TheChez.net

by ssjrem

I’m done with titles that are puns or shit like that. They’re so corny and everything; I can’t take it much more. Plus, the editors at my school’s newspaper didn’t even use my title for The Men Who Stare at Goats review. So fuck it. Anyway, yeah, 2012 didn’t exactly disappoint, but it was by no means a breakout weekend.

2012

2012 opened nowhere near a 100 million, so I don’t owe anyone a candy bar. However, I’ll still be entirely willing to buy anyone on the Chez staff a candy bar at any given moment because my father put a bunch of money on my royal card that I’m not going to ever use. I told him that, but he just felt like handing me a bunch of money. So at the end of the semester, I’m just going to have a field day in the bookstore and buy a shitload of interesting books and probably a few manga while I’m at it. Anyway, moving on to what I should actually be talking about, 2012 opened to a pretty solid 65 million. Given the awful reviews and some disaster porn fatigue, this is still pretty impressive. The movie does carry a gigantic budget, probably like 200 million or so. However, it should at least approach that domestically and Roland Emmerich movies make the bulk of their money overseas, so this will be fine. It could easily surpass 500 million worldwide, so it’ll be fine in the end. This is probably going to have awful legs and I wouldn’t be surprised to see it crash more than 60%. However, Thanksgiving is in two weeks and that should help this a bit. This debut does fall below The Day After Tomorrow’s 72 million opening weekend, but 2012 does have a shot at beating TDAT’s total gross of 186 million. I ended up predicting about 70 million for this, so I was pretty accurate. Good for me.

A Christmas Carol

Well, A Christmas Carol did exactly what it needed to do this weekend and that’s have a small drop. Given the soft debut last weekend, it really needed legs to carry it to a respectable gross. And legs it does have. A slim drop of 25% brings it another 22.3 million this weekend, which raises the total up to 63.3 million. That drop is very, very good news, but the flick still has a long way to go considering the budget is 200 million. If it can drop roughly the same amount next weekend, it’ll make about 16 million, but then after that we have Thanksgiving and ACC could see it a healthy boost back up to 20 million or so. By then, it should be well over 100 million. I still really don’t think this will hit that 200 million, but in the long run, I definitely think it could challenge 2012 as both of them could end up in the 180 million range or so. That’s assuming ACC continues to hold like this. We’ll have to wait and see.

The Men Who Stare at Goats maintains third place, but drops a large for an adult comedy 51% down to 6.2 million. With a total gross now of 23 million against a 25 million budget, this will probably be fine in the long run. I guess American generally shared my sentiment toward this movie, given the drop.

In fourth we have a movie I know absolutely nothing nothing about. It’s some Oprah Winfrey sponsored movie or something and I have no clue what it’s about. It’s called Precious and made 6.1 million in just 174 theatres. Its average per theatre was $35,000, which actually destroys 2012′s $19,000 per theatre average. I know nothing about this movie. I have nothing to say.

This is It crumbles apart, falling 61% to 5.1 million. On the bright side, it passed out the Hannah Montana movie and became the highest grossing concert movie ever. 68 million so far ain’t half bad, especially considering how fucking creepy Michael Jackson is.

The Fourth Kind also falls to pieces, plummeting 61% to 4.7 million. It’s total is up 20.8 million, which isn’t bad, I guess.

Couples Retreat pulls in another 4.3 million and finally crosses the 100 million barrier. For a movie with only 12% at Rotten Tomatoes, getting over 100 million is quite an accomplishment.

Ever since Halloween passed us, Paranormal Activity hasn’t been doing so well. It dropped 50% down to 4.2 million. However, it did get over 100 million, now standing at 103.8 million. I’d give it about 112 million it the long run, which is like 7500 times its budget. That’s gotta be some kind of record.

Law Abiding Citizen spends what will likely be its last weekend in the top ten. 3.9 million this weend and LAC has raised the gross to 67.3 million. After the utter failure of Gamer, it’s good to see Gerard Butler in something that’s been doing pretty decently. I don’t know if he’ll be able to find 300 level success again, but I hope that he does.

As if its underwhelming debut last weekend wasn’t bad enough, The Box falls 58% and grosses only 3.2 million this weekend. With a total of 13.2 million, I think this can officially be called a complete failure.

Yep, so not bad. 2012 opens pretty big, but not overwhelmingly so. However, next weekend things get even more excited. Considering that 2012 is practically guaranteed a 60% drop and the fact that there is little audience overlap, New Moon is going to open absolutely fucking huge. As of now, I’m going to it could open somewhere between 90 and 100 million. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it crash well beyond 100, though. It’s a smart move on Summit’s part, putting New Moon just before Thanksgiving. It will have a mammoth second weekend drop no matter what, but Thanksgiving should really help to soften the blow. Dukemich will see the movie twice next weekend and he’s read the books, so he will more than likely do a review. I can’t make any promises, though. So, I guess that’s it. We haven’t seen anything amazing since Harry Potter (well, Paranormal Activity was amazing in a different sort of way) so I’m excited about what New Moon can do. Until we meet again.