Both Warner Bros and the Rentrak organization, which formally reports boxoffice receipts for the studios, have chosen not to announce grosses for this weekend, out of respect for the terrible events that occurred in Colorado on Thursday night (and possibly to avoid any sense that the studios are reaping profits at such a difficult time). For that reason, it’s unclear when reliable boxoffice figures will be available this weekend.
Deadline has posted some preliminary results, which may or may not turn out to be fully accurate. Also, in making any sense of the numbers for this weekend, it is of course impossible to know how they’ve been affected by concerns over the Colorado tragedy.
According to the Deadline numbers, THE DARK KNIGHT RISES (Warners) had a $70M Friday, which includes $30.6M from Thursday midnight performances. This, if accurate, would not be a record-breaker, standing behind the opening days of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, The Avengers, and 2 films in the Twilight series. Even on a normal weekend, it would be exceedingly hard to calculate what the rest of the weekend would look like based on the Friday number, because precedents are all over the place: Deathly Hallows 2 fell 53% on its 2d day and ended up with a weekend that was only 1.86x its Friday; Avengers, on the other hand, fell only 14% on its 2d day and had a very healthy 2.57x multiple, with the Twilights as well as The Dark Knight somewhere in the middle. So Rises could end up anywhere from $130M-180M by Sunday night–and that’s not even taking into account what could be very unusual audience behavior this particular weekend. The high end of this range would be more or less what Rises was expected to gross this weekend; if the final number turns out to be lower, will that reflect anything other than the dreadful circumstances? We may never know.
Among holdovers, ICE AGE 4 (20th) appears to be heading for a 50% drop in its 2d weekend, which would be in keeping with the pattern of Ice Age 2 (the franchise’s 3d installment opened on a Wednesday). THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN (Sony) was expected to be hurt by the arrival of Dark Knight Rises, and it appears likely to fall a steep 60% in its 3d weekend–although again, whether all of that is attributable to the new competition in the marketplace is impossible to judge. TED (Universal) and MAGIC MIKE (Warners) are in line with 50% drops (which would be high for Ted compared with its record thus far), while BRAVE (Pixar/Disney) should fall only 20-25%. On the other hand, SAVAGES (Universal)–because audiences aren’t in the mood for graphic violence?–may slump over 60%. MOONRISE KINGDOM (Fox Searchlight) may be dropping 45%, and TO ROME WITH LOVE (Sony Classics) a softer 30%.
As noted above, all these numbers are currently subject to asterisks and speculation. We’ll have updates for you at SHOWBUZZDAILY as soon as they’re available.
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