Weekend Box Office Report for January 5-7

With the beginning of any year, expectations are usually lower in the minds of box office experts primarily because this is the first week of a month & after the holiday season. The average movie goer is recovering from spending all that cash on their loved ones and from paying bills. Wallets are tight right about now so the weekend numbers can’t be expected to be too high.

 

Night of the Museum, a family movie, seemed to ignore all those lower expectations and pulled in a respectable 24 mil, landing in the Number #1 spot once again for the 3^rd week in a row.  Star Ben Stiller and distributor Fox Studios can’t ask for better then they’ve received out of this latest release. It’s been out 3 weeks and it’s taken the top spot every week in release, bringing in $164 million in change for them with an average of $6,434 per screen.

 

While Fox is patting themselves on the back for it’s Museum adventure, Sony is likewise dancing in circles over their “Pursuit of Happyness” starring Will Smith bringing in a 13 mil in 2^nd place for the weekend. Considering they took a chance with an actor who seemed to make most of his success from popcorn summer thrillers in years gone bye, they shouldn’t be too sad about seeing their Pursuit hit the $124 mil watermark. With a total gross of $124 mil in 4 weeks and a budget of $55 mil, Sony has nothing to feel “blu(-ray)” about. I know, that’s a stretch in segway verbal prose there but oh well, right. Sony has enough things to think about after the holiday sales numbers are tallied in their other products. It must be a relief to see this serious film from Will Smith do so well for them and they’ve got a chance for Oscar talks to keep the film going strong in the weeks to come.

 

Most surprising from this weekend is Clive Owen’s futuristic tale of mankind, “Children of Men”. Along with stellar reviews and increasing 1,193 screens in it’s second week of release, it increased  a whopping +1,954.9% change from week 1 to week 2. Of course, that’s primarily from the first week of wide release but expect word of mouth and stellar reviews to keep this film going strong in theatres for the month to come, Maniacs.

 

So what do you see from the top 3 takes? Fox’s family fun “Night” beat out two very serious respectable films to keep that top spot. Guess families needed a break from all the holiday chaos and chose a “fun ride” over a serious ride after such a stressful few weeks. Understandable when you think about it.

 

Lion Gate’s does have something to fret about however with it’s animation adventure Happily Never After coming into 6^th place in it’s first weekend take at 6.8 mil. Perhaps, the mom and pop had enough animation adventure with Happy Feet ruling for so long and decided to take their little ones to Museum instead or perhaps keeping them those little ones home and resting their wallets.

 

Rocky Balboa may have dropped 40% in it’s third week but considering it’s budget is 25 million and it’s total take is now at 60.8 mil, I doubt MGM is upset about it’s continuing profit marging growing in this film’s release.

 

Here’s the top 10 for the first weekend of 2007:

 

1. Night at the Museum      $24.0 mil           3,730 screens      Total: 164.0 mil     Week#3

2. Pursuit of Happyness      $13.0 mil           3,027 screens      Total: 124.1 mil     Week#4

3. Children of Men              $10.2 mil          1,209 screens       Total: 11.9 mil       Week#2

4. Freedom Writers             $9.7 mil             1,360 screens       Total: 9.7 mil         Week#1

5. Dreamgirls                      $8.8 mil             852 screens          Total: 54.5 mil       Week#4

6. Happily Never After       $6.8 mil             2,381 screens       Total: 6.8 mil         Week#1

7. Charlotte’s Web              $6.6 mil             3,303 screens       Total: 66.9 mil       Week#4

8. The Good Shepherd        $6.5 mil             2,250 screens      Total: 48.4 mil      Week#3

9. Rocky Balboa                 $6.2 mil             3,018 screens       Total: 60.8 mil      Week#3

10. We Are Marshall          $5.1 mil             2,502 screens        Total: 35.4 mil     Week#3

 

 

There’s the early numbers, Maniacs. Final receipts will be confirmed Monday night but these are pretty close to where they will end up, give or take a few hundred thousand here and there. Small change for the studios.

 

The real fear and rollercoaster ride for those execs in the Hollywood will begin as early as March-April with the releases of Ghost Rider & 300 onward to the summer season. With so many highly expectated releases coming this summer and with most of those films stacked so close to each other, you can bet the execs are already having hot sweats.