In this campaign season, what can we learn from the performances of An American Carol and Religulous? The easy conclusion is that audiences aren’t real keen on such aggressively political material, with the two movies finishing ninth and 10th, respectively, in the weekend’s overall box office. The second easy conclusion is that conservatives are slightly hungrier for entertainment than people who don’t like religion. Neither is correct.
Late afternoon Tuesday, the Christian drama Fireproof had unofficially won this week’s Box Office Power Rankings, with a gross of almost $7 million and a per-theater average to make Eagle Eye sweat. By Wednesday morning, however, it was in fourth place. Call it the Curse of the Small Sample Size.
If you glance at the box-office top 10 this week, you might think that the supernatural romantic comedy Ghost Town was a bomb, finishing last among the four major new releases and eighth overall. But the movie’s title was almost a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Paramount/DreamWorks only exhibited it in 1,505 theatres – a sure sign the studio doesn’t believe in the movie.
Much has been written over the past 18 months about the death/irrelevance of film criticism in print media, as newspapers scaled back their movie coverage and Premiere stopped publishing a print edition. The refrain has been that movie critics are out-of-touch and elitist, that they don’t reflect the values and tastes of audiences, etc., etc. While that might appear true when Bangkok Dangerous tops the box office (as it did the first weekend in September), the truth is a little more complicated. Numerous (mostly unscientific) studies have found a correlation between box-office performance and critical reception.
Mamma Mia! isn’t a massive hit, but it has staying power. With $136 million in domestic receipts since its release on July 18, it’s at ninth place in the summer’s box-office race, yet it’s been a steady earner. This marks the movie’s eighth week in the box-office top 10 (and hence the Box Office Power Rankings), equal to Iron Man and The Dark Knight and one more than WALL•E, Kung Fu Panda, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That’s pretty impressive however you cut it, but especially in the absence of a huge opening weekend.
If Tropic Thunder repeats as Box Office Power Rankings champion this weekend, it will match The Dark Knight with titles in four consecutive weeks. (Iron Man topped the charts for five straight weeks earlier this summer.) This points out one of the flaws of our system: Box Office Power Rankings have no sense of scale.
How badly has George Lucas damaged the Star Wars franchise? At Box Office Mojo, The Clone Wars’ revenues are being compared to Final Fantasy and TMNT – and after two weekends, it’s losing to both.
It’s not a surprise that Tropic Thunder unseated The Dark Knight last weekend after four-week reigns atop the box-office charts and the Box Office Power Rankings. Good reviews, some protests, Ben Stiller, and a white-hot Robert Downey Jr. will do that, although its $40-million six-day take has to be considered something of a disappointment in light of its $92-million production budget.
When Batman ($445 million through August 11) knocks Star Wars ($461 million) off as the second-highest-grossing movie in domestic-box-office history – which should happen this weekend – please keep the accomplishment in perspective. Adjusted for ticket-price inflation, The Dark Knight at that point will still need nearly $130 million in additional gross before it even cracks the top 20.
Iron Man started the summer on May 2, and The Dark Knight signified the end with its release on July 18. Based on what we’ve seen in recent weeks – and the uninspiring upcoming release calendar in terms of potential blockbusters – that’s how Hollywood is marking the season these days. The major new releases the past two weekends have ranged from the expired (The X-Files: I Want to Believe) to the tired (The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor), with the requisite Will Ferrell comedy in Step Brothers.
