Weekend Box Office Report for January 19-21

The weekend estimates are in and it looks too close to call. I’ll go ahead and call it anyway though, folks. 1^st place goes to Stomp The Yard (pulling in 13.3 mil) while Night of the Museum is only 300,000 dollars behind at 2^nd place. Yes, that’s right….the estimates have Stomp the Yard at 13.3 mil and Night at 13.0 mil. Basically, stay tuned Monday nights for the final numbers. It could be the same or it could change with Night at the number 1 spot.

 

Perhaps the bigger story is Night at the Museum breaking the 200.0 mil barrier and landing at 205.8 mil for it’s domestic gross so far. Or it could be Stomp The Yard having a budget of only 14 mil and so far pulling in 41.5 mil in just two weeks.

 

Coming into 3^rd place is Dreamgirls (pulling in 8.7 mil) which has steadily moved up the ranks while it increases in more screens every weekend. First week of January, it was in 5^th place. Last week, it increased a thousand screens and came in 4^th place. Now, Dreamgirls comes into 3^rd place and increases in 307 more screens. Can it jump to 2^nd place next week or is the 3^rd spot the highest it goes? Stay tuned, Box Office Maniacs.

 

 Rogue Picture’s remake The Hitcher comes into 4^th place in it’s opening day weekend with 8.2 mil. Not a very stellar opening for this horror remake. See my talking points later on.

 

Pursuit of Happyness has gone from 3^rd place to 5^th place this weekend, pulling in another 6.7 mil to push the grand total up to146.5 mil. This film’s budget is still listed at 55 mil so every weekend of numbers pushes that profit margin higher for Sony.

 

Paramount’s Freedom Writers has pushed past the profit margin. It’s small budget was 21 mil and by pulling in 5.5 mil at 6^thplace, it’s total is now sitting at 26.8 mil. Pan’s Labyrinth has jumped from 16^th place to 7^th place with a %+117.9 increase this weekend. It was added into 415 screens so hopefully more people are now getting chances to watch this latest film from Del Toro.

 

The Queen jumped from 24^th place to 8^th place with an even bigger increase of %+232.8 jump. It was also added into 1,242 screens and remember, folks, this film has been out for 17 weeks now.

 

Let’s look at the top 10 Weekend Estimate Chart:

 

 

 

 

                                         …………………….

 

 

This weeks talking points: Remakes of Horror movies.

 

How many horror fans read my box office report here? Raise your hands, Maniacs. It takes a lot for most of us to “accept” when a studio announces they’re remaking one of our treasured classics. Speaking of which, how much does it take anyway?

 

Where’s the point when you say “No, you damn dirty apes!” to some hair brained Hollywood Exec saying:

 

“You know what! Let’s remake Halloween!”

 

“No, I have a better idea! Let’s remake The Thing…..again!”

 

I know, it’s becoming a regular old fan boy experience to sit around and complain about Hollywood remaking the next cherished classic.

 

As a Carpenter fanatic (see my DarkJedi blog here at Mania.), I can testify at cringing when hearing about the next remake to come but I can also say with some amount of humbling hypocrisy that some remakes work for me. Let me rephrase that, the remake works for me if they “do it right”.

 

This week’s The Hitcher is a remake of director Robert Harmon’s “The Hitcher” where most of us remember Rutger Hauer as playing the lone highway killer with an uncanny skill for taking a unsuspecting couple for a week of hell.

 

Respectable Sean Bean takes Hauer’s old role and fills in his bloody shoes in this new update of the horror ride and you know, he may just do a good job at it. Who knows, right? I definitely won’t insult Hitcher distributor Rogue Pictures. They cover their butts pretty well with the budgets they give for their products and this is the same distributor who brought us “Shaun of the Dead”. They’re also bringing the Edgar Wright follow-up “Hot Fuzz.”(Which is a trailer attached to the new Hitcher remake). If you haven’t seen the trailer for Hot Fuzz, stop what you’re doing after this box office report and check it out. It’s freaking hilarious. No, I’m not here to review the latest remake. Perhaps, some of you Maniacs can do that for us. I’m just filling in the holes here.

 

Remaking a horror film seems to be a popular thing with Hollywood but it has to be done right for them to make it worth it. The budget should be lower then some shoot-em up action spectacular/summer movie. The reason that budget should stay low is because Rated R movies are not known for making a killing in the box office.

 

There’s an irony to this too for internet fan-boys. Most of us absolutely hate it when a great horror concept gets turned into a PG-13 affair but there’s a reason studios do this. Demographics are important for films to be successful in their box office run.

 

 

 

Let’s look at this scenario:

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s that irony now: Fox gets both franchises together and produces a fan boy dream. Aliens VS Predator but in a different “rating” then all 6 of the movies which put the two franchises on the map. Yes, a PG13 rating. Does it do badly? Nope. The studio got a profit and more even if fan boys got a little upset over it.

 

 

 

 

They need to cater to us horror fans to keep the movie dvd worthy and to get our butts into the seats when they make their initial theatre release run and yet sometimes they make a successful product by NOT catering to what us horror fans want.

 

Remakes & bringing horror classics together can be shaky ground between Maniacs out there vs Studio Execs. Who’s right? Who’s wrong?

 

Here’s some Horror Remakes for all of you Box Office fans:

 

 

 

That does it for this week’s talking points.

 

Next Week’s releases:

 

 

-Blood and Chocolate (1,500 screens)

-Catch and Release (1,500 screens)

-Epic Movie (2,700 screens)

-Smoking Aces (expanding 2,100 screens)