‘Carol’ Wins Opening Box Office Weekend; ‘Precious’ Starts Hot
Robert Zemeckis’ “A Christmas Carol” started the holiday movie season off early with a lower-than-expected $31 million, but still enough box office bucks to earn the most for the weekend.
The motion-capture CG romp through Charles Dickens’ London was expected to bring in $40 million according to industry pundits – however, any money a holiday-themed film brings in before Thanksgiving is always “bonus cash.”
“Carol” cost anywhere from $175 – 200 million to make, so it still has a considerable distance to go to recoup the production costs.
In its second week of release “This Is It” dropped 40 percent – respectable, for the concert film genre – to earn the second-place spot with $14 million. Sony announced this week they’d keep the Michael Jackson rehearsal document in theaters longer than the originally planned two-week run, which makes the following weeks interesting to watch.
All three of the other big-name releases this weekend beat their predictions: “The Men Who Stare At Goats” came in third with $13.3 million; “The Fourth Kind” landed in fourth with $12.2 million; “The Box” pressed for sixth with $9.8 million.
Both “Paranormal Activity” and “Saw VI” fell off their pace with Halloween in the rear-view mirror. “Activity” inched closer to the $100 million mark by adding another $8.6 million; Jigsaw’s game fell out of the top ten with $2 million earned over the weekend.
The performance to watch is that of “Precious,” in limited release in New York and Los Angeles. The adaptation of Sapphire’s Push is an early favorite for Oscar watchers, and killed in festival runs earlier in the year. In just 18 theaters, “Precious” earned an average of $100,000 per screen, shattering the record for a movie opening on more than ten screens.
Here’s the top five breakdown, courtesy of BoxOfficeMojo.com:
WEEKEND TOP 5 STUDIO ESTIMATES, NOVEMBER 6-8, 2009
Rank. Movie Title (Distributor)
Weekend Gross | Theaters | Total Gross | Week #
1. A Christmas Carol (2009) (Buena Vista)
$31.0 million | 3,683 | $31.0 million | 1
2. Michael Jackson’s This Is It (Sony / Columbia)
$14.0 million | 3,481 | $57.9 million | 2
3. The Men Who Stare at Goats (Overture Films)
$13.3 million | 2,443 | $13.3 million | 1
4. The Fourth Kind (Universal)
$12.5 million | 2,527 | $12.5 million | 1
5. Paranormal Activity (Paramount)
$8.6 million | 2,558 | $97.4 million | 7
