Articles

September 24, 2012
 

WEEKLY BOX OFFICE ACTUALS & YEAR TO DATE September 17-23

The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume

All films in wide release playing between September 17 and September 23 grossed a weak $107 million, down 12% from the four-year average for the week and down a big 24% from the same week last year.  We have to go back to the same week in 2007 to find a comparably bad performance ($102 million for September 17-23, 2007, when Resident Evil: Extinction, Good Luck Chuck, The Brave One3:10 to Yuma and Eastern Promises topped the chart).  

The past six weeks are still down 4% from the four-year average box office average but now down a more significant 8% from the same six-week period last year.  Year to date box office (closing in on $7.5 billion for wide-release films) continues to cling to a 5% gain from the average for the past four years and a 4% gain over last year at this time.

Domestic Box Office Volume: All Wide-Release Films through September 23, 2012 ($ millions)  2012 vs 2011  2012 vs 4yr Avg
2011 4-year Average 2012
Week #38 $141 $122 $107 -24% -12%
Past Six Weeks $843 $812 $779 -8% -4%
Year to Date $7,178 $7,119 $7,451 +4% +5%

 

Weekend Actuals versus Studio Estimate

End of Watch came in officially at $13,152,683 today for its opening weekend, up 1.2% from the Open Road Films estimate Sunday morning — the most conservative, and accurate, new film estimate this week.  

House at the End of the Street came in at $12,287,234 in its opening weekend, down 5.5% from the Relativity estimate — a pretty bad forecast.

Trouble with the Curve ended up grossing $12,162, 040 in its first weekend, down 4.4% from the Warner Brothers estimate Sunday.

But Weinstein Company wins the big award for overstatement Sunday morning.  The Master ended up grossing $4,391,092 in its first somewhat wide weekend, down an embarassing 12.2% from the bloated Sunday morning weekend estimate.

 

Updated Estimates of Final Grosses

The ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Grosses (the estimated North American gross when the film ends its run) are summarized below for films released the last six weeks. Pay attention to the final domestic grosses, which are much more important than individual weekend grosses and especially weekend rankings.  

Updated ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Final Estimates Domestic Final Gross ($ millions) percentile
Expendables 2 88 73
Finding Nemo 3D 58 57
ParaNorman 58 57
Odd Life of Timothy Green 54 54
The Possession 51 51
End of Watch 46 49
Trouble with the Curve 45 49
Resident Evil: Retribution 42 45
Lawless 41 45
2016 Obama’s America 35 34
The Master 24 21
House at the End of the Street 24 21
Sparkle 24 21
Premium Rush 21 16
Dredd 3D 15 10
Hit and Run 14 9
The Words 13 7

 

Weekend Predictions September 28-30 should be posted Wednesday.  This weekend features the openings of Hotel Transylvania (animation), Looper (sci-fi action) and Won’t Back Down (drama).

 



About the Author

Mitch Metcalf
MITCH METCALF has been tracking every US film release of over 500 screens (over 2300 movies and counting) since the storied weekend of May 20, 1994, when Maverick and Beverly Hills Cop 3 inspired countless aficionados to devote their lives to the art of cinema. Prior to that, he studied Politics and Economics at Princeton in order to prepare for his dream of working in television. He has been Head of West Coast Research at ABC, then moved to NBC in 2000 and became Head of Scheduling for 11 years.