The Burning Issue #4 - Box Office Report

Hello and welcome to the latest installment of the Burning Issue. Today we are taking a look at the business aspect of the movie environment with a countdown of the top 5 weekend box office hits for the US Charts as well as a summary of the biggest money makers within the United Kingdom. This past weekend was centred around the raging success of Alice in Wonderland which spearheaded the highest grossing March weekend ever. There are some contrasting opinions about the quality of the film itself but no-one can deny that it is going to end up as quite the box office smash. Once again, just like Avatara huge seventy percent of the gross was made up from the 3-d ticket sales and it in fact quite easily topped the James Cameron vehicle as the biggest 3d opening ever. Whether it will have Avatar's amazing staying power is another question entirely though. So without further ado, let's begin with the US BOX OFFICE COUNTDOWN: 5.) AVATAR - THE STATS - WEEKEND GROSS: $8,118,102 TOTAL GROSS: $720,607,444 WEEKEND DROP PERCENTAGE: -40.5% ANALYSIS: Avatar tumbled a fair amount over the weekend and its spare technical wins at the Oscars should do little to reinvigorate any momentum in the Post Academy Award Box Office takings this weekend. Week by week it has been gradually dwindling and it should only have a couple of weeks left inside the top ten. In the Adjusted Charts it rose to fourteenth and should stay in that position making it a huge success no matter which way you crunch the numbers. Now let's hope we don't have to put up with James Cameron for another twelve years..... 4.) COP OUT - THE STATS - WEEKEND GROSS: $9,289,311 TOTAL GROSS: 32,504,610 WEEKEND DROP PERCENTAGE: -49.9% ANALYSIS: Cop Out dropped the amount you would expect from its opening weekend. After all being a Kevin Smith film it is likely that most of his fans will have rushed to the cinema at the first chance possible rather than wait for the weeks to pass by. Domestically it's already reached past it's budget but it will be lucky to make fifty million by the time its run has finished. It will however emerge as the highest grossing Kevin Smith project which isn't saying much but I'm sure it will be enough to keep him flying first class. 3.) SHUTTER ISLAND - THE STATS:WEEKEND GROSS: $13,225,411 TOTAL GROSS: $95,750,005, DROP PERCENTAGE: -41.6% ANALYSIS: Shutter Island has emerged as a minor box office hit perhaps owing to an excruciating waiting game that has left me watching the trailer for going on six months now. Next week it should top 100 million dollars and should then set it sights on toppling the 132 million dollar haul of The Departed. As far as critical success, the views have been rather lopsided. Roger Ebert just avoided giving the film one of his coveted four star reviews although to be fair he does hand out those things like candy and though I love the guy it seems like he would praise Marty even if he was filming a documentary about a trampoline. Both Total Film and Empire, the UK's biggest movie magaine publications gave the film four stars though ever since Empire went the full five for The Curious Case of Benjamin Button I have been very weary of their review section. 2.) BROOKLYN'S FINEST - THE STATS: NEW ENTRY - WEEKEND AND TOTAL BOX OFFICE: $13,350,299 ANALYSIS: This new entry in at number two is from from Antone Faqua, director of Training Day and stars Richard Gere, Ethan Hawke and Don Cheadle as three cops from different departments whose lives all interwine over the course of a week. The film has a good early IMDB rating and has been generally well received thus far. It also marks the comeback role of Wesley Snipes who if you remember spent three years in jail for tax evasion. Apparently the actor was elated with his return to the screen but to be honest after three years in prison you'd probably appreciate being directed by Ed Wood.... okay then maybe that's stretching it a bit. From a business stand-point its thirteen and a half million opening is pretty decent numbers for a gritty cop drama though is nowhere near the box office numbers of Training Day which went on to gift Denzel Washington his first Academy Award for a Leading Role.

AND SO THIS WEEK'S NUMBER ONE:

Of course. The film has already made a staggering 210 million dollars worldwide and its 116 million opening ranks it as the sixth biggest opening weekend of all time sitting in behind Shrek the third,Pirates of the Carribean: Dead Man's Chest, Twilight: New Moon, Spiderman 3 and The Dark Knight. Barring the latter nearly all those films were hype releases though especially in the case of New Moon which documented an astonishing 100 million drop on its second weekend. Whether or not Alice in Wonderland will have a similar fall from grace or maintain its momentum remains unknown but it should still comfortably take 300 million domestically. The film succeeded through the recent box office phenomenon that being a pirate has made Johnny Depp and because of a very good exercise in marketing which did a great job of highlighting the visuals, the array of eccentric characters and a genuinely exiting sense of adventure. Whether the film lived up to these promises is still up for debate...

THE UK BOX OFFICE REPORT:

In a week of very poor competition Alice in Wonderland trailblazed to a ten million UK opening. This overcame the eight and a half million opening from Avatar last year but it is my prediction that the film will struggle to reach half of the latter film's UK Gross which has gone on to take an unprecented 88 million dollars as it dropped to second in the charts. Meanwhile Case 39 which looks from the trailer like a good concept handled badly (like 80% of horror films I might add) was a tremendous flop not even managing to break into the top ten, much the same story as the other new release Legion which stars Paul Bettany and Dennis Quaid.

TIME TO PLAY ALONG

I am now hoping that you will join me in predicting the US openings for this weeks box office releases. If there is enough feedback I'll begin a league table documenting the most accurate predictions from around the site. So time for me to put my neck on the line first:

So coming out this Friday is Green Zone starring Matt Damon, a thriller from Paul Greengrass who is the same director who brought you the Bourne films. The film is showing on 2,900 screens and centres around a US Army Officer hunting for weapons of mass destruction in an unstable region. Juding by the high octane trailer, the connection to the Bourne films and the political releavance/intrigue I think the film will just miss out on the top spot next week with a solid 55.4 million opening.

Another new release is the Robert Pattison vehicle Remember Me which looks like it will get by on his name or should or I say face value alone. It is one of those character stuck in a rut who finds growth when he meets the woman of his dreams type films that should comfort the hearts of females around the globe. Although it doesn't appear to have great production values, it has that droopy sentimental tripe going for it so despite it looking cliched and utterly appalling I'm going to have to predict a 39.3 million opening.

Our Family Wedding will definitely find an audience but these meeting of separate families resulting in poor laboured comedy forumlas have been done so often and without any major names in the cast I think it will just about rake in 18.4 million.

She's Out Of My League which is about an average Joe (cliche) stuck in a dead end job (cliche) who against all odds (cli.. you get the idea) meets a gorgeous and succesful woman who falls in love with him. He then has to figure out how he has managed to achieve this 'life affirming' accomplishment in order to keep it going. I'm not going to elaborate on how bad I think this sounds and I'm not sure it will wow the population into buying tickets either. Don't get me wrong, it's got all the ingredients with its heavy pop soundtrack and smoking hot female lead but even the trailer makes the film look tiresome and again no real star power so I'm going to shoot for 9.4 million.

It's looking like it's going to be a pretty succesful week for the box office then and with Alice in Wonderland still riding on some high momentum this weekend should have no problem overhauling last weekend's record breaker.

So just to repeat my predictions and if you think I'm about to make an ass-clown of myself then please join in the fun - if I get enough of you to give me your predictions before Friday then I can publish the results next week:

THE GREEN ZONE - $55.4 Million

REMEMBER ME - $39.3 Million

OUR FAMILY WEDDING - $18.3 Million

SHE'S OUT OF MY LEAGUE - $9.6 Million

Thanks for reading.