The Woman in Black Is Hammer Horror's Biggest Ever Film

Two big success stories sit pretty at the top of the U.S. box office this weekend as low-budget genre entries Chronicle and The Woman in Black fought it out fiercely for first place. In the end it was the found-footage superhero film Chronicle which was crowned weekend champ on Super Bowl weekend, already earning almost twice its whole budget on its first few days of release. $22 million from a $12 million estimated budget is the result, though there are reports that up-and-comer Josh Trank's movie might have come in at a few million less to make. Either way it is a solid hit and if word of mouth stays strong throughout the release, 20th Century Fox could have a big, big money earner on their hands. No wonder Trank is seem in their eyes as a potential candidate to reboot their dormant Fantastic Four series though they should also pat themselves on the back for coming up with an intriguing marketing campaign that had to think outside of the box to promote a superhero movie that had to be as grounded as possible with it's camcorder shake cam footage. There is a wider implication here that Chronicle has become the first non-horror genre success story in the 'found footage' department and maybe we'll see more genres try it, particularly one thinks an action story told in this style. Of course we already have the Todd Phillips directed comedy Project X (about a found-footage film from a party) which comes out later this year and because they are so cheap to produce and when marketing is right the profits so high, they are becoming an attractive option for studios. The return of Hammer Horror is also a significant success story to celebrate with The Woman in Black earning $21 million. Opening in the U.S. just a week before it comes out in the UK, the film may also show the pull Daniel Radcliffe still has from his Harry Potter legion of fans and if he continues to pick projects so smartly, he may not crash and burn before his 30's. And interesting side note is that the film was drawing in a huge female-centric audience. For rookie US distributor CBS Films this is their biggest film to date, beating out the $12.2 million for The Back-Up Plan a few years back and their first and out and out hit. Because of the broader appeal of the audience, it is expected the film will overtake Chronicle in the coming days to be top of the charts. Full chart is below; 1 N Chronicle (2012) Fox $22,000,000 - 2,907 - $7,568 $22,000,000 $12 1 2 N The Woman in Black CBS $21,000,000 - 2,855 - $7,356 $21,000,000 - 1 3 1 The Grey ORF $9,500,000 -51.7% 3,208 +23 $2,961 $34,756,000 $25 2 4 N Big Miracle Uni. $8,500,000 - 2,129 - $3,992 $8,500,000 $40 1 5 2 Underworld Awakening SGem $5,600,000 -54.7% 2,636 -442 $2,124 $54,353,000 $70 3 6 3 One For the Money LGF $5,250,000 -54.4% 2,737 - $1,918 $19,668,000 $40 2 7 4 Red Tails Fox $5,000,000 -51.8% 2,347 -226 $2,130 $41,323,000 $58 3 8 8 The Descendants FoxS $4,600,000 -28.2% 2,038 +37 $2,257 $65,523,000 - 12 9 5 Man on a Ledge Sum. $4,500,000 -43.8% 2,998 - $1,501 $14,700,000 $42 2 10 6 Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close WB $3,925,000 -43.8% 2,505 -125 $1,567 $26,793,000 - 7