Weekend Box Office Report for February 9-11

Hello you box office savvy Maniacs. The estimated numbers for this weekend are in and the choice was clearly made by audiences around the nation as to what they wanted to watch and what they could wait to see another time. This weeks openers was a horror thriller (back story of a pop culture icon character) and a comedy (starring another pop culture icon comedian). One film had inventive ways of explaining a psychopath who likes to sauté people he doesn’t like. The other film had an actor dressing up as multiple characters in comedic happenstance.

 

Who won?

 

Norbit did and it wasn’t even close. Nowhere near any sort of competition. The alter ego comedy starring Eddie Murphy came in 1^st place at 33.7 mil. It opened this weekend at 3,136 screens and had an average of over 10 k per screen.

 

Hannibal Rising landed in 2^nd place at 13.3 mil, a full 20.4 mil behind the 1^st place spot. This is the largest gap of 1^st and 2^nd places this year. Rising opened up at 3,003 screens and has a running time of 1 hr/57 minutes so perhaps it had less showings per day against Norbit’s running time…Or it could be it just got killed for other reasons. Audiences wanted a comedy, not a serious Dr. Lecter film that didn’t have Anthony Hopkins. Whatever the reasoning, it looks like another great opening for Murphy.

 

Diane Keaton’s romantic comedy Because I Said So finished in 3^rd place this weekend with a 9.0 mil tally. It’s still in 2,529 screens and its total gross is now at 25.6 mil.

 

The PG 13 horror film named The Messengers scared up 4^th place bringing in another 7.2 mil this weekend moving down 4 spots as it was the number 1 film of last Superbowl weekend. The film’s budget is listed at 16.0 mil and its total gross in two weeks is now at 24.7 mil.

 

Night at the Museum still hasn’t relinquished a spot in the top 5 of our weekend box office reports. It’s been out 8 weeks now and still hasn’t moved below 5^th place. The Ben Stiller movie brought in another 5.7 mil bringing its grand total to 232.1 mil. Its worldwide total is etching closer to the 450.0 mil mark.

 

Epic Movie brought in another 4.4 mil in 6^th place to bring its total to 35.4 mil. Smokin’ Aces continues to turn a profit landing in 7^th place cashing in another 3.7 mil.

 

Del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth finally increased into 1,000+ screens mark last weekend and it added another 61 screens this weekend so its total 1,148 screens. One can only imagine if they put it on 3,000 screens to begin with. Pan brought in another 3.5 mil in 8^th place bringing its total to 26.5 mil. Its budget is listed at 19.0 mil.

 

Dreamgirls (also starring Eddie Murphy in award nominated status) brought in another 3 mil to bring its total to 97.1 mil. Another 100.0 mil film for Murphy coming soon domestically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s some back history of this weeks top 2 films.

 

 

 

 

Silence of the Lambs, Hannibal & Red Dragon all had tremendous success in their box office runs. Still, all 3 of these films starred an actor named Anthony Hopkins. It’s still up in the air if that’s the factor which brought the audiences into the seats for the thrillers. We’ll know for sure by the time Hannibal Rising closes its theater run and the final tally is made.

 

 

 

Thrillers involving the character of Dr. Hannibal Lecter have reached a worldwide total of 842.3 mil up to this weekend’s box office report.

 

Comedies involving Eddie Murphy playing multiple characters has reached a worldwide total of 827.5 mil up to this weekend’s box office report.

 

There you have it, Maniacs. When matching Eddie Murphy’s alter personality movies against the articulate cannibal himself, it’s really a close call. Actually, when you include this weekend, Murphy just took the lead over the good Dr. Lecter.

 

Of course, Eddie Murphy still wins the battle in the overall contest.

 

Here’s some Murphy numbers for you to digest:

 

Total number of Murphy movies: 30

 

Average Gross of Murphy movies: 97.2 mil

 

Total Gross of Murphy movies: 2,916,855,608

Yep, Murphy has 2.9 billion in total grosses. His first starring role on the big screen was in 1982 playing the Reggie Hammond character on 48 Hours. His top grossing movie was Shrek 2 which grossed domestically 441.2 mil and grossed worldwide 920.6 mil.