Box Office Update: Where's Our "Way Back"?

I didn't end up seeing No Strings Attached this weekend, much to my dismay and disappointment. It still managed to do well enough this weekend, raking in reasonable total for a film sporting a man who I hate. The foursome of major Oscar contenders, The King's Speech, Black Swan, True Grit, and The Fighter, brought in a grand total of $28 million altogether, and that shouldn't drop much after the Oscar nominations are announced on Tuesday, which I'm very excited about. I have no idea how and Little Fockers, and Yogi Bear are still raking in money, but I know they should stop right now. The box office was down about 26.6% from the same weekend last year, so we've got a lot of improvement to make. Does it eeem like anything's missing? If not, I don't necessarily blame you, because The Way Back opened on quiet buzz, and it has nobody to blame but itself for the poor box office results it took in.

1. No Strings Attached (First Weekend; $20.3 million)
2. The Green Hornet (Second Weekend; $18.1 million)
3. The Dilemma (Second Weekend; $9.7 million)
4. The King's Speech (Ninth Weekend; $9.2 million)
5. True Grit (Fifth Weekend; $8 million)
6. Black Swan (Eighth Weekend; $6.2 million)
7. The Fighter (Seventh Weekend; $4.5 million)
8. Little Fockers (Fifth Weekend; $4.4 million)
9. Yogi Bear (Sixth Weekend; $4 million)
10. TRON Legacy (Sixth Weekend; $3.7 million)

Box Office Update: A Sickly Green Dilemma

The industry box-office gurus would like you to believe that this weekend was great success, with two new features doing moderately well. In actuality it was the worst Martin Luther King Day weekend in more than three years. I wish I could say that you could never expect the same results as Avatar gave last year in January, but several films have been drastically under-performing. The Green Hornet opened to a merely modest $40 million, and The Dilemma proved the worst wide opening for Ron Howard since The Missing. While it's true that the Oscar performers like True Grit, The King's Speech, and Black Swan have been holding on spectacularly, we just don't have enough of last year's blockbusters trickling into this year. Next weekend isn't too promising either, but try not to give up hope. Another Natalie Portman film in the market can never hurt.

1. The Green Hornet (First Weekend; $40 million)
2. The Dilemma (First Weekend; $20.7 million)
3. True Grit (Fourth Weekend; $13.1 million)
4. The King's Speech (Eighth Weekend; $11.2 million)
5. Black Swan (Seventh Weekend; $10.4 million)
6. Little Fockers (Fourth Weekend; $8.4 million)
7. TRON Legacy (Fifth Weekend; $7.4 million)
8. Yogi Bear (Fifth Weekend; $6.8 million)
9. The Fighter (Sixth Weekend; $6.2 million)
10. Tangled (Eighth Weekend; $5.5 million)

Box Office Update: The Season of Suck

This shouldn't be such a surprise, but these first few weeks of 2011 will never earn as much as the first few weekends of last year. That's mostly because Avatar made so much more money than it deserved to. On the other hand, True Grit is proving to be kind of the Avatar of this year. That's a weird comparison to make between an epic sci-fi adventure and a smoothly paced western journey, but I feel it's a bit true. Of course, True Grit is far greater than Avatar, but both have appealed to mainstream audiences, made five times their opening weekends, and held onto audiences pretty well in subsequent weeks. True Grit is a film that shouldn't be this entertaining based on rather low-on-action beats of the plot, but Joel & Ethan Coen have quite obviously turned it into a roaring success.

Meanwhile, the new releases were obviously destined to fail, and Season of the Witch is already the frontrunner for next year's Razzie Awards. Besides negative critical reception, the film took in just over $10 million, which doesn't bode too well for the next few weeks. I'm not holding my breath. Country Strong did relatively well, but I expect a sizable drop in the coming weeks due to negative word of mouth. What really killed it this weekend were the heavy Oscar contenders this year. Black Swan, The King's Speech, and The Fighter all held on pretty well, and I wouldn't be surprised if they all clawed their ways towards the $100 million mark in the coming weeks. It's a longer walk for The King's Speech, but it could really turn the Oscar race around if it does well enough in the box office.

1. True Grit (Third Weekend; $15 million)
2. Little Fockers (Third Weekend; $13.8 million)
3. Season of the Witch (First Weekend; $10.7 million)
4. TRON Legacy (Fourth Weekend; $9.8 million)
5. Black Swan (Sixth Weekend; $8.4 million)
6. Country Strong (Third Weekend; $7.3 million)
7. The Fighter (Fifth Weekend; $7 million)
8. The King's Speech (Seventh Weekend; $6.8 million)
9. Yogi Bear (Fourth Weekend; $6.8 million)
10. Tangled (Seventh Weekend; $5.2 million)

Box Office Update: Not With A Fizzle, But With A Bang

Just a reminder, our countdown of the top ten films of 2010 is still going on until 8 p.m. tonight, so don't you forget about it. Alright, now let's face the facts. This year was a pretty big year at the box office, but still an overall disappointment. It seems like a bit of paradox, but with the drastic boost in ticket prices, I can't say it's surprising. On top of that, there wasn't really too much incentive to go out to the theaters this year, with more than our deserved helping of disappointment. However, I say confidently that this year went out much better than I expected it to. Little Fockers took the largest drop of the weekend. True Grit almost took the top spot. Six out of the ten biggest films at the box office were genuinely enjoyable experiences. Consider me contented, and I hope this next year provides an improvement.

1. Little Fockers (Second Weekend; $26.3 million)
2. True Grit (Second Weekend; $24.5 million)
3. TRON Legacy (Third Weekend; $18. 3 million)
4. Yogi Bear (Third Weekend; $13 million)
5. The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Fourth Weekend; $10.5 million)
6. Tangled (Sixth Weekend; $10 million)
7. The Fighter (Fourth Weekend; $10 million)
8. Gulliver's Travels (Second Weekend; $9.1 million)
9. Black Swan (Fifth Weekend; $8.5 million)
10. The King's Speech (Fifth Weekend; $7.6 million)

Box-Office Update: You'll Shoot Your Eye Out!

I don't get how people can continuously make extremely stupid decisions, but once in a while do something that makes logical sense. That's what I've been thinking across this weekend's box office results, because audiences obviously go with the typical decision of going to see Little Fockers. Anyone could've guessed that, because people are stupid with their choices. One the other hand, True Grit was the surprise hit of this weekend, not taking the top spot, but certainly outperforming any expectations it had. Gulliver's Travels was practically canceled out by Little Fockers, so it hitting the seventh slot isn't all the confusing or surprising.

Adding on to the typical confusion is Yogi Bear, which is doing far better than it should be doing. The animated whatever took a drop of 46.4% this weekend, while TRON: Legacy took a heftier drop of 54.3%. I knew that it wouldn't do well with repeat viewings, but I never thought once in hell that Yogi Bear would keep more audiences. We'll have to wait to see how it fully pans out, but it's understandable how this wasn't as truly magnificent a weekend at the movies as last year. Christmas Eve landed on a Friday, which is usually the top day for people to head out to the theaters, but most were instead stuck at church. At the same time, last year had Avatar and Sherlock Holmes, so the fact that this weekend was 50% down from that one makes complete sense.

1. Little Fockers (First Weekend; $34 million)
2. True Grit (First Weekend; $25.6 million)
3. TRON: Legacy (Second Weekend; $20.1 million)
4. The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Third Weekend; $10.8 million)
5. Yogi Bear (Second Weekend; $8.8 million)
6. The Fighter (Third Weekend; $8.5 million)
7. Gulliver's Travels (First Weekend; $7.2 million)
8. Black Swan (Fourth Weekend; $6.6 million)
9. Tangled (Fifth Weekend; $6.5 million)
10. The Tourist (Third Weekend; $5.7 million)

The Weekend Report: A Very Psychotic Holiday

We've finally reached the Christmas weekend, which worked out rather well for most films last year. Then again, they had the special boost of singing chipmunks, Robert Downey Jr., and the highest grossing film ever made. So it's needless to say that this weekend won't be as successful, but there are some advantages. We've got the wide expansion of Black Swan, which should be the main ticket for the intellectually driven audiences this weekend. On top of that, The King's Speech is moving in 600 theaters this weekend, which means that I'll finally get to see it that second time that I wanted to see months ago.

The Coen Brothers have probably got the best new release this weekend, with their western remake of True Grit starring the already relevant Jeff Bridges. I still haven't got around to seeing that one, and I may end up hauling out to see it tonight if I get the chance. It's not a likely possibility, but it kills me that I've been waiting this long. Most people are, unfortunately, going to see Little Fockers this weekend, because people don't care about being entertained anymore it seems. Same goes for Gulliver's Travels. You have plenty of real opportunities to have a good time at the movies this weekend. Don't waste it.