Josh Hartnett looking like hell after watching his town burn to the ground in 30 DAYS OF NIGHT(2007).
© Columbia Pictures
30 DAYS OF NIGHT Takes Top Spot
By: Jarrod Sarafin, News EditorDate: Sunday, October 21, 2007
With Halloween ready to strike so soon, we were expecting 30 Days of Night to pull this victory but the question was “How much?” For four consecutive weeks, the box office report has turned in dismal results and this weekend, 30 Days had a lot of competition being released as well. Competition which covers a wide range of demographics, something which really shows in the numbers game.
Eight new wide releases hit this week, five of which hit the Top 10. The first place is the vampire horror pulling in 16.0 million in 2,855 theaters across the nation. 30 Days of Night was the widest of the new releases and second to only one returning movie, The Game Plan (3,301 theaters). It averaged only $5,604 per showing, signs that the competition did hurt the performance of this Steve Niles adaptation. In fact, it comes in 3rd place in the average per showing behind Tyler Perry’s latest effort and Tim Burton’s re-release of The Nightmare Before Christmas. Still, it’s not altogether a failure of an opening for Sony here. 30 Days has a budget of only 30 mil and it’s made half that back in its first 3 days alone. As Halloween approaches, it’s sure that this film will stay in the top 5 over the next three weeks of release.
Following in 2nd place is Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married pulling in another 12.1 mil in its second week of release. Perry continues his success rate with this film gathering 38.8 million for Lionsgate. While no budget is listed, it’s easy to guess it was low on the part of the producer. The film averaged $5,948 and continues to be the front runner of its focused demographics. While all the other releases this past month have performed with average results for their respective studios, Perry and Lionsgate have teamed up for a clear hit. Which brings us to the other hit for this month, again featuring the family demographics…
Landing right behind is that other family film, The Game Plan. The latest from Dwayne Johnson has clearly been a success for Disney, pulling in another 8.1 million in its third week of release. The sports film has gathered 69.1 million since it debuted making it one of the two clear hits for the month of October. It seems clear that Johnson does have an audience for his abilities outside the world of action films and Disney has known this for a while now. Before this film was even released by him, they cast him in the remake to Escape From Witch Mountain.
The latest from George Clooney, Michael Clayton, continues to perform just up to par but definitely not above that. The film pulled in another 7.1 million in 4th place this weekend in 2,585 theaters across the nation. Still, it’s hard to say whether this is a flop attracting 21.9 million over 3 weeks of release. The first week was a limited and then it expanded into a wide release from Warner Bros. Sure, it isn’t pulling in eye popping numbers for the studio but as our box office readers said in last week’s report, was it a film which was expected to do those kinds of numbers? The demographics and advertising appeal of this film seems low amongst so much competition. 21.9 million is nothing to sneeze about considering the budget is most likely small but then again, it’s also nothing to tout as a success.
Right behind is the Ben Affleck directed Gone Baby Gone from Miramax films, landing in 5th place with a 6.0 million debut. Other than Tim Burton’s re-release, it was the lowest theatrical release of the bunch, debuting in only 1,713 theaters this weekend. It averaged a respectable $3,502 per showing. It could have done better for Affleck and Co. but amidst so much competition, it’s hard to quantify exactly how much…
Right on its tails is the next debut for this week, another sports comedy called The Comebacks from Fox Atomic. It’s not very often when we have two sports related films in the top 10 box office report in the same week. This film clearly didn’t fare as well as the The Game Plan did for Disney, pulling in only 5.2 million in 5.8 million in 2,812 theaters across the country. When you consider that a 2,800+ release is very respectable, it’s definitely easy to say this can be considered a flop at best. Again, though, how could expectations for this film be anything less for Fox Atomic? They gave it a wide release but did they really expect this film to outperform 30 Days, Tyler Perry or The Game Plan? If so, they were clearly wrong…
Sony’s other recent release is the thriller, We Own The Night, starring Mark Wahlberg, Eva Mendes and Joaquin Phoenix. The film pulled in another 5.5 million in its second week of release landing in 7th place with an average showing of $2,328. With a budget of only 21 mil and a release gross of 19.7 mil in two weeks, it’s easy to say this isn’t a flop. As with most releases this past month, it isn’t exactly a success either. The month of October 2007 seems to be the month of “average” for studios outside of two unexpected hits for Disney and Lionsgate.
Next up is the largest average per showing debut for this weekend. Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas was re-released in 3-D this weekend in only 564 theaters across the nation. That didn’t stop it from landing in 8th place with an average of $9,122 per showing, pulling in 5.1 million over the weekend. With a running time of only 1 hr and 16 minutes, I think it’s safe to say why this film is successful in theaters vs. its competition. It can be shown a few more times a day in those theater houses it was shipped to from Disney.
The last debuting film to reach the top 10 is Rendition from New Line which pulled in only 4.1 million in 9th place this weekend. The film had a theater count of 2,250 so this box office performance is definitely flop worthy but as I mentioned for The Comebacks, did the studio really feel this film would perform so well with low advertising appeal against so much other demographics? If they did, New Line is joining Fox Atomic in the “We were wrong” corner…
Taking up the final 10th spot for this weekend is the very unusual flop from Ben Stiller, The Heartbreak Kid. This film has actually been a laughing spot for the gaming community after some reports were made that the Halo 3 release damaged the box office, more specifically this film. It was mentioned this was the opinion of some Hollywood executives inside the studios. Still, not all of those executives were agreeing with that conspiracy. Some downright said “poor reviews” made this a flop, not a next generation console game. Heartbreak has accumulated only 32.1 million in 3 weeks with a high theater release of 2,782 prints. Obviously, this is better numbers then Michael Clayton (21.9 mil), which also has been out 3 weeks, but this film opened wide where as Clayton opened in limited numbers. Heartbreak was expected to perform much better than this by the studios. Once again, the studios were wrong.
| Rank | Movie | Weekend $ | Theater | Average | Total $ | Week # |
| 1 | 30 Days of Night | 16.0 mil | 2,855 | $5,604 | 16.0 mil | 1 |
| 2 | Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married | 12.1 mil | 2,034 | $5,948 | 38.8 mil | 2 |
| 3 | The Game Plan | 8.1 mil | 3,301 | $2,450 | 69.1 mil | 4 |
| 4 | Michael Clayton | 7.1 mil | 2,585 | $2,746 | 21.9 mil | 3 |
| 5 | Gone Baby Gone | 6.0 mil | 1,713 | $3,502 | 6.0 mil | 1 |
| 6 | The Comebacks | 5.8 mil | 2,812 | $2,080 | 5.8 mil | 1 |
| 7 | We Own The Night | 5.2 mil | 2,362 | $2,328 | 19.7 mil | 2 |
| 8 | Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D | 5.1 mil | 564 | $9,122 | 5.1 mil | 1 |
| 9 | Rendition | 4.1 mil | 2,250 | $1,855 | 4.1 mil | 1 |
| 10 | The Heartbreak Kid | 3.9 mil | 2,782 | $1,401 | 32.1 mil | 3 |
For the past 7 weeks, only two weekends beat out the 2006 results for that respective weekend total. Tyler Perry helped in giving a +24.5 % increase over last year’s totals of the same weekend. Sony’s Resident Evil: Extinction also caused a +23.6% over that weekend’s 2006 results. All the other weekends between have not performed up to par with the box office results of last year. It was hoped that 30 Days of Night would inject some momentum leading into the Halloween holiday and then onward into the fall holiday season but they were wrong on both accounts due to overwhelming theater competition.
It was stretched a bit too wide in the world of demographics this weekend and as such, the films in the top 10 performed average for all parties. Everyone got a piece of the pie but nobody came out clearly ahead of the rest. The same thing in fact happened last year but the numbers for the top 3 in the box office fared higher for the studios.
- The Prestige =14.8 million
- The Departed=13.4 million
- Flags of Our Fathers=10.2 million
Just that little increase of money per ranking helped it pull ahead of this year’s numbers, this weekend falling down 5.0%.
The question now for studios is how long this trend continues.
Will Saw IV lead next week’s box office report to a clear victory over 2006 where Saw III took the #1 spot? It seems clear it could have a better impact because the next installment of the Saw franchise opens up in 3,000+ theaters next week with little competition. Still, the fan anticipation for this fourth film is somewhat lower than the third film, something which frequently happens as a franchise gets pushed into the theaters year after year…
Will Saw IV prove the same as the last few weeks? Will it do better then Saw III which pulled in 33.6 million for its debut in 2006?
Time for you readers to share your thoughts…
Friday October 26, 2007 Releases:
Wide Releases
Saw IV (3,000+ Theaters)
Dan in Real Life (1,700 Theaters)
Limited Releases
Bella
Before the Devil Knows Your Dead
How to Cook Your Life
Jim Carter Man from Plains
Mr. Untouchable
Music Within
Rails & Ties
Slipstream
Saw "In the Shadow of the Moon" this weekend, and definitely recommend it for anyone who's interested in the history of the cold war space race and the US Apollo missions. The living members of the missions are inverviewed; great companion piece to Hanks' HBO series "From Earth to the Moon."
Looking forward to "Dan in Real Life" this weekend. I think "Saw IV" will pull in around 21 million and Dan will take home around 18 million.