Awake Can't Captivate Moviegoers
December 3, 2007
There were very few shocks at the box office this weekend as Enchanted remained the dominant film.
However, there was an unsettling malaise as the overall box office reached just $85 million.
This is barely more than half of last weekend's $162 million holiday-inflated haul, but that was to be expected.
What wasn't as expected was the 8% drop-off from the same weekend last year.
At the moment, 2007 is ahead of 2006 in terms of box office and ticket sales.
However, while a gain at the box office is academic at this point, a slide in ticket sales is likely if things don't turn around.
As expected, Enchanted took top spot on the charts with ease, although its weekend box office was just a hair lower than predictions.
That said, $16.40 million is close enough to call it a victory and technically its running tally of $70,000,316 is over $70 million, so I don't think the studio is going to be troubled by this result.
At this point, $100 million is all but guaranteed, while $125 million is within reach, assuming it hangs around in theaters past Christmas.
Beowulf climbed into second place with $8.21 million over the weekend.
The film now has $68.94 million and could reach into the mid-$90 million rage before it is done.
This is probably not enough to get the studio to give it a boost over the $100 million mark, but they may want to try since hitting that milestone would lessen the vague smell of failure surrounding the film.
The film did earn good reviews, but not enough at the box office to justify its $150 million production budget.
This Christmas's sophomore stint wasn't as strong as expected, but its weekend haul of $7.94 million did lift its total to $36.43 million after 12 days, which is more than enough to ensure a profit sometime down the line.
It also shows it has some crossover appeal, although not as much as I was expecting.
Hitman earned $6.02 million over the weekend, a nearly imperceptible increase over Thursday's predictions. However, this was enough for the film to remain in fourth place thanks to competition that was also slightly off the mark.
Awake opened in fifth place with $5.86 million in 2,002 theaters.
This gave the film a sub-$3,000 per theater average, and combined with very weak reviews, suggests a short stay in theaters.
By the time Christmas rolls around, this film will be a faint memory.
As for the rest of the films mentioned on Thursday, they all placed within a rounding error of expectations.
Bee Movie was a little weaker than expected, while August Rush and The Mist was a little better, but there were no results that could be considered a surprise.
For August Rush, its sophomore stint saw it remain in seventh place with $5.02 million, down 47% from its opening weekend for a total of $20.23 million.
Meanwhile, The Mist climbed into eighth place with $4.55 million over the weekend and $19.56 million in total.
I expect the latter to perform better on the home market.
Filed under: Enchanted, Beowulf, This Christmas, Hitman, August Rush, The Mist, Awake