The Martin Luther King Day holiday tends to be a day off more for schoolchildren than for adult employees, meaning that at the boxoffice, it benefits family movies–of which there’s a distinct shortage right now. For adult-oriented films, the Friday gross is often around 25-30% of the 4-day weekend total (with new openings at the low end of that range, since they’re usually more frontloaded).
OPENINGS: MAMA (Universal), aided by generally strong reviews, will be the easy winner this weekend, with a $10M Friday that should put it at $30M+ by the end of the holiday. BROKEN CITY (20th), though, had a release patterned after last January’s Mark Wahlberg hit Contraband, but the parallel didn’t hold, as Broken‘s $3M Friday was just 35% of Contraband‘s first day, and Broken will probably have a 4-day total of about $9M. Even that looked good compared to THE LAST STAND (Lionsgate), as it turned out Americans couldn’t care less about Arnold Schwarzenegger’s return to starring roles, with a $2M start that will probably give it a puny $6M 4-day weekend.
HOLDOVERS: SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK (Weinstein), at long last, expanded to 2523 theaters, but although that tripled its screen count, it only doubled the movie’s Friday boxoffice, giving it a less-than-thrilling $1200 average for the day and $3M, on its way to a $10M 4-day total. The big question for those with a financial interest in Silver Linings is whether the movie’s enormous marketing costs (which will continue to add up for at least 6 more weeks until the Oscars) will wipe out any profit from the moderately-budgeted comedy-drama.
With a lot of new action product in theaters, ZERO DARK THIRTY (Sony) fell 50% from last Friday, with $16M or so likely for the 4-day holiday. The news was better for other Oscar hopefuls, as LINCOLN (Disney/DreamWorks/20th), DJANGO UNCHAINED (Weinstein/Sony) and LES MISERABLES (Universal) all slipped just 23-36% from last week. LIFE OF PI (20th) and ARGO (Warners) supplemented their theater counts and notched increases from last week (Golden Globe winner Argo was particularly impressive, adding 20% more theaters but rising 68%). Meanwhile, SKYFALL (Sony/MGM) hit its $300M milestone in the US, the biggest hit of the holiday season but still just a fraction of its worldwide $1B total.
GANGSTER SQUAD (Warners) fell 60% from last Friday, on its way to a $9-10M 4-day weekend and a total that won’t cover its marketing budget. The frontloaded A HAUNTED HOUSE (Open Road) slumped by 65%, but at a much lower budget, its $9-10M weekend looks a lot better.
LIMITED RELEASE: No major openings this weekend (because all indie movie eyes are aimed at Sundance?), and no news yet on the expansion of QUARTET (Weinstein) to 32 theaters.
NEXT WEEKEND: The postponed HANSEL & GRETEL: WITCH HUNTERS (Paramount) probably counts as the major opening, with Jason Statham’s latest vehicle PARKER (FilmDistrict) and the all-star sketch-comedy MOVIE 43 (Relativity) behind.
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