Can you believe how horrid our box office has been in the past two months? Ever since the end of Summer, the films being released have had nothing but bad luck. The Lion King 3D with standing, only a few films have grossed over $50 million in the last month and a half and even then, their overall gross is still pretty low. Contagion, Real Steel, Moneyball, and Dolphin Tale; those are the only four new movies to gross over $50 million. And $100 million? Forget about it; not since The Help has a film passed that benchmark.
And you know the box office is cruddy when two sequels can't even make big dollars—either that, or the general hatred by the overall public about these remakes. Between Fright Night, Conan, and now The Thing and Footloose, are remakes losing their profitability? Well, it's beginning to look that way. Well Footloose and The Thing aren't outright bombs, I'm sure the two studios aren't two happy about them.
Of the two, I'm certain Paramount is more happy with Footloose. Grossing an estimated $16 million dollars, Footloose did well enough to get second place, despite early estimates this Friday pegging it at first. Still, the race between the two is pretty close; hell, once actual numbers come in, Footloose might be at first. Which would suck, because then I would have to go back and change this ENTIRE article, Oh, the woes of writing the box office.
But as it stands, Real Steel was the victor at the box office for a second week in a row, grossing an estimated $16 million (see, the gap between the two is a mere 200,000!) That puts Real Steel's current gross at $51 million which, although sounding nice at first, may be a little bit disappointing considering the overall nature of the film (and the budget; although not yet announced, I'm sure the film cost a pretty penny to produce). Real Steel will probably tap out around a $100 million, which is fine considering the overall box office right now. Whether it's sequel fine is anyone's guess, but I assume we'll find out the answer to that one pretty soon. To be fair, films like these typically do pretty well overseas, so I guess its anyone's guess at this point.
The prequel/remake/shameless excuse for more money The Thing opened in third place this weekend with an estimated $8 million. That's a disappointment for Universal, especially considering the pedigree of the first one (which, although not a smash hit in its time, has gone on to be a cult classic). Chances are, this prequel will never get that kind of treatment. To be honest, I'm not surprised; was ANYONE really looking forward to a Thing prequel? That's what I thought.
You know what else NO ONE was looking forward to? A comedy about bird watching. Seriously, who greenlit this? Who thought this would be a film that people would want to see? Yeah, you have Jack Black, Steve Martin, and Owen Wilson working together, but the star power could only go so far. $3 million dollars so far, in fact. That of course puts The Big Year in bomb territory, which is where it rightfully belongs. Hell, even Fox knew that; they unceremoniously dumped the film, releasing it in a mere 2,000 theaters. And you know where the film bottomed out? Yup; we won't be seeing much of The Big Year in the coming years.
Before we sign off for the weekend, I just wanted to shine a light on some of the releases of the past few weeks, and how they are overall doing at the box office. First up, Moneyball. In its fourth week out, Moneyball has grossed an estimated $57 million dollars, making it one of the highest grossing baseball movies ever made. Good job, Brad Pitt. Meanwhile, The Ides of March has grossed about $22 million dollars, which is pretty respectable for an adult oriented political drama. I imagine it will be represented at the Oscars as well (ala Michael Clayton) so expect it to be in the news for a while. Finally, 50/50 has grossed a total of $24 million dollars. Now that may look bad, that number is THREE times its budget. Another Oscar hopeful, I hope for the best for 50/50. So far, its doing pretty great.
The chart:
1. Real Steel—$16,304,000
2. Footloose—$16,100,000
3. The Thing—$8,700,000
4. The Ides of March—$7,500,000
5. Dolphin Tale—$6,345,000
6. Moneyball—$5,500,000
7. 50/50—$4,315,000
8. Courageous—$3,400,000
9. The Big Year—$3,325,000
10. The Lion King (in 3D)—$2,708,000
Well, that does it for this week. Check back tomorrow for the actual numbers. Until then, have fun at the box office!
Source: Box Office Mojo
