Box Office: Krueger claws his way to the top of the charts!

By Laurent Kelly / June 25, 2011

How's it going everybody? Welcome once again to the Box Office Report. Over the past few days 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' continued the commercially successful run of horror remakes with an impressive opening weekend that ended up out-grossing the entire runs of four of the original films (although this is not taking into consideration actual tickets sold.) We will investigate further stats in this article as well as analysing the secret behind this particular remakes success. So with that in mind, lets head straight towards our regular top five countdown: 5.) FURRY VENGEANCE

THE STATS: (NEW ENTRY) US WEEKEND GROSS: $6,627,564US TOTAL GROSS: $6,627,564 PRODUCTION BUDGET: N/A

Oh dear. Those are not very healthy opening numbers. The film's distributor Summit Entertainment had originally arranged for the film to be released over the past weekend in order to avoid clashing with 'How to Train Your Dragon' at an earlier date but unfortunately for them the aforementioned film is still going strong some six weeks into its run and as I predicted last week the two films likely ended up splitting tickets. This could partly account for the film's terribly low numbers but in truth that would be letting 'Furry Vengeance'off too lightly. It is perhaps more the case that people were not enamoured by an unimaginative and generic Brendan Fraser kids comedy and as the stats show themselves - Fraser has not been able to find commercial success in this particular genre since 'George of the Jungle', a film dating all the way back to 1997. Female attendance made up forty seven percent of the film's ticket sales and this was probably due to mothers dragging along their bored kids who had already seen 'How to Train your Dragon'. A big let-down indeed. 4.) THE BACK-UP PLAN

THE STATS:US WEEKEND GROSS: $7,255,762 US TOTAL GROSS: $ 22,963,517 WEEKS ON RELEASE: 2DROP PERCENTAGE: - 40.5% PRODUCTION BUDGET: $35 million

The film's forty percent drop was atypical of a romantic comedy but 'The Back-Up Plan' is still reeling from that disappointing opening weekend. The film may just match its domestic budget but this will likely be no consolation for lead star Jennifer Lopez who was perhaps anticipating a hit in the same vein as 'Monster in Law' or 'Maid in Manhattan' which between them made over $170 million dollars. From the ninety-six reviews currently gathered on Rotten Tomatoes the film has 21% positive reviews, bad for sure; but not quite in the Kate Hudson league of awfulness (Hudson has an 11% average site on the score, Lopez a 15%.) I wonder whose career will eventually end up on bottom - should be an interesting battle for sure. 3.) DATE NIGHT

THE STATS: US WEEKEND GROSS: $7,577,352 US TOTAL GROSS: $73,604,361 WEEKS ON RELEASE: 4 DROP PERCENTAGE: -27.6% PRODUCTION BUDGET: $55 Million

'Date Night'had a successful fourth week in the charts with a low drop percentage. I personally would welcome a full time movie career for the versatile Steve Carrel who is equally adapt at playing comedy and drama and would like to see him challenged more on the screen as he was during his fine performance in 'Little Miss Sunshine'. Although the 'The U.S. Office' remains ever popular with Carrel utterly brilliant as the boss from hell, the fact remains that the show, despite remaining funny is clearly creatively exhausted and has been rather stale for a fairly long while. What better chance now for the popular actor to make the permanent jump to the big screen. 2.) HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON

THE STATS: US WEEKEND GROSS: $10,614,289 US TOTAL GROSS: $192,173,750 WEEKS ON RELEASE: 6DROP PERCENTAGE: -30.9% PRODUCTION BUDGET: $165 Million

It's the film that refuses to go away. In recent weeks 'How to Train Your Dragon' has been able to keep the kids coming in through a relative lack of competition but this week even with the release of another kids movie, the film retained its popularity as it edges closer towards that 200 million mark. It is unclear whether the film has left a lasting impression resulting in repeat viewings or whether it's just one of those films which people feel no pressure to go and watch and just wait for the weeks to pass. Whatever it is, it seems to be working for the studios who were no doubt slightly concerned when their $165 million budget animation opened with a pretty lacklustre $43 million dollars. It looks like they have little worried to be about now. 1.) A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010)

THE STATS: (NEW ENTRY) US WEEKEND GROSS: $32,902,299 US TOTAL GROSS: $32,902,299 PRODUCTION BUDGET: $35 Million

Unlucky hardcore horror fans. The remake machine is as strong as ever and here to stay. It's a shame that the genre has been reduced to this sincere lack of creativity but at the end of the day you can not lie with the numbers. The remake of 'Nightmare on Elm Street' took over $30 million dollars over its opening weekend with the tickets quite evenly split between both genders highlighting the picture as very much a date style movie. It is perhaps not a surprise that the film was a success. After all the test run featuring 'Freddy vs Jason' was a big success and the fact that 'Jason X' performed so badly at the box office pretty much showed that it was Mr Krueger who was the main draw of the pair and the real reason why people went to see the film. There were other intriguing factors working in the film's favour. Unlike most horror icons, Freddy Krueger has a distinct vocality and larger than life personality and people were no doubt interested to see how a new actor would be able to try and replicate the success of horror legend Robert Englund. Another thing working in the film's favour was the excellent trailer which did a good job of presenting the film's back-story and adding another dimension to the franchise. People invested in the Krueger character were probably eager to witness an examination of the Freddy persona prior to him existing in the dreams of irritating teenagers and the marketing did a good job of highlighting a film which had something different to offer rather than just being another visually stylistic, straight up copy. Despite the positive opening weekend however, time will tell to see whether or not the film can reach the same heights as recent horror remake success stories such as 'The Texas Chainsaw Massacre' (which grossed over ten times its budget) and 'The Amityville Horror'. An example of a film which got off to a lightening start but then quickly fizzled out was the remake to 'Friday the 13th'. It opened with a superb 40 million opening but featured a staggering downfall and ended up only making it to 65 million dollars domestically. Quite a let-down considering how many tickets the film initially sold. The race to this week's number one was as expected pretty much one sided. In fact, as 'Nightmare on Elm Street' took almost half its opening weekend gross on Friday night alone it meant there was never really any doubt about it hitting the top spot. 'Nightmare' took 15.8 million on the Friday (by comparison its nearest challenger 'How to Train Your Dragon' took just 2.5), 10.5 million on Saturday and dropped to 5.8 million by Sunday; perhaps not surprising really given that the horror genre is far more associated with being a Friday and Saturday night viewing experience. The 2010 version of 'Nightmare on Elm Street' is fifth in the highest opening weekends for horror remakes. It will be interesting to see where it ends up in on the list for total earnings. On now to the films whose runs are beginning to dry up in the charts. The heavily slated Miley Cyrus vehicle 'The Last Song'which appears to be a sincere attempt at Miley branching out to become a serious actress has none the less been a considerable hit, despite containing very much a made for television aura. The film's $58.6 million is still someway short of the 'Hannah Montana: The Movie' movie success but considering the fact that Cyrus was pretty much the only selling point of this latest film it proves that she is quite the teen box office draw. Made on a $20 million budget, Buena Vista Studios are no doubt pretty proud of the film's financial success. They might be less impressed however with the fact that the film has maintained its horrendous 2.9 rating on theIMDB... probably not an encouraging sign for an actress who is clearly trying to grow out of her Disney sized shoes. And now we move onto next week's releases:

It's pretty much a given that next week's chart topper will be 'Iron Man 2', the sequel to the 2008 blockbuster. The original made $585 million dollars worldwide and a similar result can probably be expected from the follow up. After all the first film built up a pretty solid following and the sequel features the same popular cast and crew. On top of that there has been a lot of hype surrounding this release which is now two years in waiting. The film has already hit the foreign market by storm raking in 100 million dollars in the space of just five days and so that leaves me to predict that the film will open to a more than healthy 95 million dollars during its opening weekend stateside. I had a good crack with my 'Nightmare on Elm Street' prediction from last week so join me again in next week's Box Office Report to see if I can keep up my good form. Thanks for reading.