maybe, maybe not, I was checking what kids films that had been out for over a month did on this exact wknd "also known as post thanksgiving wknd" and the results show a saturday increase around 10%-15% greater than the usual one it had the incredibes averages around an 80%-83% so a 100% increase is very likely today 8)

Wow, at Closer's number. Simply amazing. Will it have close to a 16,000 PTA?

My Friday Numbers Analysis:


1. National Treasure - The movie held on really well. Naturally it's down from last Friday quite a bit, but so are all movies. This one should get a very nice mulitplier over the weekend. So far, the movie has exceeded all expectations. It held on to the top spot of the box-office for 3 weeks. The last movie to do so was Shark Tale and the last live action movie to do so was The Passion of the Christ. Sure, it has to partially thank the huge competition among animated flicks for that fact on the one hand. Surely the fact that the movie was rated PG helped as well. This way it could stand its own among the slew of animated flicks like The Incredibles and The Polar Express. National Tresure is the first pure adventure movie since Pirates of the Caribbean and I am sure Bruckheimer's name attached to the movie along with a "From the producer of Pirates of the Caribbean" helped the movie as well. People associate Pirates of the Caribbean with "good adventure". That movie has had some of the best WoMs of recent times and this has sure affected National Treasure. The same trick didn't work for King Arthur, but let's face it, King Arthur has never looked any similar to Pirates of the Caribbean in first place. Furthermore, National Treasure was certainly somewhat helped by Nicholas Cage who earlier efforts with Bruckheimer (The Rock, Gone in 60 Seconds and Con Air) all broke $100 million. National Treasure will join them this weekend, but not only that, it is on its good way to become Cage's most successful movie ever passing The Rock's $134 million. I expect a good multiplier this weekend, due to the fact that this PG movie plays well with families and should increase on Saturday big time. I project around $16.5 million for the weekend. The legs throughout the holiday season should be good for this movie despite the big competition that arrives next wekend with Ocean's Twelve. I don't think that the movie will have a single weekend under $5 million until the end of December. I expect the total gross to be around $155-160 million by the end of its run. That means that another Cage/Bruckheimer collaboration is to be expected soon, but considering this movie's good WoM I doubt anyone will complain.


2. Christmas with the Kranks - This movie is the best example of a critic-proof movie. The reviews have been terrible, even worse than the ones Surviving Christmas, one of this year's biggest bombs got. Nonetheless, this movie's run is really good thus far. Looks like the formula Tim Allen + Christmas theme = $$$ still works very well. The fact that the movie is based on John Grisham's bestseller and stars Freaky Friday's Jamie Lee Curtis surely didn't hurt it either. However, in the end it's the fact that this is a pure Christmas movie released around Christmas time that helps it the most. Expect this movie to die down right after December 24th, just like it happened to Elf and The Santa Clause 2. Nonetheless, this movie should be able to make a decent amount of money until then. At first it seemd like the movie would follow The Haunted Mansion's run, but now it seems like its legs will be significantly better. That was surely helped by the Christmas factor of the movie. I project its multiplier over the weekend to be in the same range as Elf's last year, maybe somewhat higher due to the fact that it less of a kids movie than Elf. Therefore, I project $11.2 million for the weekend which gives the movie a drop of under 50% which is remarkable for a movie with awful reviews. It should continue a nice run until Christmas Eve and then disappear from movie theates pretty quickly. It remains to e seen if it is fast enough to grab $100 million in the time until then, but at the moment I am sceptical. I see a final gross of around $80-85 million which is not bad at all considering the terrible reactions the movie has been getting from the reviewers so far.


3. The Polar Express - I can clearly remember all the Polar Express bashers who claimed this movie a bomb once it came out and said that it'd struggle to reach $100 million. Well, the movie has proven these people wrong. Movies like this are basically made for Christmas and Christmas time is the time when the movie's legs start to kick in. Even though The Incredibles outdid The Polar Express by far in its opening weekend, The Polar Express slowly, but gradually closed the gap and is now leading in daily and obviously weekend grosses. This movie's run reminds one of Elf's and The Santa Clause 2's runs. Both opened well, but not huge. Their runs however have been very steady until Christmas and both finished with $175+ million and $140 million respectively. The movie keeps having amazing weekdays, especially in comparison to other family-oriented movies on release and it held on to its 3650 theatres for four weeks straight now. Considering that this is an animated and G-rated Christmas flick the weekend multiplier should be great. I expect around $11.2 million for the weekend. This would represent a drop of less than 45% from last weekend and that considering the fact that it actually increased by over 20% last weekend. Not bad, I'd say. As for the movie's future box-office, I expect a very ealthy run until Christmas and see it leaving the theatres with around $128-130 million.


4. Closer - The movie's opening day is astounding. Many expected a healthy PTA for it, but not such a big one. However, there are reasons for this movie's great start. While the reviews it's getting are much rather good than amazing, the overall vibe that the people are getting is that this movie is one of the year's biggest frontrunners. Cinephiles want to see it because it is this year's BIG drama and most likely a candidate for many awards, normal moviegoers most likely want to see it for a very attractive cast that consists of Natalie Portman, Clive Owen, Jude Law and Julia Roberts who definitely has a fanbase of her own as well. The movie is sure to be frontloaded somewhat snce the anticipation for it has definitely be there. A multiplier somewhat better than 3 would give it a $8.3 million weekend and a PTA of around $18,000 which is even better than the average that Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason got in 530 theatres. It is a very amazing feat for this R-rated picture that deals with some rather delicate topics.

Right now, it is hard to say where the movie is heading in its total gross. Judging by the reviews and the audience reactions this is a definite love/hate movie which will split the audiences. Sony plans on expanding this movie next weekend to 600 theatres and on December 17th to 1000+ theatres. I think that the great cast, as well as some award buzz will assure this movie a gross of $50+ million. How far beyond it'll go remains to be seen.


5. The Incredibles - The movies looks to end up with a better weekend-weekend drop than Monsters Inc. did on the similar weekend back in 2001. I project around $9.4 million which means a drop of slightly under 60%. In terms of weekend grosses the movie is almost mimicing Monsters Inc. That movie made more than The Incredibles during the Thanksgiving weekend and $9.1 million on the pos-Thanksgiving weekend. The Incredibles is going to finish with somewhat more. While Monsters Inc. only had to fight off one benemoth directed at kids - Harry Potter and the Sorceroro's Stone - The Incredibles has to deal with smaller, but more movies, like The Polar Express, Spongebob, Christmas with the Kranks, National Treasure and soon Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events. Its run through December should be good, but the aforementioned huge competition will limit The Incredibles' chances. The Incredibles looks to be the first Pixar movie to not end up wih a multiplier of 4. However, I doubt that Pixar will be too upset. The Incredibles looks to finish with around $270 million making it Pixar's th movie in a row to pass $245 million. This is nothing to complain about.


6. The Spongebob Squarepants Movie - This movie's run is a bit confusing so far. Everything pointed at a huge 65+% drop this weekend considering that the movie dropped 44% on the family-friendliest weekend of the year and considering its weak daily grosses. However, the movie rebounded on Friday by increasing over 450% on Friday which is a great feat for any movie. It makes it clear that the movie is obviously directed at the very young audiences. The weekend multiplier should be good, I project a weekend gross of $8.3 million, a drop of around 55% from last weekend. It is safe to say that the movie's run so far is pretty weird. Last week it had the biggest increase on Wednesday, increasing by over 100% and then it fell 30+% on Thursday even though all other movies increased then. The question is now if the movie will cross $100 million. If it does, it'll be Paramount's first movie in over a year to do so. Paramount needs a hit badly. The only movie that made Paramount really happy this year was Mean Girls. Despite a rather decent drop this weekend, one has to admit that the drop isn't that great considering the fact that flicks The Polar Express and Christmas with the Kranks are going to drop way less. The movie's run is somewhat comparable to the one of Rugrats in Paris and Pokemon: The First Movie with the exception that this one is enjoying somewhat better WoM than the latter and therefore will end up with a higher total gross. I project its final gross to be around $83-86 million.


7. Alexander - We all knew that this movie was in for a huge drop and that is happening right now. It increased less than 130% from Thursday and that's not a good sign. One has to keep in mind, though, that this is a movie with a running time of almost 3 hours and these usually get a pretty good weekend multiplier. Therefore I project a weekend gross of around $5 million. That would still mean a 63% drop from last weekend, comparable to The Missing's drop last year. In their further run the movies should be similar as well with Alexander probably doing even worse in terms of weekend drops considering the horrendous WoM this movie is getting. It is unbelievable how fast this movie turned from an oscar frontrunner to one of this year's most bashed movies. I see a total gross of around $40 million, a hugely disappointing sum for this epic which rumored production budget is over $200 million and that without taking the marketing costs into account.


8. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason - This movie's run in the USA is nothing short of disappointing. The first movie made $71.5 million in the USA and got a huge fanbase after its DVD release. Pretty much everyone expected the sequel to make at least that much, but at the moment it looks like the movie will fall short by over $20 million. Looks like the WoM of this movie corresponds to the bad reviews it got. Furthermore, it obviously was hit by the presence of another flick for older female audiences - Closer. For this weekend I project around $3 million a drop of over 50% from last weekend. As for its total gross I expect it to top out with about $45 million which represents a mere 63% of the original's total gross. Nonetheless, I think that the studio is happy about this movie's performance when taking into account its recordbreaking overseas performance, espcially in Europe. It is sure to break $200 million worldwide and this is nothing to complain about for this sort of a movie.


9. Finding Neverland - The movie still reminds me of last year's Big Fish, but in contrast to that movie it has received better reviews. The movie with Johnny Depp will be one of this year's oscar frontrunners and Depp might finally win his well-deserved Best Actor award for this one. The movie enjoys very positive WoM and great reviews and the expansion of the movie is going very well. For this weekend it looks to finish with $3.1 million, a rather mild drop from last weekend considering the harsh drops other movies are suffering. Further expansions and more award buzz will do this movie good. It topped the National Board of Review earlier this week and now it is a definit oscar candidate this year. This as well as the somewhat lighthearted nature of this movie will help it at the box-office. It is hard to project the movie's final gross right now, but anywhere from $50 million to $100 million should be within reach.


10. After the Sunset - Not mch can be said about this Pierce Brosnan/Salma Hayek caper. It has recived mediocre WoM, terrible reviews and underperformed at the box-office. I see about $1.8 million for this weekend surprisingly giving it the second best drop in the TOP 10 (after Finding Neverland). However, these legs are kicking in a bit too late and with the arrival of the similar-themed blockbuster Ocean's Twelve next weekend it will disappear from the surface very soon. I see it leaving the theatres with around $32 milion in its pocket. It remains to be seen now, how Brosnan's heist sequel to The Thomas Crown Affair will fare at the box-office.

Overall it should be said that this post-Thanksgiving weekend has been kinder to movies than last year's. The drops are not as bad by far. This can certainly be reasoned by the lack of big openers this year. Last year the holdovers had to face the likes of The Last Samurai and Honey which opened to #1 and #2 of the box-office respectively.

I wonder how much Closer could have gotten with 1,000+ theaters or more?

Well, with 1000 theatres, I'd say around $4 million in Friday.
It'll expand to 600 theatres next week and 1000 theatres the week after.

I bet Sony expands it to 800 or more theaters next weekend because of how good it will do this weekend.

I hope they won't be too fast with expanding it, otherwise... *cough Bridget Jones cough cough*

Gosh I hope not

Well, not that bad. I mean Bridget Jones had a definite fanbase making it frontloaded and the reviews were much worse. Yet the past has proven that slow expansions are much better than sudden and big ones.


BTW, anyone read my analysis? I spent about 1 1/2 hours typing it, hehe.

Yea, it will be better to slowly expand, then when ( :wink: ) it receives 6 Golden Globe nods and wins a few, expand it further.

I did. I agree with a lot of it, expect Finding Neverland. Unless it gets some big Oscar nods, I can't see it grossing that much.

If Sony sticks to its current expansion plans I see around $6-6.5 milion next weekend and around the same for its third weekend, mostly because the movie is somewhat frontloaded. I don't expect it to get a $10+ million weekend anyime soon.

Well, I don't see a way around of it getting plenty of nods. It topped the National Board of review, the reviews it's been getting are great and so is the WoM and with some candidates out by now (like Eternal Sunshine which I consider pretty much dead and Alexander) it stands a very good chance to get a nom. Furthermore, Miramax plans to expand it to around 2000 theatres on December 25th.

Great commentarty Lecter.

KJ

Oh, I didn't know it was expanding. And I wasn't completely disagreeing, just saying that it has to get Nods to reach that. I think it will to, but we shall see.

Thanks

You do nice analysises or however you spell that sick word. I think it might be similar (Closer, that is) to Love, Actually. That would be a nice performance. I think anyone would be pleased if it managed 60 million.

BOM numbers are out:

Here they are


I adjusted my analysis taking BOM's numbers into account.

@Zach

It is hard to compare the two movies because of the cold nature of Closer and the warm and lighthearted nature of Love Actually. What they have in common, though, is their all-star cast. I think that Closer will end up with a somewhat higher total gross provided it gets a Best Picture nom.

Lecter, great analysis as always.

BTW, you didn't highlight your projection for National Treasure. :wink:

Fantastic for Closer, which is one of the year's best films.

Polar Express and Incredibles are performing very very well

...Closer well, not that much, looks like i would have been correct, judging by the TC, if it opened in a sufficient amount of theatres, my opening of $33Million would have came true, well, i believe so anyway

Thank you I just edited it, hehe.

By the way, I'll post a big oscar analysis in the oscar forum soon.

Nice commentary again this week Dr. Lecter.

I disagree about National Treasure. I've been doing calculations for the next few weeks, and I think it's a lock for 170m; in fact I see a total of 192m.

My calculations gave me around $170 million, but I want to be conservative. I do think that Ocean's Twelve + Blade: Trinity will hurt it quite a bit. Both togther will take a chunk out of NT's audiences.

Tsk, tsk Lecter. We want perfection.