March 7, 2010

Jack-in-the-Box Office OSCAR EDITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Though two new films were at the top of the Box Office this weekend (“Alice in Wonderland” took in $116 million to become the highest grossing film of 2010 so far, followed by a decent $13.5 million opening for “Brooklyn’s Finest”), it seemed more pertinent to today’s happenings to look at the affect Oscar weekend had on some of the films nominated for today’s awards.

The highest Oscar nominee at the Box Office this weekend was “Avatar” in fifth place. “Avatar” had the steepest decline so far in it’s run due to losing 3D and IMAX screens to “Alice in Wonderland”. Despite the 43.6% decline, the film earned $7.7 million dollars to bring it’s domestic total to over $720 million dollars.

In ninth place, “Crazy Heart” had its best weekend at the Box Office yet, grossing $3.35 million dollars. In addition to grossing 36% more than last weekend, the film has now earned $29.56 million in domestic Box Office, substantially more than its $7 million production budget.

In a weekend when Sandra Bullock could make history by being the first actress to win an Oscar and a Razzie in the same year, her film enjoyed a Box Office bump (which can likely be attributed to the film opening in more second run theaters) and made another $1.27 million landing it in fourteenth place. This was a 2.5% increase from last week, and more notably, brought the film’s domestic total to over $250 million dollars.

In fifteenth place, “The Last Station” added two theaters (to now play in 354) and despite a small decline in gross (13.7%) the film earned another $837,000, to bring its domestic total to $4.6 million and its worldwide total to $6.2 million. While this may be only a fraction of it’s $18 million dollar budget, much of the money from the film came from donations from the governments of Russia and Germany and needn’t be paid back.

The honor for the highest per-screen-average this weekend went to “The Secret of Kells” which opened in one theater in New York where it grossed $40,000 dollars. After months of accolades, positive buzz, and precursor nominations, the film is finally enjoying some box office glory. This will hopefully translate into the film’s expansion into a wider release in the coming weeks.

Other Oscar nominees to enjoy an “Oscar Bump” this week included “A Single Man,” “The Hurt Locker,” “An Education,” “A Prophet,” and “The Lovely Bones”.

Did you catch up with any of these nominees this weekend? Did other nominees entice you to the theater for a first or second viewing? Or, did you try and get a head start on next year’s race with “Alice in Wonderland”? Please let us know in the comments section, and enjoy the show today!

UPDATE: I was e-mailed by some readers who asked me to mention the continued success of Kevin Smith’s latest film “Cop Out” in its second weekend and try and rectify some negative perceptions of its Box Office. I could break down numbers further, but all that needs to be said is that it has already made $32.3 million domestically on a $30 million dollar budget. Although it’s not known how much was spent on publicity and advertising, and of course a percentage of the gross of course goes to the theaters, the domestic gross can be as little as one-sixth of what a film makes after foreign, DVD, and other grosses are taken into account. Smith’s films always do well on DVD, so anyway you slice it in addition to “Cop Out” already being Smith’s highest grossing film, it stands to become one of his most profitable films. This should bode well for his future as a director, in addition to being a catalyst for more films from Tracy Morgan.

1 comment:

  1. When we update the review archive shortly, my Cop Out review will be there...

    ReplyDelete