress Oscar Sunday night, which will bring even more publicity and dollars. All of this led to today, where Newmarket is -this close- to being on the top of the heap, even for just a weekend.
Believe it or not, there were other films released this weekend; however, the other nine in the top ten could not come close to meeting the weekend gross of The Passion of the Christ, even with three other new releases in the top ten. Stronger new entries could have taken better advantage of the overflow from the popular religious flick, but the dogs of February continued to under-perform. The number two film is the now three-week old 50 First Dates. The Adam Sandler/Drew Barrymore combo grossed $12.6 million in its third weekend, a not bad 38% drop compared to last weekend's $20.4 million haul. The Sony film was bumped from the big screens in large Cineplexes to make room for huge crowds for The Passion of the Christ. The comedy has now grossed $88.7 million in 17 days, significantly less than The Passion of the Christ did in five days.
Ashley Judd's new film Twisted debuts in third place. The little-marketed thriller may have received its biggest boost thanks to turnaways from The Passion, as ads seemed almost non-existent leading up to its release. Regardless, the film grossed $9.1 million since its open on Friday from 2,703 venues, giving the film an average of $3,367. Critically, the film was reviled. Of the 83 reviews counted at RottenTomatoes, only one, yes one, was positive. Twisted is one of a long string of disappointments from Paramount, and this one is going to hurt them in the wallet, as the film carries a production budget of $50 million.
Fourth goes to Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen, one of the few films unaffected by the release of that little religious film. In its second weekend, Confessions grossed $6.1 million, down an expected 35%. The Disney film has now grossed $16.7 million after ten days.
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights also managed to sell a few tickets this weekend, but not close to as many as distributor Artisan had hoped for. The sequel of sorts landed in fifth and grossed a lame duck $5.9 million over its opening weekend from 2,042 venues. This is another film that failed to penetrate The Passion hysteria, and in hindsight should have been moved to an alternate weekend. Then again, in hindsight, they should have hired actors for this one; the release cost Artisan only $25 million to make.
Sixth goes to another long-term holdover: four-week-old Miracle from Disney. Miracle grossed $4.4 million from 2,222 venues this weekend, and carried an unexpected drop of 44%. The hockey flick is finally close to approaching its $60 million production budget, as it now has a cumulative gross of $56.3 million.
Eurotrip, another of last weekend's lame duck openers, falls to seventh place. The Road Trip rip-off grossed $4.1 million in its second weekend, off 39%, and now has a combined gross of $12.8 million.
Welcome to Mooseport surprisingly held on to a top ten finish this weekend. The Ray Romano disaster grossed $3.4 million, down 51% from its bad debut last weekend. It now has a cume of $11.6 million. I'll never understand why people pay to see bad movies when they don't have to.
Barbershop 2 slips to ninth place. The Ice Cube sequel dropped a harsh 51% this weekend, and now has an unsatisfying total of $57.6 million.
Broken Lizard's Club Dread disappointingly finishes in tenth this weekend. The Super Troopers follow-up failed to engage an audience outside of BOP, as the film grossed only $3 million, despite being the basic opposite of The Passion of the Christ. However, before you write off Broken Lizard, remember they make their films cheap. This one cost $9 million, so the comedy may break even before home video and DVD.
Last year over the same weekend, Cradle 2 the Grave opened in the number one spot, but could only pull the top ten movies up to $81.6 million. This year of course, The Passion of the Christ grossed more in five days than the entire top ten did last year. The Mel Gibson phenomenon helped the top ten estimates gross $127.9 million, a ludicrous increase over last year of 36%.
Be sure to check back tomorrow, when BOP will have further analysis of the weekend box office when actuals are released tomorrow afternoon.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tuesday, July 01, 2025
© 2006 Box Office Prophets, a division of One Of Us, Inc.
