Funny Brings in the Money over Bunny Weekend

March 25, 2008

Easter Weekend is not regarded as a long weekend and expectations were not unreasonably high. However, a few films missed expectations and this left the box office on the south side of predictions. Overall, films earned $113 million over the weekend, which was down 6% from last weekend. More importantly, it was down nearly 16% from the same weekend last year. Hopefully things will turn around in April, because I don't see that happening next weekend.

Horton Hears a Who started out strong on Friday, but weakened as the weekend progressed to end with $24.59 million Friday to Sunday, and $86.01 million in total. This gives the film a surprisingly low internal multiplier, especially for the sophomore stint for a film with a young target demographic and very positive reviews. That said, even with this weakness, the movie should have little difficulty reaching $100 million sometime during next weekend, which would make it the first to reach that milestone this year. In comparison, this time last year, we already had three $100 million movies, so 2008 is well behind in that regard.

On the other hand, Meet the Browns landed within a rounding error of Thursday's predictions with $20.08 million. However, it was the weakest opening for a film where Tyler Perry acted and his second-weakest directorial opening. Worse still, the reviews were a step back from Why Did I Get Married? and it is becoming clear that the window of opportunity for widespread appeal is closing fast. But to be fair, his fanbase it large enough that as long as costs don't expand too much, his films will be profitable. But the evidence suggests he won't earn much more than what he is now either.

Shutter landed just outside the top end of expectations over the weekend by pulling in $10.45 million. This is the weakest opening out of the three Asian horror remakes and with some of the worst reviews of the year, I can't see it sticking around theaters long. $25 million might be out of reach while $20 million could be a bit too much. We'll know more next week.

It appears the Dumb Guy comedy of Will Ferrell and others is on the way out. Drillbit Taylor earned $10.31 million over the weekend, which put it in fifth place. Even worse for the film, it was the widest release at over 3,000 theaters, giving it a terrible per theater average of $3,374. Even a strong hold next weekend, which seems unlikely given the reviews, won't stop many theater owners from dumping the film as soon as they are contractually allowed.

10,000 B.C. landed in fifth place with $8.93 million over the weekend and now has $76.40 million. This makes it one of the biggest hits of the year so far, but it has little chance at matching its production budget at this point.

There was a surprise entry in the top ten as Under the Same Moon earned $2.77 million in just 266 theaters. Reviews were better than any of the wide releases, but I'm not convinced they were good enough to survive if the film tries to expand.

Moving onto the sophomore class, Never Back Down landed in sixth place with $4.83 million over the weekend and $16.79 million after two. Doomsday, on the other hand, fell out of the top ten with $2.25 million over the weekend and $8.98 million in total.

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Filed under: Horton Hears a Who, Meet the Browns, Drillbit Taylor, Shutter, Never Back Down, La misma luna, Doomsday, 10,000 B.C.