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October 31, 2009
Friday Estimates by Klady - These Is Them
Title - Distrib - Gross * - Theater - % Change – Cume
This is It - Sony - 7.9 - 3481 - New - 19.1
Paranormal Activity - Par - 5.8 - 2404 - 23% - 74
Couples Retreat - Uni - 2.4 - 3026 - 35% - 82.9
Law Abiding Citizen - Overture - 2.3 - 2764 - 43% - 46.4
Where the Wild Things Are - WB - 1.9 - 3645 - 56% - 58.6
Saw VI - Lions Gate - 1.9 - 3036 - 73% - 19.1
The Stepfather - Sony - 1.1 - 2346 - 48% - 22.5
Cirque de Freak: Vampire's Assistant - Uni - 1 - 2754 - 57% - 8.7
Astro Boy - Summit - 0.95 - 3020 - 48% - 8.8
Amelia - Searchlight - 0.9 - 1070 - 29% - 6.2
Also Debuting
The Boondock Saints II - Apparition - 0.27 - 68
London Dreams - Studio 18 - 39,700 - 51
Aladin - Eros - 17,500 - 56
The House of the Devil - Magnolia - 9,400 - 3
Skin - JDF - 6,300 - 4
Gentlemen Broncos - Searchlight - 5,200 - 2
Storm - Film Movement - 2,850 - 2
Looking for Palladin - Wildcat - 1,300 - 1
==========
"it is certainly not the posthumous blockbuster that the Jackson estate had anticipated."
Oy.
"My $90M all-in number looks like a pipe dream," one rival studio exec told me after the pic's weak bow.
Are you f-ing kidding me????
Are we going to start judging sporting events based on what Don King or Vince McMahon tell us they anticipate?
What delusional planet do people come from when they think that this movie was going to be so much bigger than it is? Instead of looking at the facts of what is, there is this crazy need to make it all about some people's wild fantasy of what it could be.
It is, by this hour, the second biggest first-run concert film of ALL TIME. Concert films - and almost every other one involves the actual concert experience and not bits and pieces slickly thrown together to offer an incomplete glimpse at what might have been - are not a huge box office business. Never have been. The reason I included the phrase "first run" is that Woodstock is thought to have grossed over $50 million after a decade plus of playing around the world in revival house after revival house. Of course, in this era, most of that gross is replaced by DVD sales and rentals, which will dwarf the $50 million figure, even in this DVD economy. If you want to use the other crazy stat of the week - the one that makes Paranormal Activity the most profitable movie ever - Woodstock is easy the most profitable concert film against costs in history.
Anyway...
This Is it is benefiting from a market that is afraid to release a movie over Halloween weekend, so there is no other wide release. (And indeed, it will pay a price tonight, as most other films will.) It is also being slowed a bit by not being able to expand its event feel with more IMAX screens, as only limited screens have been released to the film and in most cases, only after 9pm. And, of course, it is fighting the biggest problem there is for a film like this... everyone knows the DVD is coming and coming soon and that there is very little new material in this film... one song... which is already on the radio.
My guess is that this movie stops at $40m/$50m domestic... and that is a massive success. But then again, listen to Disney, which did $19m with the Jonas Bros phenomenon, or Paramount, which did less than $19 million domestic with U2 (back in the day), The Rolling Stones by Scorsese, and Neil Young COMBINED, or listen to The Weinsteins, who can tell you about doing less than $19 million with Madonna at the height of her music career and controversy career.
Yeah... This Is It is soooooo disappointing!
And this is from someone who, I'll remind, would not have seen the film were I not overnighted tickets from IMAX, thought the film was modestly enjoyable, and wouldn't push anyone to spend the time and money to go see the thing when there are quality small films out there to see in any major city.
I just hate the lie - and it is a lie, whether intentionally so or not... repeating someone else's falsehoods is not a form of truth telling - that this film is disappointing at the box office. It is going to do about twice what was a reasonable expectation. It will be the biggest documentary of the year by 3 or 4 times and the #3 doc of all time worldwide behind F/911 and March of The Penguins, having crushed Miley Cyrus' total international gross in its very first day.
This is truly a sickness. It is right along side, for me, attacking Obama less than a month after he got into office for failing to change the economy and now, less than a year into his presidency, trying to paint him as a failure for not already passing the most significant American legislation - health care - since LBJ.
Meanwhile...
We all must continue to applaud Paranormal Activity, which continues to outperform my expectations week after week.
I am still frustrated by the overhype, but in this case, it has pushed the ball up the hill to remarkable results. Does this kind of surprise success make it harder form something like This Is It? Obviously so. And as Drew McWeeny points out in SMF 7, Paramount did a great job of selling their marketing hook, that the film was driven by demand... when in fact, it was planned to go wide with theaters booked and ads bought, from the beginning.
But PA is not a new paradigm for marketing. It is a classic paradigm... well, "classic" when it works. And it has worked here, well executed, well timed, and kept far away from its true birthing room as an idea, Steven Spielberg's screening room.
Both of these films are remarkable successes based on high quality hype. But one has hyped its hype better than the other. The biggest difference in perception of the bottom line is that, not reality.
Posted by dpoland at October 31, 2009 09:15 AM
Comments
Is the Box office performance of THAT IS IT may not be disappointing? Depend on different expectation of different people.
But Sony and AEG had wished for much better result, so the performance is disappointing for them.
By the way, it looks like THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY would become a good success for Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group. Congrats to SPWAG, Troy Duffy and other people involved in this film.
Posted by: marychan ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.mcnblogs.com/thehotblog/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 31, 2009 10:40 AM
BD2 should have gotten a wider release this weekend. I know a lot of people that caught it on DVD, it's kind of a cult classic. Would have done a solid 8-10 mill open if they'd gone over 2000 theaters.
Posted by: martin at October 31, 2009 10:55 AM
So DP, is this a critique of AEG and Sony, which wildly overpaid/overestimated the potential for this film, thus setting off the media frenzy.
It's not the fact that $40 million won't be great for a concert film...Michael Jackson was arguably the most famous person alive at the time of his death. And yet in North America he'll do probably 25 million less than Hannah Montana...hilarious!!! Sony will make money off this, but not as much as it stands to make from "Zombieland." Not by a long shot.
Nice per theatre for "House of the Devil" considering it's already VOD.
Boondock Saints 2 is very disapointing. It could have done $5 million this weekend in 100 theatres if it had any kind of marketing whatsoever. Literally everyone that I know is shocked to hear it's coming out this weekend...and in a frenzy to see it. Apparition has a way to go....
Posted by: EthanG at October 31, 2009 11:02 AM
I don't think it is the fault of Apparition. They just market/release this film with the P&A money from Sony. (In this case, I don't think Sony gives too much P&A money to Apparition)
THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY is actually from Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions Group's Stage 6 label. Most films from Stage 6 went straight-to-video, so it is lucky that SPWAG/Stage 6 agree to give THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY a very modest theatrical release.
The very modest theatrical release of THE BOONDOCK SAINTS II: ALL SAINTS DAY is clearly for helping drive DVD sales/rentals. About $5000 PTA (at the opening weekend) would be a success for this film. Afterward, this film would do much better in DVD/Blu-ray market (which is the film's main market).
Posted by: marychan at October 31, 2009 12:26 PM
So if Paranormal Activity isn't the most profitable movie ever, what is? Not it terms of money made, but the ratio of how much spent vs how much made. Blair Witch? Halloween?
Posted by: The Big Perm at October 31, 2009 01:34 PM
Mary, I disagree. Boondock could have done quite well in a standard theatrical release, it was not so niche that it needed to go directly to DVD (minus this token theatrical run). Money was left on the table due to this decision, IMO. Money that would have also paid off on ancillaries.
Posted by: martin at October 31, 2009 01:37 PM
Top 5 (caveat on Paranormal Activity...it's unknown how much the reshot of the last scene cost):
1. Blair Witch-248 million worldwide on $35,000
2. Tarnation-1.1 million worldwide on $218
3. Paranormal Activity
4. Mad Max
5. Supersize Me
6. Night of the Living Dead.
7. Rocky
8. Halloween
9. American Graffiti
10. Once
Of course that doesn't take into account P&A on the films, just the production budgets and worldwide gross.
Posted by: EthanG at October 31, 2009 02:31 PM
It's likely that professional sound mixes on Blair Witch and Tarnation raised their budgets a bit above the $218 level.
Posted by: jeffmcm at October 31, 2009 04:29 PM
Deep Throat should be on that most profits list. Porn doesn;t have much P & A to cut into profit does it?
ALso--there's some other Indies that could be on that list and they are escaping me for the moment. Argh
Posted by: Lota at October 31, 2009 07:55 PM
MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING. What was the budget on THE GODS MUST BE CRAZY?
Posted by: Telemachos at October 31, 2009 09:25 PM
Deep Throat should be on that most profits list. Porn doesn;t have much P & A to cut into profit does it?
There was no reliable tracking system for porn films, so nobody really knows how much it made. And mafia accounting is probably even more creative than the Hollywood kind.
Tarnation and Blair Witch come closer to half a million each after post-production costs (clearances for Tarnation, reshoots for BWP, mixing for both).
Posted by: Bob Violence at November 1, 2009 12:22 AM
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