Movies - Box Office posts

“Iron Man 3” fell off by more than 50% in its third weekend but still grossed half of what “Star Trek Into Darkness” grossed in its opening weekend ($35.1 million to $70.5 million) . Or do we count Wednesday and Thursday for “Trek”? Apparently there were shows then. For some people anyway. The movie grossed $2 million and $11.5 million on those days, meaning it kind of opened at $84 million rather than $70, but the official tally will still be $70m.

Not sure why you open a movie this way. Bit by bit, I mean. Doesn’t it lessen the impact of the opening weekend numbers? Instead of a headline like “‘Star Trek’ Warps to $84 million finish,” you get “‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ Can't Hit Warp Speed at Box Office.” $70 million. Chump change in Hollywood. Four years ago, the first J.J. Abrams-led “Trek,” opened at $75 million, and you never want to open lower than your predecessor.

Not that they’re not trying to spin it. Here’s what Paramount’s head of distribution Don Harris told The Wrap today:

The good news is, when you have a really good movie like this one, the word of mouth is going to bring the audience in over time. Expectations aside, big-picture we’re in a very good place, particularly when you consider how well it’s doing overseas.

How well is it doing overseas? $80 million thus far. That’s not bad, considering previous international numbers for “Trek” ($128 million for the first Abrams reboot), but chump change compared with, say, “Iron Man 3,” which, after this weekend, is at $736 million internationally, for a grand total of $1.07 billion worldwide. That’s ninth all-time. Another $50 million and it’ll be fifth. Another $250 million and it’ll be fourth. “The Avengers” is at $1.5 billion. After that it’s Cameron Country (> $2 billion), where even Iron Man can’t fly. Sorry, dude.

Meanwhile, “The Great Gatsby” fell off 53% for third place with $23.4 million. Everything else grossed less than $3.5 million. We’re putting more eggs into fewer baskets. Or fewer eggs into fewer baskets.

The final frontier numbers.

In the end, “Star Trek” didn't do poorly for a TV show canceled in 1969.

“The Great Gatsby” had the third-highest opening weekend for a non-#1 movie with a $51.5 million take*, while “Iron Man 3” had the fourth-highest second weekend of all time with a $72.4 million take** and won the weekend. Everything else was in single digits. “Pain and Gain” finished third with $5 million, followed by the opening of “Peeples,” at $4.8. In its fifth week, “42” nearly equalled that total with $4.6 mil. The Jackie Robinson biopic has now grossed $84 million, making it the second-highest-grossing baseball film of all time (unadjusted), after “A League of Their Own.” (Adjust and it drops to 9th in the batting order.)

The “Gatsby” numbers are impressive for a romance/drama with middling-to-bad reviews. It is director Baz Luhrmann's best opening by far (previous: $14.8m for “Australia”) and nearly equals, already, his highest-grossing film: “Moulin Rouge” at $58 million.

But the “Iron Man 3” numbers are superheroic. In only its second weekend in the U.S. and third weekend internationally, the film is at $949 million worldwide, which is 21st best ever, with only three superhero movies ahead of it: “The Dark Knight” at $1 billion, “The Dark Knight Rises” at $1.08 billion, and “The Avengers” at $1.5 billion. Ahead of that, it's Cameron country.

Here is the top 10 via Box Office Mojo:

* The films with higher second-place grosses are “The Day After Tomorrow,” $68.7 million in 2004 (“Shrek 2”), and “Sherlock Holmes,” $62.3 million in 2009 (“Avatar”).

** The highest-grossing second weekends: “The Avengers” ($103m), “Avatar” ($75.6 million), and “The Dark Knight” ($75.1 million).

“Nice weekend, old Shellhead, old sport.”

I've often argued that what matters in terms of opening-weekend box office, at least for a sequel, is less the sequel (whether it's good; its buzz; its Rotten Tomatoes score) than the previous film in the cycle. Positive feelings will lead to bigger box office, negative or “meh” feelings lesser box office.

If so, “Iron Man 3,” shouldn't have opened well since “Iron Man 2” is hardly beloved. Even though I liked it.

But I knew “Iron Man 3” would open well and it did: It grossed an estimated $175 million in the U.S., the second-highest opening weekend ever after “The Avengers” $207 million gross last May 4.

And I knew it would because, for most folks, the previous film in the cycle wasn't “Iron Man 2” but “The Avengers,” which also starred Robert Downey, Jr. as Tony Stark/Iron Man. And that movie is beloved. And that got them pumped for this one.

Or it could simply be that it's the first weekend in May and people want to ride that roller coaster again. It could be that we're all well-trained and Pavlovian. First weekend in May? Superhero? Pant pant.

The U.S.'s salivary glands are hardly unique, by the way. Worldwide, “Iron Man 3” has already grossed $680 million, which is already the biggest international hit of the year. (Any guesses at No. 2? Answer in the comments field.) It's also the highest international gross of any “Iron Man” movie. That's right. “Iron Man” grossed $585m in 2008, and “2” grossed $624m in 2010. The majority of that money, for both movies, came from the U.S., but now the rest of the world is going to “Iron Man,” too. Now the rest of the world is as well-trained as we are.

In other non-news, “Pain and Gain” was No. 2 at the box office with $7.6 mil, and “42” was No. 3 with $6.2 mil. “Oblivion,” at No. 4, fell off 67% and appears to be living up to its name. It'll be outgrossed (at least in the U.S.) by “42,” a baseball movie, which I doubt many foresaw.

No other movie besides “Iron Man 3” opened wide this weekend. Studios aren't stupid.

The numbers.

America got off the couch this weekend.

“Iron Man 3” rocked like a hurricane this weekend with a $195 million opening weekend. Just not here. Forty-two other countries got to see it first.

From The Hollywood Reporter:

It saw its biggest gross in the U.K. ($21.5 million), followed by Korea ($19.2 million), Australia ($18.4 million), Mexico ($16.1 million), France ($14.7 million), Brazil ($12.3 million), Italy ($11.2 million), Taiwan ($8.4 million), Philippines ($7.4 million), Japan ($5.4 million), India ($5.2 million), Spain ($5 million), Hong Kong ($4.9 million), Malaysia ($4.6 million) and Indonesia ($4.5 million), among other markets.

The U.S.? Where it originated? Both in comic-book and movie form? We get to see it next weekend. Sloppy seconds.

Get used to it, America. Message from the studios: “That's how The Avengers did it. That's how Hollywood does it. And it's worked out pretty well so far.”

Here's the question from me. Will the three “Iron Man” movies be the best superhero trilogy ever?

What's the competition? “Superman: The Movie” was brilliant, but “II” was super uneven and “III” became a vehicle for Richard Pryor's lame bits. The Tim Burton “Batman” movies? OK, to worse, to worser. “X-Men”? Good, great, who gave Brett Ratner the reins? “Spider-Man”? Good, great, What the Fucking Fuck? There are, I'm sure, your “Dark Knight” fanboys out there, but I'm not one of them. But I'm hoping for “Iron Man.” I've got confidence in Robert Downey, Jr. if no one else.

By the way, that $195 million? Bested “The Avengers” foreign open last year by $10 mil. Hmmm...

Meanwhile, in the states, we nibbled at sloppy firsts. “Pain and Gain,” Michael Bay's attempt to undo his testosterone-laden barf-fests, or something, won the weekend with a $20 mil haul. “The Big Wedding,” that thing with everybody (DeNiro, Sarandon, Keaton, Heigl, Seyfried, Robin Williams and Topher Grace), was a bridesmaid with $7.5 million and 4th place. Tom Cruise's “Oblivion” dropped off 52.9% for second place, “42” dropped off 39.5% for third place. Will either make $100 million? Doubtful. They're both in the 60s. “Mud,” the well-received drama from Jeff Nichols (“Take Shelter”), which I hope to see this week, grossed $2.2 mil in 360 theaters.

A tepid weekend. The calm before the Iron Man.

The year is nearly a third over so time for a little perspective on domestic box office 2013.

What surprised me, looking at the numbers, wasn't how well “Oz, the Great and Powerful” did. I kinda knew that. It was how poorly the '80s action stars performed. Our pumped-up heroes basically stood there, arms akimbo, faces sagging, and wheezed.

“The Last Stand,” Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to the big screen after mixed-reviews playing governor of California, opened Jan. 18th to weak reviews (59%/41% on Rotten Tomatoes) and a weaker opening weekend ($6 million). Its finally tally? $12 million. How bad is that? Since the “Conan” movies, even unadjusted—even, in other words, when the hyper-inflated 2013 dollars are battling puny 1987 dollars—that's Arnold's worst box-office showing. Ever. Put it this way: “Red Heat,” that flick he made with Jim Belushi that nobody cared about, still grossed $35 million. In 1988. I guess “The Last Stand” was a prescient title.

Two weeks later, Sylvester Stallone's “Bullet to the Head” opened to worse reviews (48%/41% on RT) and worser box office ($4 million). It wound up grossing $9 million. More prescience.

In comparison, their one-time rival Bruce Willis rode a franchise pic, “A Good Day to Die Hard” to a $67-million haul: 8th-best for the year. But in the “Die Hard” franchise, $67 mil is dying. The previous lowest-grossing “Die Hard,” adjusted, is “Live Free or Die Hard,” at $157 million. This thing always make money. Until this year. It took a couple of decades but it finally fucking died.

Another pleasant surprise? No one went to see the crappy comedies. “Admission” with Tina Fey and Paul Rudd worked a 42%/29% on RT and just $16 mil at the box office. “The Incredible Burt Wonderstone,” with Steve Carrell and Jim Carrey, did 37%/22% on RT and only $22 million.

But it was a bad winter. How bad? A decent flick will generally make three times its opening-weekend gross, but of the 32 movies that opened in more than 2,000 theaters from January to March, only seven managed that. The movie with the longest legs? “Identify Thief.” The movies with the shortest legs? 1) Texas Chainsaw 3D (horror, of course); 2) Movie 43 (abyssmal); and 3) The Last Stand.

Here are our 32 movies ranked by legs. Some of the March releases will climb slightly, such as “Olympus Has Hallen,” which was released March 22nd, and which last week made another $10 million.

Others wil not. Hasta la vista, Arnie.

Good times.

“42,” the Jackie Robinson biopic written and directed by Brian Helgeland, grossed more than $27 million at the weekend box office for the top spot. It's the biggest opening weekend for a baseball movie ever, beating out (believe it or not) “Benchwarmers,” the Rob Schneider comedy, which opened at $19.6m in 2006 (on its way to $59.8m), and “Moneyball,” which opened at $19.5 in 2011 (on its way to $75.6m). Even if you adjust for inflation “42” is still the biggest baseball opener. “A League of Their Own,” now No. 2, opened at an adjusted $26.6m in 1992.

Though I had my problems with “42,” word-of-mouth is pretty good, so it might have a shot of breaking the all-time box-office record for a baseball movie: “A League of Their Own” at $107m. (“Moneyball” is No. 2). Adjusted, it has no shot. It's “League” with $208m.

The other movie opening wide was “Scary Movie V.” Here's the top 10 for the weekend:

Source: Box Office Mojo

Quick poll. What's the scariest thing about the above list?

• “Scary Movie V” still grossed $15 million despite a 5% Rotten Tomatoes rating and a 0% Top-Critics RT rating, with sentiments from critics such as these:
  • If I ever have to watch another Scary Movie film, I'll give up on writing, cinema, and society forever. --Matt Donato
  • I have been to funerals a LOT less sad than this laughless 85 minutes. --Teddy Durgin
  • This is the sort of movie where you feel bad for Sheen and Lohan, because they hadn't actually hit rock bottom until they agreed to appear in it. --Alonso Duralde
• “GI Joe: Retaliation” has now grossed more than $100 million at the box office.
• There's not one movie in the top 10 you want to see. 

I am happy for “42,” Jackie, and baseball movies in general. Will more be greenlit? Or one? May I put in a vote for a screen adaptation of Jane Leavy's Mickey Mantle bio?

Pick your baseball metaphor: “42” hits homerun, scores, beats competition, gets patted on the ass by American moviegoers.

I wrote the following for The Believer magazine for their April 2008 issue.

One of the most virulent opinions about movies I’ve encountered as a critic—particularly online, where everyone’s a critic—is that popularity is somehow indicative of quality. People argue this whether you slam the latest blockbuster (“Friends I know who have seen Spider-Man 3 enjoyed it,” one reader wrote), or an art-house flick they think is a blockbuster (“We are the movie goers and I hope we win with Crash,” said another). Consider it the last refuge of the inarticulate: I like what everyone likes no matter what you like. Or: 50 million Pirates of the Caribbean fans can’t be wrong.

My knee-jerk response to this is often the second-to-last refuge of the inarticulate: Well, let’s see how long it lasts. Both of us are actually gauging quality through quantity: they in ticketbuyers, me in years. I assume that Spider-Man 3, silly and effects-laden, is a diversion for our time and no other, while Crash, somber and obvious, is an admonishing finger for our time and no other, and in 50 years, if we’re still watching movies, no one is going to be watching either of these things. I also assume it’s always been thus. Take that Monday morning mantra, the weekend box office, and its counterpart 50 years ago will be filled with the relics of a by-gone era: once-popular diversions that have long since sunk from view.

So I went looking.

The Top 10 Box Office Hits According to Variety as of March 19, 1958
Here, according to the March 19, 1958 Variety, are the movies Americans went to see 50 years ago this week:

1. The Bridge on the River Kwai
2. The Brothers Karamazov
3. Witness for the Prosecution
4. Around the World in 80 Days
5. Search for Paradise
6. Raintree County
7. A Farewell to Arms
8. Paths of Glory
9. Cowboy
10. ...And God Created Woman

Whoops. Of the 10 films, I knew eight; I’d seen four; I loved two. These were films admired in their day (30 Academy Award nominations,12 wins, including two for best picture) and admired in ours (three rank on IMDb.com’s top 250 list).

Some of that familiarity is misleading. We mostly know A Farewell to Arms and The Brothers Karamazov because of Hemingway and Dostoevsky. I couldn’t have told you who starred in the former (Rock Hudson), and I only knew the latter because it includes the screen debut of William Shatner and I was once a big “Star Trek” fan.

Eight of the 10, in fact, are based on novels and plays. The most popular story-telling medium of its time (movies) was fending off attacks from its eventual usurper (TV) by relying on the very forms it usurped (novels and plays). Nice.

That fight against TV is all over this list. Everything here is what TV couldn’t be: big and colorful and exotic. Cinemascope and Technicolor abound. There’s almost a competition to see how long they can keep us in our seats and away from our sets: Karamazov is 145 minutes long, Arms 152, Kwai 161, and Raintree 168. Around the World in 80 Days, including overture and exit music, lasts 181 minutes.

Here come the epics
But is there anything worse than an epic that isn’t? A Farewell to Arms (#7) was producer David O. Selznick’s last film, and while he strove for another Gone with the Wind—it takes 30 seconds for the title to scroll imperiously across the screen—he wound up with a sticky melodrama that inverses Bogart’s Casablanca equation: the problems of two people are all that matters, while the crazy, mixed-up world, including, you know, World War I, doesn’t amount to a hill of beans. Selznick’s wife, Jennifer Jones, 38 years old and looking older, is miscast as the 21-year-old British nurse, while the presence of Rock Hudson, our most famously closeted movie star, adds unintentional irony. “Shut up about dames,” he says early in the picture. Later, when his dying wife gives him permission to see other women, he stutters, “I – I don’t want them.” The clues were there.

Raintree County (#6) was another epic love story set against the backdrop of war (U.S. Civil), and it, too, starred a famously closeted actor (Montgomery Clift), and while it’s not a good film it’s saved from insufferability by Clift. The story involves that Hollywood staple, the love triangle: virginal Eva Marie Saint loves Clift who loves Elizabeth Taylor, who’s southern and mad in the creepy way of Southern Gothic: think racial confusion and burning homes. Give credit, though. Three years after the Montgomery busy boycott, and a year after Little Rock, and it’s the only film in the top 10 raising any kind of racial issues.

We get another love triangle in The Brothers Karamazov (#2): virginal Claire Bloom loves Yul Bryner who loves Maria Schell, Maximillian’s sister, who packs a sexual wallop with one smile. Oddly, in that virginal decade, both virgins lose their men. We wanted what we weren’t. The existence of God is overtalked—as is the golden raintree in Raintree, and love love love in Arms—and eventually His existence is proven through the devil in Albert Salmi. Because if the devil exists...

Search for Paradise (#5), unavailable on home video, is essentially a travelogue, and so is Around the World in 80 Days (#4), surely one of the most boring Oscar winners for best picture. The Bridge over the River Kwai (#1), which remained atop the box office for weeks after it won its Oscar for best picture in March 1958, holds up much better. Its theme is the madness of war. Who’s more mad? Col. Saito for not following the rules of the Geneva Convention or Col Nicholson for adhering to the rules too much? The story is like aikido. Nicholson defeats Saito not by opposing his demand to build a bridge but by building it better and stronger than Saito imagined. He unmans him by making him irrelevant. Eventually, yes, Nicholson loses sight of the proper goal but you see the logic in his madness.

Col. Nicholson, before the lessons in akido.

The shorter, better films
Excepting Kwai, these epics, so indicative of their time, pale next to the smaller films on the list. Cowboy (#9) is a solid Delmer Daves western about a Chicago hotel clerk (Jack Lemmon) who joins a tough cattleman (Glenn Ford) on the trail. During the ride each becomes more like the other. “I have to laugh,” Ford’s right-hand man tells him. “You made this fellow tough. Now you don’t like what you made.”

...And God Created Woman (#10) is the infamous 1956 French film, dubbed for American audiences, in which Brigette Bardot appears briefly, glancingly nude. It was condemned by the Catholic Church’s Legion of Decency, which guaranteed a stampede to the box office, but by modern standards it’s rather tame. The bigger shock is that it’s not an exploitation film; it’s almost cinema verite. Bardot plays Juliete, an impulsive, selfish free spirit straining against the confines of what her community allows (and her dress). She’s in love with the wrong guy, she marries a different wrong guy, etc. “That girl is made to destroy men,” says one older (and undestroyed) man. According to the April 2, 1958 Variety, Dallas police shut down a showing of the film at The Forest, “a colored house,” even though it had played in white theaters in the city. Their unofficial explanation? “It’s too exciting for colored folk.” The fact that Ms. Bardot danced with members of a black band near the end of the film probably didn’t help.

Witness for the Prosecution (#3) is the first of two films I love on this list. It has great acting (Charles Laughton), a good story and witty dialogue (from Agatha Christie) and good direction (Billy Wilder). It’s the only courtroom thriller on the list, but in the 10 films we are shown four trials, and, interestingly, the only defendant who’s found innocent, Tyrone Power in Prosecution, is guilty. The defendants in the other movies, all innocent, are condemned to death.

Finally, there’s Stanley Kubrick’s Paths of Glory (#8), brilliant in a brisk 87 minutes. It’s our fourth war picture here, and while these pictures all view war tragically (men die, go mad, lovers are torn asunder), Glory is the only one whose critique is systemic. The movie starts with a bad idea: capturing the Ant Hill from the Germans. Everyone knows it’s a bad idea but via the carrot of promotion (for Gen. Mireau) and the stick of exclusion (for Col. Dax), it’s put into play. Despite the efforts of the soldiers, many of whom die, it fails. So who to blame for this failure? Three soldiers, chosen at random, are put on trial and executed. Even when the unsympathetic Gen. Mireau gets his comeuppance, it’s not satisfying, for we know he’s a pawn, too. The bad idea came from elsewhere. From Gen. Boulard? No. It just appeared, this bad idea. Like all bad ideas.

Put different commanders in the place of Saito and Nicholson in Kwai and the ending is different, because the ending is dictated by the faults in the characters. Put different commanders in the place of Gen. Mireau and Col. Dax in Glory and you get the same result, because the ending is dictated by the faults within the system. No wonder it resonates. Bad ideas are still handed down from who knows where; they’re still put into play; soldiers still die.

Col. Dax, the hero, and another pawn in the game.

What the survey says
If the purpose of this article was to create an Ozymandias­-like warning to moviemakers and moviegoers—your current glories will be lone and level sands stretching far away—I failed. In fact, I demonstrated the opposite. Even in a random week in an unremarkable year, some works stand taller 50 years later.

I also didn’t fail. Compare the 1958 films with our most recent mid-March weekend box office list (March 16-18, 2007):

1. 300
2. Wild Hogs
3. Premonition
4. Dead Silence
5. I Think I Love My Wife
6. Bridge to Terabithia
7. Ghost Rider
8. Zodiac
9. Norbit
10. Music and Lyrics

It reads like a McDonald’s menu. Is anything healthy here? Well, Zodiac, David Fincher’s realistic take on the real-life serial killer in late 1960s San Francisco, and Bridge to Terabithia, a good kids' story about love and death and imagination. But that’s it. Everything else is disposable, infantile, loutish. The one “war movie,” 300, revels in its violence. We don’t debate the existence of God and the Devil; we give them bad lines. (Peter Fonda in Ghost Rider.) Comic books rather than novels and plays are the adaptation of choice. Love triangles still abound, as in Norbit and I Think I Love My Wife, but now, in our whoreish decade, it’s the dull virginal ones who win. We want what we aren’t.

Hollywood in 1958 tried to show us how big the world was but these recent movies feel stunted. Watch Bridge on the River Kwai and you get the feeling that beyond the Sri Lankan forest the world keeps going. Watch 300 and you get the feeling that beyond these players the world doesn’t exist at all. As it doesn’t. It’s all green screen.

There were tons of forgettable films in 1958, by the way, they just tended not to make top 10 lists. Movies rolled out differently then, playing city to city, and Variety lets us know how they’re doing around the country: “‘Cattle Empire,’ nice in Chi, is sluggish in Omaha and mild in Minneapolis. ... ‘Sing Boy Sing’ is okay in St. Louis...” These were niche pictures that stayed in niche markets. National pictures, adult pictures, movies that tried to say something about what we were as a country or who we were as a people, wound up playing nationally. We do the opposite today. The niche pictures—horror, comic book, urban comedy—get spread all over the country, while the national pictures, adult pictures, rarely play beyond the niche market of art houses.

How did we get here? The lead story in the March 5, 1958 Variety, reassuring filmmakers that film had a future and it was called the baby boom, begins this way:

If it’s true what the surveys say, that it’s primarily the young people who make up the motion picture audience today, then Hollywood has cause for optimism.

If it’s true what the surveys say... That qualification is almost heartbreaking. Today, that thought about young people is gospel. Beyond it, it’s as if the world doesn’t exist at all.

The stylized violence of “300.”

A quick note on the opening-weekend box office of “Oz, the Great and Powerful”:

• It grossed $79 million in the U.S.
• That's the 40th-biggest opening weekend ever, unadjusted.
• It's the biggest opening weekend since “The Hobbit” ($84 million in December) and “Skyfall” ($88 million in November).
• Only two movies that opened in March had bigger openings: “The Hunger Games” last year ($152m) and “Alice in Wonderland” in 2010 ($116 million).
• Critics were ho-hum on it. It squeaked into fresh territory with a 61% Rotten Tomatoes rating. But among top critics? Just 32%.
• You could easily make a triple feature in hell from some of the 39 movies that opened bigger than “Oz.” Say, “Spider-Man 3” ($151m in 2007), “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” ($142m in 2009), and “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” ($100m in 2008). And I still have in reserve all of the “Pirates of the Carribean” sequels.

Now does this mean I have to go see it? Vinny?

“Warm Bodies,” the zombie romance and “Twilight” takeoff from Jonathan Levine (“50/50”), opened in 3,009 theaters and grossed more than $19 million. It was the No. 1 movie at the box office this weekend. By far. By more than twice its gross.

“Bullet to the Head,” the new Sylvester Stallone shoot-em-up directed by Walter Hill (“48 Hours”), opened in 2,404 theaters and grossed $4.5 million. It finished in sixth place, behind the second weekend of “Hansel and Gretel” ($9 million), the 12th weekend of “Silver Linings Playbook” ($8.1 million), the third weekend of “Mama” ($6.7m) and the seventh weekend of “Zero Dark Thirty” ($5.3 million).

Elsewhere, “Parker,” the Jason Stratham vehicle with J-Lo, continued to die quickly, grossing $3.2 mil for 7th place. In two weekends it's earned $12.4 million. What's a tough guy to do? Study? Be nice to girls?

Meanwhile, Zeitgeist Films blew a shot at some money, opening “Koch” in two theaters the weekend Ed Koch actually died. What you get for thinking small: $40K.

The overall box-office numbers for the best picture nominees, by the way, are fairly impressive:

Five movies over $100 million? With shots for SLP and ZDT to make that mark, too? So 7 of 9. Wasn't that the name of the busty Borg on that latter-day “Star Trek” show? Yes, it was. 

But none of these Oscar nominees are going to be top 10 for the year. Recontinuing the tradition.

The warmed-over numbers here.

Revenge may never get old but action stars do. Just ask Arnold.

Sorry about the word “gross.”

“Zero Dark Thirty,” the controversial film from Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal, about the search for and the killing of Osama bin Laden, which opened in five theaters in NY and LA in December, went to 60 last weekend (inculding one here in Seattle), and went superwide (2,937 theaters) this weekend, was No. 1 at the box office with a $24 milion haul. That's $7 million more than “The Hurt Locker,” Bigelow and Boal's previous film, made in its entire 2009 run.

Two 2013 films, meanwhile, “A Haunted House” (10% on Rotten Tomatoes) and “Gangster Squad” (34%), finished second and third, respectively, with $18 and $16 million.

The good news is that more than half the Oscar nominees for best picture continue to do well at the box office. Here are their total grosses:

How does this compare with previous years? Last year, only one best picture nominee grossed more than $100 million: “The Help” at $169 million. 2010 had five, including good box office from movies that focused on self-destructive ballet dancers, drunk cowboys and stuttering kings, while the movie about the asshole techie topped out at $97 mil. 2009 also had five, including the biggee, “Avatar,” which grossed $749 million domestic, a record for any film.

What 2012 does not have is a best picture nominee in the top 10. “Lincoln” is currently at No. 16 for the year. To get in the top 10 it has to gross another $65 million. 2011 didn't have a top 10 film, either: “The Help” topped at No. 13.

So basically we we're back to where we were before the Academy rewrote its rules in 2009 and nominated more than five pictures. We're back to a time when we don't really see best picture nominees. At least at the theater.

The first two years with the rewritten rules, yes, we got popular fare nominated: top 10 pics like “Avatar,” “Up,” “The Blind Side,” “Toy Story 3” and “Inception.” But then the rules were rewritten again. I forget how they changed. Instead of the top 10 nominees you had to garner at least 5 percent of the vote. Something like that. With a limit of 10.

We've gotten nine films each with the new rules, including critically lauded and little-seen films such as “The Tree of Life” and “Amour.” But not top 10 stuff. The divergence continues.

Here are the weekend numbers.

Jessica Chastain in “Zero Dark Thirty”: the only thing worse than being talked about...

Peter Jackson's “The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey” opened at $84.7 million this weekend. That's the 37th-best opening weekend ever, the sixth-best this year, but the best December opening ever.

That surprised me. Really? No $100 million openings in December? Nope. Only the following months have seen $100-movie openings: March, May, June, July and November. And that leads us to our first trivia question:

1. Which of the following months has seen the most movies open at > $100 million?

• A: May
• B: June
• C: July
• D: November

“Rise of the Guardians” stayed strong, dropping only 28.7% for second place and $7.4 million, but “Lincoln” stayed even stronger, dropping a mere 18% for $7.2 million and third place. It's now grossed $107.8 million in six weeks. That's the highest-grossing film of Daniel Day-Lewis' career, but not, of course, of Steven Spielberg's career. It is, however, Spielberg's 15th film to gross more than $100 million. Trivia question No. 2:

2. Other than his pre-“Jaws” movies, what is the lowest-grossing film (unadjusted) of Steven Spielberg's career?

• A: 1941
• B: The Color Purple
• C: Empire of the Sun
• D: War Horse

Both “Skyfall” and “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2” dropped three places, from first and third, respectively, to fourth and sixth, respectively, and are virtually neck-and-neck (no pun) in domestic gross ($272m and $276m, respectively). They diverge greatly in terms of worldwide box office, however.

3. For 2012 movies, “The Avengers” grossed the most worldwide, at $1.4 billion (third-best ever), followed by “The Dark Knight Rises” at $1.08 billion (seventh-best ever). After these, which four films grossed the most worldwide in 2012?

• A: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, Brave, The Hunger Games, Snow White and the Huntsman
• B: Brave, The Hunger Games, Skyfall, MIB: 3
• C: MIB: 3, John Carter, Battleship, 2012
• D: Skyfall, Ice Age: Continental Drift, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, The Amazing Spider-Man

Finally:

4. Among Oscar contenders, “Life of Pi” came in fifth for the weekend with $5.4 million, “Silver Linings Playbook” finished 10th, “Flight” 11th, “Argo” 12th, “Hitchcock” 13th and “Anna Karenina” 15th. Which of the following films has grossed the least so far domestically?

• Life of Pi
• Silver Linings Playbook
• Hitchcock
• Anna Karenina

Answers in the Comments field below. The precious weekend box-office totals here.

Yep. Lots of precious.

For the third weekend in a row, the top three movies were the same three movies:

1. “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2”
2. “Skyfall”
3. “Lincoln”

One, two, three. All three weeks. Boom.

When was the last time that happened? When three movies finished 1-2-3 at the box office three weeks in a row?

A long time. Hell, it's rare these days when one movie finishes No. 1 three weekends in a row, let alone the next two not changing slots with any other movie.

Here. These are movies that in recent years topped the charts for at least three weeks. (Longer reigns are in parentheses.):

2012:

• “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2”
• “The Dark Knight Rises”
• “The Avengers”
• “The Hunger Games” (4)

2011:

• “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1”
• “The Help”

2010:

• “Inception”
• “Shrek Forever After”

2009:

• “Avatar” (7, into 2010)

You need a specific set of circumstances to make it work. The three movies have to have legs, and the new releases in weeks 2 and 3 have to be lame enough, or uninteresting enough, or nonexistent enough, not to unseat any of the three.

Last weekend, for example, these movies opened: “Rise of the Guardians,” Life of Pi,“ and ”Red Dawn.“ The first two came close to clipping ”Lincoln“ but not close enough. This weekend ”Killing Them Softly“ opened. Softly. It finished 7th. That's how ”Twilight,“ ”Skyfall“ and ”Lincoln“ have managed this.  

And the last time this kind of three-way/threepeat happened? At the end of 2009 and the beginning of 2010, when ”Avatar“ reigned on top. For the last weekend of 2009, the Christmas weekend, both ”Sherlock Holmes“ and ”Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakel“ opened and finished 2nd and 3rd, respectively. The following weekend, the first of year, nothing new opened wide, as often happens with the first weekend of the year, and the top 3 stayed 1, 2, 3. The next weekend, ”Daybreakers,“ ”Leap Year,“ and ”Youth in Revolt“ opened wide, but finished 4th, 6th and 9th, respectively. The top three remained the same. That's three weekends.

It wasn't until the MLK Weekend when ”Book of Eli“ opened and ”Lovely Bones“ went wider that they displaced No.s 2 and 3. But ”Avatar“ remained on top for another four weekends—with shifting seconds and thirds below it. 

So it's been almost three years since this has happened.

The weekend's box-office numbers here.

I can tell you one thing: ”BDP2“ ain't grossing $700 million worldwide because of that poster.

UPDATE: I knew I should've waited until the actuals came in. At the 11:30th hour, ”Rise of the Guardians“ eclipsed ”Lincoln“ for third place. ”Lincoln" fell to fourth. Meaning the last time three movies were 1, 2, 3 at the domestic box office for three weeks in a row was still three years ago.

The headlines are all about how “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2” and “Skyfall” led the way during this record-setting Thanksgiving weekend. The previous overall record was $175.2 million, set three years ago, and the new record is $206.7 million, which, yes, is about what “The Avengers” grossed opening weekend in May.

Here are the headlines:

• Box Office Mojo: Weekend Report: 'Twilight,' Bond Dominate Fruitful Thanksgiving
• BoxOffice.com: 'Breaking Dawn - Part 2' Leads During Record-Setting 5-Day Frame
• IMDb: Box Office Shatters Thanksgiving Record Behind 'Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2' and 'Skyfall'

And here's the top 10:

So the headlines are technically accurate.

The amazing thing is that during a record-breaking weekend, in which it was the No. 1 movie, the “Twilight” movie still fell off by nearly 70%:

Look at the other films. “Silver Linings Playbook” went wider than its original dozen or so theaters and increased exponentially. “Lincoln” added 243 theaters in its third weekend and increased by nearly 20%. That indicates very good word-of-mouth. The others—“Argo,” “Flight,” “Wreck-It Ralph”—dropped single percentages. Again: impressive.

And “Twilight”? Or “TTS:BDP2”? It had the 12th-biggest second-weekend drop for any film opening in more than 3,000 theaters:

Among movies opening in more than 4,000 theaters? Fourth-biggest: the last “Harry Potter” and then two previous “Twilight” movies. So in a certain sense, it improved, right? A bit? At the same time, when seemingly everyone was going to the movies, “TTS:DBP2” still fell off nearly 70%.

In other good news, “Red Dawn” was finally released to a big yawn. It finished in 7th place. I guess American moviegoers have better things to do than indulge in the right-wing fantasy of North Korea, a tiny country that can barely feed itself, successfully attacking what is after all the strongest country in the history of the world. The Duchy of Grand Fenwick would have a better shot.

The numbers here.

Go see “Lincoln.” My nephew Jordy wants you to.

Lincoln: first in war, first in peace, and third at the box office.

Richard Brody, who writes about movies for The New Yorker, and whose work I genuinely admire—give or take a “Marnie” fixation—tweeted the following this morning in reaction to a NY Times Op-Ed on the preponderence and pointlessness of irony:

Touché. But I didn't think “Lincoln,” belonged on his list. So I tweeted back talking up the, well, irony of a movie season in which Abraham Lincoln has a twinkle in his eye and James Bond doesn't. Brody was kind enough to respond. “Abe Lincoln always had a sublime twinkle in his eye, chez Griffith and chez Ford,” he wrote.

Me being me, I tweeted back a few more times, and Brody being Brody (that is: busy), he didn't respond; but the biggest argument against “Lincoln”'s inclusion in his original tweet is in the verb.

“Cleaning up” certainly applies to “The Dark Knight Rises” ($447 million domestic, $1.08 billion worldwide) and “Skyfall” ($161 domestic, $667 worldwide, both climbing fast). “Lincoln,” in contrast, opened in nine theaters Nov. 9, then roared up to 1,775 this weekend, where it finished in third place, behind the first weekend of “The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2” ($141 million) and the second weekend of “Skyfall” ($41.5, down 53%). “Lincoln” grossed $21 million, which is a plesant surprise, since it's a serious film about passing a law, the 13th amendment, playing in half the theaters wide-releases do. But it's only cleaning up in the sense that a custodian following two circus elephants is cleaning up.

No.s 4-6 for the weekend are all good films hanging in there: “Wreck-It Ralph,” which grossed $18 million for a dometic total of $121 million; “Flight,” which grossed $8.6 for a total of $61; and “Argo,” which grossed $4 for a total of $92. Would be nice if this last made $100. And even then I wouldn't say it was cleaning up. I would say it was pushing itself toward box-office relevance.

The clean numbers.  

As I've said elsewhere: No one will ever do a better Abe Lincoln.

“Skyfall,” the 23rd James Bond film, already opened abroad and it's raking 'em in. Here's Box Office Mojo's list of the top 10 worldwide James Bond releases (unadjusted):

“Skyfall” is already in 7th place. And it doesn't open in the U.S. until Friday.

Again, that's unadjusted. Adjust, and you assume the winner has to be “Thunderball,” which grossed $63 million in the U.S. in 1965, which is nearly $600 million today. That's 28th all-time, domestic. It would've been the No. 1 box-office hit of 1965 but that was also the year of “The Sound of Music.”

In the U.S. this weekend, “Wreck-It Ralph,” which Uncle Vinny recommends, finished first with $49 million, “The Flight,” with Denzel Washington, finished a strong second with $25 million, and “Argo,” dropping only 15 percent, finished third in its fourth weekend with $10 million. The word-of-mouth on Affleck's flick is great. Glad people are going. My review.

I saw nothing this weekend. GOTV. #Obama2012

Here's my history of James Bond from 2006. See you Friday, 007.

Skyfall's the limit.

The big box-office success story this weekend isn't that “Paranormal Activity 4,” the franchise's third sequel in three years, finished first at the box office with a $30 million take. That's actually a poor showing for that series. The first sequel, in 2010, opened at $40.5 million (with an overall $84 million gross), while the second sequel, last year, opened at $52 million (for a $104 million overall gross). So in comparison, “4,” on track for $60 million, is a failure.

No, the big success story is that “Argo,” Ben Affleck's grown-up thriller about rescuing hostages in Iran in 1980, finished in second place with $16.6 million. Why is that a success story? Because in its second weekend it dropped only 14.6%. Among superwide releases (3,000 or more theaters), that's the 26th-lowest drop ever.

It's actually even better than that. Because most of the 25 movies ahead of it benefitted less from word-of-mouth than suffered from release date: They were released the week before Christmas, when they did so-so business because everyone was superbusy, then held or did better the week after Christmas, when everyone wanted to be with their relatives without actually talking to them.

So if you eliminate the week-before-Xmas movies? The second weekend of “Argo” is now 11th.

But some of these 10 movies are week-before-Thanksgiving movies. Same deal. So if you eliminate mid-to-late November films? “Argo” is now 6th.

The remainder are kids' movies—“Shrek,” “Puss in Boots,” “Brother Bear,” “Flushed Away,” and “The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause”—which have longer shelf lives than other genres.

It's fairly unprecedented, in other words, for “Argo” to be doing what it's doing.

On the other hand, a lot of movies this weekend had low drop-offs: “Hotel Transylvania” (-21.7%), “Pitch Perfect” (-24.4%), and “Here Comes the Boom” (-28.1%). What's going on?

Two things.

In many school districts around the country, this is “fall break” weekend, something we didn't have when I was growing up, in which students take Thursday and Friday off. So it was a type of holiday weekend. Just not one most of us notice. And I guess it made a slight dent at the box office. Slightly.

More, the new wide-release movies this weekend, “Paranormal” and “Alex Cross,” Tyler Perry's stab at action stardom, stunk, garnering ratings of 8% and 0%, respectively, from the top critics at Rotten Tomatoes.

So if you were parents who celebrated “fall break” by getting away from your kids for a night, and you're smart, the choice was pretty clear. Alex What? Paranormal Blah-blah? Hey, I heard the Ben Affleck movie is good. Let's go.

Box Office Mojo's numbers here.

Ben Affleck in Iran in “Argo.”

“Taken 2,” the movie whose very name is both absurd (“Hey, how come we keep getting taken?”) and indicative of how movie studios see moviegoers (thus the rejected title, “Taken Again”), earned $50 million at the box office this weekend. That's the biggest opening weekend since “The Dark Knight Rises” in July and the third-biggest opening weekend in October ever, behind only “Paranormal Activity 3” from 2011 and “Jackass 3D” from 2010.

Took.

It did all this despite a 19% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Among the comments:

• “An attempt to see how stupid and insulting a motion picture can be and still be a big hit.” — Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com
• “So lazily put together that it relies on flashbacks from its predecessor for the majority of its character development.” --Dana Stevens, Slate

Then there's this prescient blurb:

• “It'll have a great opening weekend, but it still seems a shame to have diluted the action-flick purity of the first 'Taken' with this cash grab.” — Mike Russell, Oregonian

In other news, Tim Burton's “Frankenweenie” grossed only $11.5 million in more than 3,000 theaters and finished in fifth place: behind “Taken 2” and the second weekends of “Hotel Transylvania,” “Looper” and something called “Pitch Perfect.”

In silver-lining news, both “End of Watch” ($4 million) and “The Master” ($1.8 million) finished in the top 10.

The TCB numbers here.

It's “Taken 2”: Everybody close your eyes!

Last night on RottenTomatoes.com, while checking out a slideshow ranking 2012 summer movies by RT score, I noticed how much the rankings correlated with box office. In 2008, on Slate, I argued just that. I.e., quality (as seen by RT rating) tends to equal quantity (in box office $$), particularly when you attempt to sort out variables such as viewing opportunities.

Here's the list of the summer movies of 2012, with Rotten Tomatoes ratings and rankings, but ranked by summer box office. (A red RT rating means it's fresh:  60% or more critics liked it):

Of the 43 summer movies listed, 17 were rated fresh. These include the seven highest-grossing films of the summer, and nine of the top 11. The highest-grossing film, “The Avengers,” had the second-highest RT score. The second highest-grossing film, “The Dark Knight Rises,” had the third-highest RT score.

Amazing.

Of the fresh films, the anomalies were the August releases (“Premium Rush,” “ParaNorman,” “Hope Springs,” “The Expendables 2”), which perhaps haven't had their box-office due yet; the auteur films (“Moonrise Kingdom,” “Cosmopolis”), which were distributed accordingly (i.e., parsimoniously); and “Katy Perry: Part of Me,” which, apparently, moviegoers just didn't care to see.

Of the rotten films, the true overperformers were “Snow White and the Huntsman,” which finished 8th for the summer; and “Tyler Perry's Madea's Witness Protection,” which, as a Tyler Perry movie, is virtually critic-proof.

The other rotten films? Underperformers. “Ice Age” grossed the least of the “Ice Age” franchise, “The Bourne Legacy” grossed the least of the “Bourne” franchise, and potential tentpole films like “Battleship” and “Total Recall” folded up opening weekend.

Basically, if a movie was deemed good on RottenTomatoes, and was readily available, moviegoers went to see it. Exactly as I stated in 2008.

In fact, it's truer today than it was then. My article focused on 2007, a year in which box office was dominated by lame and generally rotten sequels such as “Spider-Man 3,” “Shrek the Third,” and the third “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie. Now box office is dominated by films RT has deemed fresh.

I don't know if this is part of a trend. I don't know if moviegoers are using sites such as RT, or social media, in order to figure out—possibly at the theater—which movies to go see. Would be cool if it were true.

Or could RT critics be tailoring their reviews for summer blockbusters? “These are the popular movies and so I must judge them accordingly?” Would be a drag if that were true.

But how else to explain 69% for “MIB 3,” 66% for “The Campaign” and, back in 2007, 62% for effin' “Spider-Man 3,” one of the worst superhero movies ever made? Could it be that, just as there's carryover in box office from a good film to a bad sequel, so there's carryover in RT numbers? Critics say, “Not as good as ... but you'll have a good time ...”? That would certainly explain the 87% rating for “Dark Knight Rises,” the third highest-ranked film of the summer, which had its share of problems. As even fanboys have admitted. (HISHE: Still waiting on “How 'Ted' Should Have Ended.”)

Bottom line: If you saw “Moonrise Kingdom” and “The Avengers” this summer, you won.

And the children shall lead. The top three summer 2012 movies as ranked by Rotten Tomatoes: an adult's view of kids, and kids' views of adults.

The big news at the box office this weekend isn't that “Expendables 2” won its second weekend with a tepid $13 mil, followed by tepid turns from Bourne and Norman and The Campaign and Dark Knight and Timmy Green; nor that the highest-grossing new movie, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's “Premium Rush,” grossed only $6.3 mil for seventh place. It's the movie that wound up in eighth place. 

I hadn't heard of “2016: Obama's America” until it wound up in eighth place. It was written and directed by John Sullivan (“Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” which is Ben Stein's doc on how great Intelligent Design is), and co-directed right-wing ideologue Dinesh D'Souza, who stars, and whose books include the following:

• 1995: The End of Racism
• 1997: Ronald Reagan: How An Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader
• 2000: The Virtue of Prosperity 
• 2007: The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11
• 2010: The Roots of Obama's Rage
• 2012: Obama's America: Unmaking the American Dream

The documentary, such as it is, is based on the second-to-last book.

Meanwhile, the movie was released by Rocky Mountain Pictures, which tends to distribute little-seen movies with right-wing and/or Christian themes.

The doc, which examines the question “If Barack Obama wins a second term, where will we be in 2016?,” opened in Houston in July, and has gone wider each week. It began August in 10 theaters, then 61, then 169, now 1,091.

What's the movie about? Obama bad. He's been bad from the get go. As per his father's dream, he's the anti-colonialist returned to inflict punishment on the colonizers. (Psst. That's us.) Yes, it hasn't happened yet, yes, Obama's first term has been remarkable for its centricity; but there's no arguing with the paranoid. There's too much of a thrill there. According to the Washington Post review, here's how D'Souza foresees a second Obama term:

...if the president is reelected, the world four years from now will be darkened by the clouds of economic collapse, World War III (thanks to the wholesale renunciation of our nuclear superiority) and a terrifyingly ascendant new “United States of Islam” in the Middle East. These assertions are accompanied by footage of actual dark clouds and horror-movie music.

I find the paranoia of the far right both amusing and sad. It's amusing because it's so preposterous and it's sad because it never goes away. They were paranoid in the early '60s, they were paranoid in the mid-80s, and they're paranoid now. It's as sure as the turning of the earth. The right-wing folks who want to be scared plunked down $6.2 million this weekend and got their scare.

I might have to get into that racket. Seems like easy money.

Among other claims, D'Souza asserted that the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib was due to the “sexual immodesty of liberal America” and that Abu Ghraib reflected “the values of a debauched liberalism run amok.”

In one of the last weekends of the movie summer, “The Expendables 2,” starring Stallone, et al., grossed $28 million at the domestic box office to lead the pack. That's indicative of the summer movie season. Not because stupid movies rule (although...) but because sequels and reboots have been underperforming against previous incarnations. Two year ago, the first “Expendables” opened with $34 million.

Other underpeforming sequels and reboots?

• “The Dark Knight Rises,” which will probably gross $100 million less than its predecessor, “The Dark Knight,” which topped out at $533 million in 2008.
• “The Amazing Spider-Man,” which will be the first cinematic Spidey movie to gross less than $300 million domestically. It's currently at $257 million and didn't make $1 million this weekend. The first Tobey Maguire “Spider-Man” grossed $403 million in 2002, which, adjusted, would be $557 million today.
• “MIB 3,” which, unadjusted, is still the lowest-grossing of the “Men in Black” series. The first grossed $250 million back in the summer of '97. That's $438 million today. 
• “Ice Age: Continental Drift,” the fourth in the series, and the fourth in terms of unadjusted domestic gross at $150 million. If you adjust for inflation, each incarnation has lost audience: $243, $239, $211, $150.
• “Total Recall,” which, at $51 million and fading, won't even gross what the original grossed ($119 million) in 1990. 
• “The Bourne Legacy” The original kept growing in terms of B.O.: $121, $176, $227. This one will be lucky to gross $100 million.

The one sequel this summer that outpeformed its predecessors? “Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted.” The first made $193 in '05, the second $180 in '08. This $212 in '12. But if you adjust, the third is still $30+ million shy of the first.

The numbers are stronger worldwide, but still down:

Meanwhile, “Battleship” sank ($65), “The Campaign” flopped ($51), “Rock of Ages” whined ($38), “That's My Boy” miscarried ($37), and “The Watch” went unwatched ($33).

So what were the big winners of the summer box office besides “The Avengers” ($617/$1.4 billion)? A few overperformers:

• “Ted,” the Mark Wahlberg/teddy bear comedy, which has grossed $213 million and counting. That's the summer's fifth-best.
• “Snow White and the Huntsman”: $155 million.
• “Magic Mike”: $112 million.

Then there's Wes Anderson's “Moonrise Kingdom,” whose widest release was 924 theaters, but which still grossed $43 million. The following is a list of movies with wider releases that grossed less:

So is this sequel fade an aberration? Or are we finally getting tired of seeing the same old story sped up and dumbed down? Who knows? But expect “Ted 2” in summer 2014.

TED talks: Only “Avengers,” “Dark Knight,” “Spider-Man” and “Brave” grossed more this summer.

This is how Adam Sandler's recent movies have done at the box office (sans the serious-ish films, such as “Funny People” and “Reign Over Me”):

The high point was “Grown Ups” in 2010. The low point is wherever “That's My Boy” winds up, which won't be much different than the above. It's been out since mid-June. Last weekend, it played in 84 theaters and grossed $74K.

The poor showing of “That's My Boy” is one of the many delights of the summer movie season. More delightful? “Moonrise Kingdom,” whose widest relief was fewer than 1,000 theaters, actually grossed more than Sandler's gross-out comedy. It's at $42 million. Last weekend it earned another half million. It's Wes Anderson's biggest hit since “Royal Tenenbaums” ($52 million in 2001).

Jiminy Cricket.

That's our boy.

The highest-grossing movies of the year thus far, domestic, are no surprise—although I think we thought Spidey would do better. And the full ramifications of the Aurora shootings aren't in yet for “The Dark Knight Rises.”

Here are the top 5, as of Sunday morning:

1. THE AVENGERS: $615 million
2. THE HUNGER GAMES: $405 million
3. THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN: $235 million
4. THE DARK KNIGHT RISES: $225 million
5. THE LORAX: $214 million

By the end of the weekend, “Dark Knight” will surpass Spidey, and No. 6, Pixar's “Brave,” will surpass “The Lorax.” But that's not the question. Here's the question:

What is the highest-grossing live-action comedy of the year thus far?

Answer in the comments field.

I've been on vacation for a week, visiting family in Minneapolis, which is why the week-long silence. But before we get into everything else, I did want to share one incident.

Patrica and I were taking my nephews, Jordy, 11, and Ryan, 9, to see “The Amazing Spider-Man.” It was playing in about five different venues in Minneapolis, including the Mall of America, but I opted for the Southdale Theater since I have a tendency to get lost and disoriented at the MOA. Plus Southdale was playing an IMAX-3D version of the movie. Of course it turned out to be faux IMAX—a big flat screen rather than a huge, curved screen—but the movie was enjoyable enough. I'll have a more in-depth take later this week.

The most stunning thing about the movie, though, happened before it even started. It happened when I bought the tickets. My conversation with the ticket agent went something like this:

Me: Four, please.
He: That'll be $64.00

Gulp. Thwip.

Last Friday, Box Office Mojo's headline trumpeted Pixar's long-standing reign atop the domestic box office:

Pixar Aims for 13th-Straight First Place Debut with 'Brave.'

That is indeed impressive, and “Brave” performed impressively, grossing $66.7 million in 4,164 theaters, far outpacing the other big debut film, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter,” which grossed just $16.5 million in 3,108 theaters. “Madagascar 3” fell off by 40% but still finished in second place with $20 million.

“Brave” is, of course, the first “girl-centered” Pixar product. So how does that $66 mil stack up against other Pixar films?

Not badly:

Interestingly, with the exception of “Ratatouille” on the low side and “Toy Story 3” on the high, every Pixar movie this century has opened in the $60-$70 million range, and, of course, $66 mil is right in the middle of that.

But if you adjust for inflation you get a slightly different story:

It's not just “Brave.” With the exception of “Toy Story 3,” Pixar's big openings came with the four movies released between 1999 and 2004. Since then it's been kinda same-old, same-old. Their movies are in more theaters and grossing less.

Is it the movies themselves? The association with Disney? Are parents waiting for the DVD to shut the kids up?

“Brave” needs good word-of-mouth to keep going. “Up” and “Cars 2” opened similarly, but “Cars 2,” which was forgettable and poorly reviewed (38% on RT), finished with $100 million less than “Up,” which was unforgettable and spectacularly reviewed (98%).

“Brave”'s RT numbers are middling-positive: 74%. Should we guess a final domestic tally of $240 million?

In other B.O. news, “Prometheus” (4th) passed the $100 million mark, “Madagascar 3” (2nd) passed the $150 million mark, and “The Avengers” (8th) grossed another $7 mil to come within spitting distance, or $1.7 million, of $600 million. It will be the first non-James Cameron movie to reach that mark.

The boyish-yes-but-I-like-it-too numbers here.

Girls with bows don't need bows.

Second weekends of “Madagascar 3” and “Prometheus,” hardly the summer's big blockbusters, beat out first weekends of the latest Tom Cruise movie, “Rock of Ages,” and the latest Adam Sandler comedy, “That's My Boy,” which finished third and fifth, respectively.

The failure of the Sandler movie feels like bigger news to me, since the Cruise flick is hardly his flick. He's barely mentioned in the ads. Plus he plays out of character: '80s hairband rock star rather than 21st-century, short-haired action star.

But Sandler? He's going with his usual schtick, playing obnoxious Wazaaaap party dad to an uptight son played by Andy Samberg. Is Sandler's audience growing up? Having kids of its own? Can't get out of the house even on Father's Day weekend? Because they're not there. In 2010, Sandler's “Grown Ups” opened at $40 mil. In 2011, “Just Go With It” (in February) and “Jack and Jill” (in November) opened at $30 and $25 mil, respectively. This one? $13 mil. The only Sandler movies to open lower were '90s movies before he broke big, and his more recent attempts at serious films: “Reign over Me” at $7 mil in 2007 and “Punch Drunk Love,” in 2003, which, seen as a Paul Thomas Anderson movie rather than an A. Sandler movie, opened with $367K.

Both new movies were poorly reviewed, 23% for “Boy” and 42% for “Rock,” while the two returning movies were better-reviewed, 75% for “M3” and 73% for “Prometheus.” But bad reviews never stopped Sandler's fans before. One wonders what's doing it now.

Meanwhile, “Snow White and the Huntsman” grossed another $13.8 m for a total of $122. That's almost twice as much as “Battleship,” in 11th place with $1.2 mil for a total of $62. Anyone see that coming three months ago?

“MIB 3,” in sixth place with $10, is now at $152, while “The Avengers” added another $8.8, and are $13.3 from being the first non-James Cameron film to cross the $600 million domestic barrier.

The second-string numbers here.

The fall of Adam Sandler: from $40m in 2010 to $25m in 2011 to $13m in 2011.

Which one is “Madagascar” again? Right, the one with Ben Stiller. Apologies. It's animals and famous voices in multiple sequels and I get it confused with “Ice Age” or “Kung Fu Panda” or whatever. One of those.

So it won the weekend. Hey! Congrats. Its third iteration. It grossed $60 mil. The first one in 2005 opened to $47m on its way to $193, the second opened to $63m on its way to $180. But each grossed over half a billion worldwide so here's the third. Grossed $60m on its way to... $170? Judged by all critics, it's fresh (76%). Judged by top critics, it's rotten (58%). The important thing is that moviegoers in Brazil and Slovakia like it.

“Prometheus,” the “Alien” prequel, grossed $50 mil. Maybe I'll see it. Not much of a fan of prequels. Who is? They're stories for when your characters have died off, or, like Richard Gere in “An Officer and a Gentleman,” have nowhere else to go.

Every other movie dropped fast: “Snow White,” 59%; “MIB 3,” 51%; even “The Avengers,” after their thus-far $571m run domestic (third all time), and $1.39 billion run worldwide (third all time), is a bit tuckered, and dropped 47%. Our boys, and va-va-voom girl, wouldn't mind a little shawarma about now.

The movie I saw, Wes Anderson's “Moonrise Kingdom” (review up tomorrow), finished 10th, with $1.% mil, but it only played in 96 theaters. Thanks for shit, Focus Features.

Question: Which Wes Anderson movie is his biggest box office hit? Answers in the comments field.

The animated weekly numbers here.

Scout Master Ward and his khaki scouts looking up at the 4,000+ theaters in which “Madagascar 3” played. It played in 96. Distribution does not love Wes Anderson.

This morning's post about “Les Miserables” got me thinking about the history of musicals at the box office. The following is a chart, in reverse chronlogical order, of all the major (and not so major) musicals released in the states since 1974:

You'll notice that no musical in the last 40 years has grossed as much as “Grease” did ... in 1978. Pretty astonishing. Adjusted for inflation, “Grease” is actually the 26th highest-grossing domestic film of all time. But it's not close to the highest-grossing musical. You need a little Julie Andrews for that.

Here are the top eight musicals, adjusted for inflation:

The hills were alive.

Travolta in “Grease” (1978), which was the No. 1 box-office hit of 1978. “Superman” was No. 2. No musical has done as well, even unadjusted, since.

For the first time this month, a movie other than “The Avengers” won the weekend. Three-day estimates have “MIB III,” or the third installment of the “Men in Black” series, which began when Clinton was president, in first place with $55 million. “The Avengers,” dropping just 33%, is in second place with $36.9 million. In third place, one-time tentpole “Battleship” fell nearly 60% to $10 million. Its overall 10-day gross is just $44 million. Sunk. Won't have to worry about those damned sequels.

“MIB”'s numbers aren't sunk but they're not great, either. Its opening weekend numbers have grown somewhat since its first release:

• Men in Black (1997): $51 million on its way to $250 million 
• Men in Black II (2002): $52 million on its way to $190 million
• MIB III (2012): $55 million on its way to...?

That's unadjusted, of course. Adjust for inflation and you have this:

• Men in Black (1997): $88 million on its way to $432 million 
• Men in Black II (2002): $71 million on its way to $259 million
• MIB III (2012): $55 million on its way to...?

I'm guessing less than $200 million. Ten years is a long time between second and third sequels, “Back in Time” tagline notwithstanding. Four years is a long time for a movie star to disappear—even one as popular as Will Smith. Redford did it once and stopped being Redford.

On the plus side, the reviews were OK: 68% on Rotten Tomatoes vs. 39% for “Men in Black II.”

When “Men in Black” premiered in 1997, Smith was in his late 20s; he went on to become the world's biggest movie star. He's in his 40s now, with two teenaged kids, yet he seems to be playing the same guy: the mouthy upstart. Is there another role we want to see him in? Soon? Fifty ain't far off. Unfortunately, according to IMDb, these are the movies on his plate: “I, Robot II,” “Hancock II,” “Bad Boys III.” No new ideas for W. Smith.

“The Avengers,” a semi-new idea, continues to amaze at the box office. Its domestic total is now at $513 million, so it should pass “The Dark Knight” ($533m) by Wednesday or Thursday for third place on the all-time domestic chart. Another $33 million and it'll pass the last “Harry Potter” for third place on the all-time worldwide chart, too. Then on both charts it'll just have James Cameron in front of it. But that's rarefied air. Movies tend to slow down there and begin to choke. We'll see how Marvel's superheroes do.

The flashy-thing numbers here.

Adjusted for inflation, these movies grossed the following on opening weekend: $88 million, $71 million, $55 million. A trend.

Sometimes American audiences make you glow with pride. Or at least not shake your head with disgust.

Take this weekend. Universal's “Battleship,” brought to you by the toy company that brought you “Transformers,” opened to negative reviews (29% among top critics) and weak box office ($25.3 million). That was good enough for second place but it's less than half the $55 million grossed by the third weekend of “The Avengers,” which has now grossed $457 million domestically and $723 million abroad.

“The Avengers,” by the way, got an 86% rating from top critics. My review here.

How bad is a $25 million opening for a purported summer blockbuster? Let's limit our discussion to movies that opened in May. Unadjusted, “Battleship”'s $25 mil is only the 63rd-biggest opening weekend in May. It's $4 million less than “Dark Shadows” grossed the weekend before, $2 million less than the opening of Eddie Murphy's “Daddy Day Care” in May 2003, and around $50 K less than “Indian Jones and the Temple of Doom” grossed on its opening weekend ... in May 1984. Remember “Dinosaur”? Neither do I. But it grossed $38 million during its opening weekend in May 2000.

Oh well. Rihana has something to fall back on, doesn't she?

As for “The Avengers”? Unadjusted for inflation, it's currently ranked sixth all-time domestically (behind “Star Wars,” “Star Wars Episode I,” “The Dark Knight,” “Titanic” and “Avatar”) and fourth all-time worldwide (behind the last “Harry Potter,” “Titanic” and “Avatar”). It will probably wind up second and third, respectively.

Adjust for infation, and it's currently ranked 61st, domestically, having just passed, “The Sixth Sense,” “Superman,” “Tootsie” and “Smokey and the Bandit.”

The J-10 numbers here. The 1960s commercial I must've seen 100 times below:

A few weeks ago my friend Tim, longtime illustrator, and ErikLundegaard.com webmaster (thwip!), started a new comic strip. “Cloud Five” is for all those folks who can't reach Cloud Nine, which is most of us. Probably 99% of us. Check it out.

The latest storyline is, well, timely (yes, that's a pun): Ted and friends checking out “The Avengers” premiere. Here's the first of that series:

Click on the strip, or here, for a bigger version of same.

I laughed out loud when I read that but Benny's malapropism, like the best malapropisms, turned out to be true: “The Avengers” have done nothing but accumulate the dough since being released overseas 11 days ago and in the U.S. four days ago. Somewhere, Disney and Marvel execs are on cloud nine.

Here's a list of whichever movie has held the opening-weekend box-office record since 1980:

source: Box Office Mojo

A lot of lame sequels here: “Superman II,” “Beverly Hills Cop II,” “Ghostbusters II,” “The Lost World: Jurassic Park,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,” and “Spider-Man 3.” They're sugary and contain no nutritional value. Think of them as the jujubes of movies.

The title for biggest opener flipped nine times in the 1980s, including three times within a month (May/June 1989) before “Batman” finally shredded the competition. Interesting seeing a few comedies in the mix. It's not just the Indiana Joneses and Luke Skywalkers battling it out; Murphy and Murray get in their punches, too.

Only two record-holders in the 1990s: Batman (three versions) and dinosaurs (two versions). The aughts began with Harry, swung over to Spidey, who got stumbled over by Capt. Jack Sparrow, who got thwipped by Spidey again, who got coldcocked by the Dark Knight. Then it was the boy wizard until Earth's Mightiest Heroes stormed onto the scene this past weekend.

That's a helluva jump, by the way: $169 million to $200 million. If it holds, it'll be the biggest jump for any new record-holder over the previous record-holder, besting Spidey's $24 million jump over Harry in 2001. That 18% advantage, though, while remarkable, isn't close to the best percentage leap, since “Jedi” bested “Khan” by 60% back in 1983. No one's going to do that anymore. Not even James Cameron.

Speaking of: the list is most interesting for what's not on it, namely “E.T.,” “Titanic” and “Avatar.” Our most popular movies.

OK, so they weren't all winners...

UPDATE: According to weekend actuals, “The Avengers” actually did better than projected: $207,438,708. Meaning it beat the last “Harry,” the previous record holder, by $38 million. Percentage-wise, that's a 22% jump, which is the biggest jump since “Spider-Man” bested “Jurassic Park II” by 27%. Since then, the record has been broken in the following incremental fashion: 18%, 11%, 4%, 6%. “Earth's Mightiest Heroes,” indeed. 

After seeing “The Avengers” on Friday, after seeing the long lines outside the Cinerama last night in downtown Seattle, I was wondering if “The Avengers” might do it. Not break the opening weekend box office record, set last July (with a $169-million three-day gross) by the last “Harry Potter” film. That seemed foregone. No, I was wondering if “The Avengers” might shoot past $200 million domestically. If it might break that barrier.

It seems it has. Early estimates indicate it has.

Over the weekend, I kept going back-and-forth in my mind on why it might do this:

• PRO: It has Iron Man and Captain America and Hulk and Thor. So it'll get all of these fans together at once.
• CON: All of these fans are the same. Thor fans are just a smaller subset of, say, Iron Man fans.
• PRO: People have been anticipating this movie for four years, since the teaser at the end of the first “Iron Man” movie in May 2008.
• CON: Isn't it the same people?
• PRO: The most recent trailers look amazing.
• CON: Will moviegoers assume the trailer contains all the film's good bits and not go?
• PRO: The reviews are positive: 93% on Rotten Tomatoes!
• CON: As a reviewer, I know: Few people read reviews. (Just in case: My review of “The Avengers” here.)

But the biggest PRO in this back-and-forth was the conversation I had waiting in line at the Pacific Center's IMAX theater on Friday. I talked to a couple standing behind me. They were in their late 50s or 60s. I think they asked a question about “The Avengers” and I guess I look like the kind of guy who might have the answer. (Read: NERD!!!)

Then we had the following conversation:

Me: What brings you out here?
Husband: It just seemed like the type of movie you see in a theater.
Wife: We rarely go to the movies.
Me: Rarely as in ... a couple of times a year?
Husband: Not even that.
Wife [backdating]: The last movie we went to see in a theater was ... the last “Star Wars” movie.
Me: In 2005?
Wife: Whenever it was.
Me: And that killed you from seeing movies in the theater.
Husband and wife: [Polite laughter]
Me: Do you know the story? The Avengers?
Husband: We've seen them on DVD.
Me: But this one...
Wife: It was big enough to bring us out.

It was apparently big enough to bring out a lot of folks.

Lesson to Hollywood: If you can bring out the people who haven't seen a movie in the theater in seven years, you're going to set some records.

$200 million? Or are the early estimates off?

Over the weekend I 'liked' Box Office Mojo's Facebook page and one of the first status updates I saw was its query, “What did you see this weekend?” It was a rather drab weekend at the box office—“Think Like a Man” won for the second weekend in a row with $17.6 million, yawn—but “Think Like a Man” wasn't the most popular answer from FB users. Neither were any of the debut movies: “The Five-Year Engagement” ($10.6 million), “Safe” ($7.8 million) and “The Raven” ($7.2 million).

No, the most popular answer, by far, was a movie that grossed $178 million over the weekend.

Wait. $178 million? I thought you said “Think Like a Man” won with $17.6 mil?!?

I did. And it did. In the U.S.

But overseas, “The Avengers,” that All-American group (well, Black Widow, Thor), debuted in 39 countries, and rocked 'em and socked 'em. It set opening weekend records in Mexico, Brazil, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong. It killed in Australia and the UK and France. Its $178 million overseas gross is the ninth-best ever. And that's what all those international FB users were talking about. They were raving about “The Avengers.” Because they'd all seen it. Elsewhere.

In the U.S.? Sloppy seconds.

Among the FB comments:

• Wow, it actually got some pretty good reviews too here in Finland. The reviewer for the national broadcasting company YLE gave it 4/5 stars. This is pretty impressive for a comic book-movie.
• Really good movie, I saw it two times already in Dominican Republic! Really good 3D!!
• So glad Whedon is finally getting his due with the mainstream.
• How do people in Iran get to see Avengers before U.S.?
• Jealous much, americans?! :P

We assemble Friday. 'Nuff said.

That's right, Cap: You can be seen in the Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Lithuania, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Romania, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan and the UK ... but not in America. Yet.

I'm used to good foreign films showing in my city, Seattle, weeks or months after the big boys in NY and LA get it.

I'm still not used to U.S. films showing in most foreign countries weeks or months before the U.S. gets it.

That could become more common, though. According to The Hollywood Reporter, both “Thor” and “Fast Five” opened abroad a week earlier last spring. This spring? Universal’s “Battleship” is opening abroad five weeks before its U.S. debut.

Here's a list of the countries where the Hasbro-inspired flick is already playing:

It opens in the U.S. on May 18.

Rihanna fights aliens trying to sink her battleship.

According to Box Office Mojo, a liberal news media website, “Think Like a Man,” a relationship comedy that employs, according to the MPAA, “crude humor and drug use,” and which garnered a 49% rating on RottenTomatoes.com, has dethroned “The Hunger Games,” the hugely popular, spring blockbuster, which had sat atop the domestic box office charts for the past four weekends. The liberal website claims that “Man” grossed $33 million while “Hunger Games” made only $14.5 million, finishing third.

Yet here are some facts signaling that Box Office Mojo, the mainstream media, and those closely related to both know that “Think Like a Man” is ineligible to be the box-office champion for the weekend of April 20-22:

• IMDb.com, the movie website, did not certify that “Think Like a Man” was qualified to open as a movie in the U.S., but only that “Think Like a Man” was a completed film.
• The news media previously and numerously referred to “Think Like a Man” as a “Kenyan production” before it opened. After it opened, “Kenyan production” was dropped.
• Its production company, Rainforest Films, has previously released only films ineligible to be U.S. box office champ, including “The Brotherhood of MLK,” “Three Can Play that Game” and “No Good Deed,” which isn’t even a previously released film but is scheduled to be released in 2013.
• “No Good Deed” is set to star Taraji P. Henson, who is not related to Muppets creator Jim Hensen, and Idris Elba, who has long played U.S. citizens even though he was born and raised in Canning Town, London, which is, according to Google maps, close to Kenya.
• Rainforest Films has spent millions of dollars promoting “Think Like a Man” as an American film, ignoring all of the accusations that it is a Kenyan film.

It is not only “average Joes” who believe “Think Like a Man” is illegitimate, but state governments are expressing the same notion. The state of Arizona has recently passed a law that declares that “Think Like a Man” and other movies must prove their U.S. citizenship before being permitted to be screened in U.S. theaters. Many states are expected to follow Arizona's lead of resistance to unlawful Hollywood actions.

Consider what is really implied about “Think Like a Man”’s ineligibility and the cover-up by those in Hollywood and the liberal media. The cut-to-the-chase conclusion underlying this whole ordeal is that Hollywood is completely and utterly illegitimate and reeks of bad faith and intent. Any other conclusion is very difficult to believe, using logic and reason.

The illegitimate numbers here.

“The Hunger Games” has now done something only three films since 2001 have done: ranked No. 1 at the box office for four or more consecutive weeks. The other 21st-century movies to manage this feat are: “The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,” which lasted four weeks in 2003-04; “The Dark Knight,” four weeks in the summer of 2008; and “Avatar,” seven weeks in 2009-10.

Here are Box Office Mojo's early estimates for the April 13-15 weekend:

Remaining No. 1 at the domestic box office for four weeks used to be fairly commonplace. How commonplace? Here are some of the less-than-stellr movies that managed it in the 1980s and '90s: “Never Say Never Again,” “Police Academy II: Their First Assignment,” “Uncle Buck,” “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,” “Hot Shots,” “Hook,” “Basic Instinct,” “Under Siege,” and “Indecent Proposal.” Another multiplex in hell.

It was a yearly phenomenon, and generally a several-times-a-year phenomenon, until 2001. Then the game changed. Movies began opening wide, wider, widest. No more lines around the block. You went when you wanted, and most moviegoers wanted opening weekend. Movies became a “wham bam, thank-you, ma'am” phenomenon. They roared for a week, two if they were lucky, before dropping to a whisper, and then just dropping. I wrote about all of this back in 2006 for MSNBC.

Now it takes a truly stellar film, a repeat-viewing film, to remain on top more than two weeks.

So is “Hunger Games” in the same class as “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,” “The Dark Knight,” and “Avatar”? Or is something else going on here?

The movie has certainly had help from its March release date. The others were released in July and December, prime movie months, and went up against huge blockbusters. Katniss and company have had to fend off relatively weak competition: “Wrath of the Titans,” “American Reunion,” and “The Three Stooges.”

Even so, “THG” is already at $337 million. Its opening weekend was in “Spider-Man 3” territory ($152m vs. $151m for Spidey), and its second weekend fell off by a similar percentage (61.6% vs. 61.5% for Spidey), but since then it's held stronger. “Spidey 3” deservedly plummeted: down +50% in its third and fourth weekends, while Katniss has fallen only 43% and 35%. Its descent keeps slowing. It's got a golden parachute. Maybe from a sponsor.

Can it make $400 million? Do you want to bet against Katniss?

Katniss, taking aim at titans and stooges.

“The Hunger Games,” which most analysts thought would do well this weekend, actually did better: It grossed more than $155 million for the third-highest-grossing opening weekend of all time—after only the last “Harry Potter” movie ($169m) and “The Dark Knight” ($158m).

Even adjusted for inflation, “THG” is in fifth place. It opened in 4,136 theaters.

“Hunger” also shattered the mark for an opening weekend in March and the opening weekend for a non-sequel, both of which had been held by Tim Burton's “Alice in the Wonderland,” which grossed $116 million in March 2010.

Its studio, “Lionsgate,” best known for Tyler Perry and “Saw” movies, as well as for foisting “Crash” on us all, has never had such a hit. Not even close. Its biggest hit prior to this was Michael Moore's “Fahrenheit 911,” which grossed $119 million during the summer of 2004.

“Hunger Games” killed the competition as well. Every returning movie showing in more than 1,000 theaters dropped more than 40% from the previous weekend. Disney's “John Carter” suffered the most, dropping 63.1%. Its three-weekend total is now at $62 million and doesn't look to get much higher.

Meanwhile, “21 Jump Street” dropped 41% to take in another $21 million. Its total gross is $71 million.

My reviews of “The Hunger Games” and “John Carter” up later this week.

The mocking totals here.

Katniss killing the competition.

Holy crap! “The Hunger Games” grossed $68 million yesterday. That's the fifth-highest single-day gross ever, after the final “Harry Potter” and the three “Twilight” sequels. “The Dark Knight” is sixth. Apparently boys don't go to movies the way girls do.

I actually tried to go last night. “THG” is playing at Paul Allen's Cinerama, which would be a good theater to see it in, but I was running late. Its early show was too early and its late show was too late, so I decided to choose the lesser, closer theater, Meridian 16 in downtown Seattle, where it was playing every half hour. I was thinking 7:40. But when I arrived at 7:30 that one was sold out. 8:00 wasn't. One, please.

I looked at the ticket, Theater 9, went up two flights, past a long line for the 7:40 show on the second level, and stood in a small line on the third level for the 8:00 show. I hung there for a bit. My mind wandered. Occasionally I'd look down at the second level, see the line stretching there, look at the clock. “They're behind,” I thought. “Twenty minutes or so. That movie should've started already.” It was only near 8:00 that the second-level line moved and disappeared, and our line, the 8:00 line, began to fill up.

Around 8:15 I caught a snippet of a conversation in front of me. “Yes, this is the 8:30 line.” I was about to object when I rechecked my ticket. Theater 9? No, Theater 6, dummy! You were looking at it upside-down. You should've been in the line a floor below. The one that disappeared 15 minutes ago.

So I retreated to the first floor and tried buying a ticket for the show I'd been standing in line for. Nope. All sold out untl 9:30, which was too late for this bag of bones. I headed home in defeat. But I'll try to see it sometime this weekend.

God, the things girls make me do.

Between “Hunger Games” and Pixar's “Brave,” will this be our summer of girls with bows?

We just updated the Movie Reviews page and I was feeling a little guilty for not reviewing more 2012 movies: it's nearly mid-March and I've just done one, “Chronicle,” which I didn't particularly like. But then I checked out boxofficemojo.com on this weekend of “John Carter”'s weak opening (a reported $30 million for a movie that cost $250 million to make), and was reminded, for the millionth time, oh right, nothing good comes out in the first two months of the year:

Only four movies with a plus-70% rating on Rotten Tomatoes: The aforementioned “Chronicle,” at 84%; “Haywire,” that martial-arts action chick movie; “The Grey” with Liam Neeson in the cold; and “Big Miracle,” also in the cold, with Drew Barrymore and Jim from “The Office” freeing whales trapped by ice and bureaucracy.

The best we've got thus far. Wake me when it's April.

“The Vow” supposedly sucked HUGE but still garnered a 28% rating on Rotten Tomatoes: better than seven 2012 movies: “This Means War” and “Project X” (26%), “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vegeance” (15%), “Gone” (11%), “The Devil Inside” (7%), Katherine Heigl in “One for the Money” (2%), and Eddie Murphy in “A Thousand Words” (0%).

How bad must a $100-million-grossing movie be before studios nix a sequel? Is there a limit? Some kind of badness ratio that indicates dropping interest? A point where caveat emptor (buyer beware) becomes caveat vendito (seller beware)?

The first “Ghost Rider,” starring Nicholas Cage, was released Presidents' Day weekend 2007 and grossed $45 million in three days and $52 million in four. It was No. 1 at the box office by a long shot. The next weekend it dropped more than 55 percent—bad, but hardly the worst second-weekend drop ever—and by the end of its run, its overall domestic gross was $115 million: barely twice what it grossed in its first four days. So there were a few warning signs. Plus its Rotten Tomatoes rating of 27% was only that high because of so-called positive reviews like this one from Dave White at MSN.com:

By any real-world standard, this is a stupid piece of junk. But it's very good at being a stupid piece of junk.

Five years later, Presidents' Day weekend 2012, the sequel no one asked for, “Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vegeance,” was distributed by Sony, who dumped it into more than 3,000 theaters despite a Rotten Tomatoes rating of 17%. Even so, the movie was expected to do ... OK. It might not draw as many moviegoers (“Fool me once,” etc.), and Cage has gone from star to punchline during that time, but prices were higher, and 3-D prices were even higher than that, and both would cover some of the ground lost.

Instead “Spirit of Vegeance” finished third for the weekend, grossing $22 million in three days. It got beat by the second weekends of “Safe House” and “The Vow.” GR lost his roar.

Could Sony have prevented all of this? Were there clues that the franchise, such as it was, had run its course, such as it was? Some measurement beyond RT ratings and second-weekend drops and opening-weekend-to-domestic-totals ratios?

I'm serious. I come not to mock Sony but to help them. And us.

The weekend estimates here.

What's not to like?

I haven't posted much on box office lately. Got bored with it, I guess. Began to do other things with my Sundays. More power to me.

So I missed the near-historic performance of “The Devil Inside” in the first week of January. Opening weekend, it was No. 1 at the box office with $33 million, even though moviegoers had a slew of great, end-of-the-year releases to choose from. (Fuckers.) But “Devil” was the only new film opening, it was horror, and the horror fans came out for it. (Fuckers.)

Then they didn't. That's the thing with horror. Opening weekend: BANG! Second weekend: whimper. For “Devil,” it was a near-historic second weekend of whimper:

It tied for the third-largest, second-weekend drop of any film opening in more than 2,000 theaters. The movies ahead of it? The Bennifer-related disaster that was “Gigli”; and the 2009 remake of Friday the 13th. “Devil” tied with the umpteenth version of a “Star Trek” sequel. It dropped 76.2 percent. That's like bungee jumping. Gnarly.

“The Devil Inside”'s second weekend wasn't helped by a 5% critics rating and a 23% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Its current IMDb rating? Where 7.0 is generally considered “good”? 3.6.

At first glance, it looks like Martin Scorsese's “Hugo” had a so-so opening weekend. That's what Jeff Wells over at Hollywood Elsewhere thought:

Paramount's decision to open Hugo on 1277 screens last Wednesday indicated (to me at least) that they were hedging their bets and hoping that critical raves and a word-of-mouth groundswell might materialize. As of last night Hugo had pulled in $8,545,000 after three days (having opened on 11.23) in 1277 theatres. That works out to a $6691 per-screen average...not bad, could be better. But it was fifth-placed after Breaking Dawn, The Muppets, Happy Feet 2 and Arthur Xmas (none of which I give a damn about).

The estimated numbers for the weekend are now in and it doesn't look much better:

True, every other film in the top five played in more than 3,000 theaters, versus “Hugo”'s measley 1,277; but “Hugo”'s per-theater-average is still second best to “Twilight.”

But Box Office Mojo now offers more options to break down the numbers: not just theaters, but screens; and not just screens but showings. In this regard “Hugo” goes from a three-to-one disadvantage with “The Muppets” and a four-to-one disadvantage with “Twilight” to a six-to-one and 10-to-one disadvantage:

And if you sort these nine movies by average-per-show, you get a prettier picture:

Folks are obviously seeing it—at a two-to-one advantage over “The Muppets” and “Twilight.” The other movies don't even come into play. “Arthur Christmas,” another opener, is abyssmal in comparison.

Some of “Hugo”'s advantage is obviously 3-D money rather than kids in the seats. But one wonders, as always, how well it might have done if Paramount had just had the confidence to play it in more theaters, and on more screens, for more showings.

Still, I'm hoping for positive word-of-mouth. I love the movie, most people I know love the movie—our friend Laura kept thinking the word “enchanting” as she watched—and it's a movie that SHOULD BE SEEN IN THE THEATER. In 3-D. So go already. Please.

Meanwhile, last week, I said “Twilight” would drop like a rock. Did it? A bit: 69.6%, or about the same as Ang Lee's “Hulk,” “Jonah Hex” and “Eragon,” but not as bad as “New Moon” (70%). For movies opening in more than 3,000 theaters, it's the 12th-worst drop ever.

Find the enchanting numbers here. And go see “Hugo.”

So “Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 1” grossed as much Friday ($72 million) as “Moneyball” has in a month and a half ($72.24 million). Sad. It's the third-highest single-day total ever, after the final “Harry Potter” earlier this summer ($91 million) and “Twilight: New Moon” two years ago November ($72.7 million).

Watch it drop like a rock. Friends are already posting their Facebook reviews and they're not pretty (the reviews; the friends are fine):

Go see Breaking Dawn if you want to die of boredom, cringe at the abysmal acting and horrendous dialogue, and laugh at all the wrong places.

And:

I can't say I didn't deserve or expect it, BUT. Worst movie ever!!

Meanwhile, IMDb begins its commentary on the knock-out opening thus:

The Twilight phenomenon showed no signs of fading on Friday...

Isn't this the second-to-last one? So isn't that fading? Please say it is.

Meanwhile, waiting for “Hugo.”

Yesterday, “Paranormal Activity 3” set the box office record for the biggest opening weekend in October with a $54 million haul. Did anyone see this coming? Here's Ray Stubers at Box Office Mojo last Friday:

[“Paranormal Activity 2”] wasn't as well received as the first installment, and horror movies generally haven't been performing over the last few months, so a slight decline for the third chapter in the series can be expected. At the same time, there was a slight uptick from “Saw II” to “Saw III,” so there is a chance “Paranormal Activity 3” exceeds its predecessor. Paramount is expecting a mid-$30 million opening followed by a better hold than “Paranormal Activity 2” ...

Of course, if you want to set a monthly box office record, October's not a bad month to do it in. Only January (“Cloverfield” at $40 million) and September (“Sweet Home Alabama” at $35 million) have lower opening-weekend records to break than October (previous: “Jackass 3-D” at $50 million).

Plus there's the company:

“Where the Wild Things Are,” sure. “Red Dragon,” maybe. “Shark Tale,” meh. The rest is garbage. It's a film festival in hell. Do we all turn dumb in October or something?

“PA3”'s competition was also slight this weekend. “The Three Musketeers,” with its 0% top-critic rating (sample review: “Seriously: what the hell?” — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune), pulled in just $8.8 mil in more than 3,000 theaters, while “Johnny English Reborn,” with a 40% top-critic rating, eked out less than half that ($3.8 mil) in fewer than half the theaters. These two finished 4th and 8th, respectively.

Something called “The Mighty Macs,” a 2009 girls basketball movie starring Carla Gugino, and only now released, bombed, grossing about $1 million in almost 1,000 theaters. To give you an idea how bad that is: The movie I saw, “Margin Call” (89% top-critic rating, and recommended), played in 1/20 the theaters (56) but grossed 1/2 the money ($586,000).

Should “Margin Call” have been more widely distributed? I would argue yes, but most assume the masses aren't interested in its subject matter. The movie's about the beginning of the Global Financial Meltdown and people want to see scary stuff.

The paranormal numbers here.

The number one movie in America for the second weekend in a row is a futuristic boxing tale in which an underdog boxer, and an underdog robot, spurred on by the underdog boxer's underdog kid, fight for the championship against all underdog odds. “Real Steel” looked awful in the trailer. It probably is. It only garnered a 61% Rotten Tomatoes rating because of reviews like these:

“This year's biggest, dumbest blockbuster. Like a hamburger dripping in grease, there's no nutritional value, but it goes down easily.” — David Edwards, Daily Mirror

“Thanks to an admittedly corny script, some amazing fight scenes, and a terrific cast, ”Real Steel's“ actually a winner by split decision.” — Richard Roeper, RichardRoeper.com

“This is a ridiculous movie. And yet, I enjoyed the hell out it.” --MaryAnn Johanson, Flick Filosopher

There it is: No. 1 for two weeks in a row. We should rename it “Reel Steal.”

Two new movies that are remakes of two old movies, which didn't need or deserve remaking, finished second and third: “Footloose” (53%) and “The Thing” (32%). 

At no. 4 is the movie Patricia and I saw Friday night, “The Ides of March,” which is a smart, adult, political thriller. Review up tomorrow.

“Moneyball,” another smart, adult movie, is at no. 6.

None of these movies are making big bucks, of course. The most recent movie to gross more than $100 million is “The Help,” which was released on August 10, and is currently at $164 million. After that, it's the re-relase of “The Lion King” in 3-D ($90 million), followed by “Contagion” ($72 million), which is supposed to be good, but which I'm too germaphobic to see.

Clint: A man's gotta know his limitations.

Moviegoers in this country are revealing theirs.

The underdog totals.

“Sure, mate, go see the movie. Just don't use this up here.”

“I do think there is a tendency to underestimate audiences, I do think there is an appetite to be stretched. I do think people want to hear language at its best on the screen. I'm optimistic about it having an enormous audience.”

--Colin Firth on “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” specifically, and the film industry in general, at the Venice Film Festival.

I go back and forth on this issue, bitching about audiences one minute, insisting that audiences are smarter than we realize the next. I think studios pay too much attention to market research and test screenings, and don't promote and distribute better movies the way they should, and that, if they did, these movies would make money. At the same time, there are a lot of Big Jim McBobs and Billy Sol Hureks out there.

Let's talk about the billion-dollar movies for a second. As of today, September 10, 2011, there are 10.

“Titanic” was the first to gross over $1 billion worldwide, back in 1997, and it shattered the mark, pushing all the way to $1.8 billion.

The second film to break $1 billion was “Lord of the Rings: Return of the King,” which grossed $1.1 billion in 2003. Then “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest,” with $1.06 billion in 2006. “Dark Knight” did it in 2008 ($1.001 billion) and “Avatar” in 2009 ($2.7 billion).

That's five movies. It was a relatively rare event.

In the last two years—a year and a half, really—we've doubled that total: “Toy Story 3” ($1.06 billion) and “Alice in Wonderland” ($1.02) last year; and the final “Harry Potter” ($1.3), “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” ($1.1), and “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” with ($1.03) this year.

From a U.S. perspective, the most recent “Pirates” movie, the fourth in the series, is the biggest head scratcher of the bunch. It bombed, relatively speaking, in the states, grossing a mere $240 million, the lowest total by far of the series, and nearly $200 million off the second “Pirates” movie, “Dead Man's Chest,” which grossed $423 million domestically in 2006. Yet POTC 4's worldwide gross is on par with, and may surpass, POTC 2. How is it making up that $183 million deficit?

Two ways.

More money is being made from the countries to which the film has traditionally been distributed. Yes, some countries, following the U.S. example, and despite inflationary ticket prices, are way down from the 2006 gross. In the U.K., POTC 4 fell off of POTC 2's total by $44 million. It grossed $9 million less in Spain (despite Penelope Cruz) and $3 million less in Denmark. That downward trend is also apparent in Belgium, New Zealand, Sweden, South Korea, Greece, Italy, Austria and Iceland. Altogether, in these 11 countries, the most recent “Pirates” dipped $64 million versus its 2006 incarnation.

Chart 1: Comparing the international grosses of two “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies: “Dead Man's Chest” (2006) and “On Stranger Tides” (2011)*

* All box office grosses are from boxofficemojo.com. “Stranger Tides”'s Indonesian and Swiss box-office totals are unavailable.

But the new “Pirates” more than made up for it in other countries, led by Russia-CIS, where it was up $36 million, and followed by Japan (+$24m), Brazil (+$19m) and Mexico (+$10m). Altogether, in these 28 countries, POTC 4 grossed $135 million more than POTC 2, for a net gain, from the traditional markets, of $71 million.

That's the first way it's made up the deficit.

The second way is that “Stranger Tides” has simply opened in more countries—32 more countries to be precise—including Vietnam, Qatar, Kuwait, India (surprisingly), and the big daddy of them all, China, where it's grossed $70 million this summer. Altogether, these 32 countries, 13 of which have yet to disclose box office grosses, added more than $100 million to the till.

Chart 2: Box office totals for “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” (2011) in internatinal markets where “Dead Man's Chest” (2006) did not play*

* All box office grosses are from boxofficemojo.com.

Taken with the higher gross from the traditional markets, that makes up for the U.S. deficit.

This, I assume, will be the new norm for big international films. Inflation and aggressive distribution, and more leisure time in countries like China, will lead to more billion-dollar movies, even if the U.S. goes “meh” to the film.

Hollywood, like any industry, and Disney, like any corporation, is expanding its reach, and in doing so protects itself against a crappy product, as I believe POTC 4 to be. Business for this film was down in the U.S. because it was a poor film, with poor word-of-mouth, and it followed a crappy sequel, “Pirates 3,” which followed an overblown sequel, “Pirates 2,” which followed a not-bad movie, “Pirates,” way back in 2003. You can't keep doing that and not suffer financially. Yet, for a time anyway, Disney, with its aggressive expansion, has managed not to suffer financially for its poor product.

It almost feels as if moviegoers in the United States are being bypassed. It's as if we're being outsourced. First companies outsourced U.S. production; now they're doing it with U.S. consumption.

Expect a “Pirates 5.”

“Dead Man's Chest” (2006) made 39.7% of its total box office in the U.S.; “Stranger Tides” (2011), 23.2%. Yet they've grossed virtually the same at the worldwide box office.

The line from Variety and Box Office Mojo is that Hurricane Irene kept folks home and that's why the box office this weekend was so lousy. I find more to blame with recent August releases.

Here, for example, are the no. 1 movies for the current weekend, the 34th weekend, from 2005 to 2010:

• 2005: The 40-Year-Old Virgin *
• 2006: Invincible
• 2007: Superbad *
• 2008: Tropic Thunder *
• 2009: Inglourious Basterds
• 2010: The Expendables *

* second weekend of release

With the exception of last year's aptly titled “Expendables,” these are all good movies that I could see again right now.

This year? The no. 1 movie for the 34th weekend is the third weekend of “The Help,” the controversial, starry-eyed, 50-year-old view of racism that women can't seem to get enough of. But it only grossed $14 mil. It was no. 1 because this is what's been wide-released in the last two weeks:

• Spy Kids: All the Time in the World
• Conan the Barbarian
• Fright Night
• One Day
• Colombiana
• Don't Be Afraid of the Dark
• Our Idiot Brother

“Fright Night” has good critical numbers (88% among top critics), as does “Our Idiot Brother (67%). The others are all certified rotten. Some extremely so: ”Conan“'s 23%; ”One Day“'s 27%. ”Spy Kids"'s 27%.

Here are the helpless totals.

My favorite box office site, Box Office Mojo, includes not only individual movie pages but indvidual pages for actors and directors so it's easy to see how their films have done over the years. Sean Penn gets one, for example. Did you know no Sean Penn movie has grossed over $100 domestically? None. “Mystic River” came closest back in 2003: $90 mil. You can sort by opening weekend, adjust for inflation, etc. It's fun for box office geeks like me.

Apparently it's not difficult to get a page, since the site includes pages for Rupert Wyatt, director of “The Rise of the Planet of the Apes” (and one other film), Tate Taylor, director of “The Help” (and one other kinda film), and Steven Quale, director of “Final Destination 5” (and one other IMAX film).

Guess who doesn't have a page? Terrence Malick, the greatest director of the last 20 years. Did he not provide information they needed? Is it somehow his slight (of them) or their slight (of him)? Anyway it forced me to look at the box office for his films individually rather than collectively. I didn't know, for example, that “The Thin Red Line” had done so well at the box office: $36 million for an art film. “New World” grossed $12 mil. Now “The Tree of Life” is also around $12 mil. But of course you have to factor in the extra bucks from 3D for that one.

Kidding.

So no love for Terrence on BOM but here's some movie-theater love, if not necessarily movie-audience love. Not my pic. From Connecticut, I believe:

Review of “Tree of Life” up tomorrow. (I didn't ask for my money back.)

Turns out “Captain America” wasn't the big opening-weekend box-office superhero this summer.

Initial estimates placed the domestic gross of “Cap” just above “Thor”'s $65.7 million but the actuals have it coming up just short: $65.0 million. Still not bad. Unadjusted, it's worse than the “Spider-Man”s and “X-Men”s and “Iron Man”s of the world but better than the “Fantastic Four”s and “Hulk”s.

It's also better than what was predicted. From boxoffice.com last Friday:

In the actuals, besides the $10 million jump for “Cap,” these estimates were over by $5 million for both “Harry Potter” and “Friends with Benefits.” “Transformers” actually came ahead of “Horrible Bosses,” while Woody Allen's “Midnight in Paris” grossed another $.3 million, falling off only 3.8%, and might have a shot at $50 million domestic. It's already the highest-grossing domestic Woody Allen film at $44 million. Unadjusted. Adjust, and it's $90 million behind “Annie Hall”s $134 million.

What does all this mean? Not much. The numbers crunchers don't quite have our number yet, but nearly. The fate of “Cap” will depend on word of mouth: Good legs like “Thor” or bad legs like “F.F.”? And “Harry Potter,” record setter the previous weekend, fell like Icarus from the sky. Its 72% plummet is the biggest of the year, the biggest among 4,000-theater films, and the fourth-worst even among 3,000-theater films—after such crap as “Friday the 13th” (2009), “Doom,” and “A Nightmare of Elm Street” (2010).

And guess what? It doesn't matter. The film's been out a week and a half and its worldwide gross is nearing $1 billion. Talk about Wingardium Leviosa.

So what movie did you see this weekend?

I finally got around to “Midnight in Paris” (fun!) and “Buck” (good!) but everyone else in America apparently went to “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2,” which set a one-day record Friday by grossing $92 million (breaking “New Moon”'s 2009 record of $72 million), then, bien sur, broke the opening weekend mark of $158 million set by “The Dark Knight” in  2008 by pulling in $168 million. It also grossed $157 million overseas. Pretty soon, as the saying goes, we'll be talking real money.

This is the eighth Harry Potter film in 10 years, and, worldwide, the movies have grossed from $795 million (“Azkaban” in 2004) to $974 million (“Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone” in 2001), for a total of more than $6.6 billion. One assumes “Hallows 2,” after its jumpstart, will be the one over the $1 billion mark but that depends upon repeat customers and word-of-mouth.

(BTW: I'm sure this has been ridiculed for 10 years now, but how sad is it that in this country we can't bear a title with the word “philosopher” in it?)

Question of the day: How will Warner Bros. revive this lucrative franchise? By rebooting the sucker in three or four years with all-new cast members? Or by wrestling enough copyright away from J.K. Rowling to create its own Harry Potter adventures—a la Ian Fleming and James Bond? That's assuming Harry lives at the end of “Hallows 2.” I don't even know. I haven't read the books and I stopped with the movies about five years ago. Even the ones I've seen run together. There's our threesome, who often go up against the bad guys, including the blonde kid, Malfoy, the Nellie Olsen of wizards. You get to the school magically, where you play a game on broomsticks. Most of the teachers are old-school stoic. Some help, some hurt. Harry, the orphan, is the chosen one. Just because. There's a really really bad guy he's supposed to go up against. That's about it. But the world is taken.

Elsewhere, “Transformers 3” fell off 55% but still finished second, after two weekends at first, with $21 million. It's now passed the $300 million mark.

It was followed by the second weekend of “Horrible Bosses” ($17m), the second weekend of “Zookeepper” ($12m), the fourth weekend of “Cars 2” ($8.3 million) and the first weekend of the reboot of another British import, “Winnie the Pooh” ($8 million).

The magic totals here.

The Harry Potter posters: from “Let the Magic Begin” to “It All Ends.”

A Box Office Mojo poll (now closed) from earlier in the year:

“Priest” is already done. It didn't even gross $30 million. “X-Men: First Class” is already done. It's at $132 million but it's not going to catch “Thor” at $177 million.

“Green Lantern” is also done. It didn't do super business opening weekend, $53 million, then dropped 65.5% during its second weekend, which is the 28th-worst drop, first-to-second weekend, for a super-wide release (3,000+ theaters). It's the same drop that “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” had back in 2007, but “FF2” opened a little better, at $58 million, had $97 million by the end of its second weekend, and still only wound up grossing $132 million. “GL”? Opened, as I said, at $53 million, and reportedly has $89 million by the end of its second weekend. So it won't even do $132 million? How about $120? Some tentpoles just can't hold nothing up. Sorry, Mark Strong: Looks like no “Green Lantern 2.” When is Hollywood going to realize that you can't necessarily follow the “Batman Begins/Dark Knight” track by holding back the franchise's main villain for the second film. It only works if the first film is any good.

As for the superhero clash, we'll have to wait until July to see if “Captain America” or “Cowboys and Aliens” can unseat “Thor.” Like most Box Office Mojo users, I bet on Steve Rogers. And the trailers look increasingly good.

Meanwhile, “Cars 2” did well, opening at $68 million and first place, “Bad Teachers” did surprisingly well, opening at $32 million and second place, and “Bridesmaids” continued to drop least despite shedding theaters. It lost only 24% of its business, grossed another $5 million, and now has a domestic total of $147 million. That's the sixth-highest gross of the year.

The weekend totals here.

Would that it were true...

“Green Lantern” grossed $52 million over the weekend, the sixth-best opening weekend of the year, but the lowest of the summer superhero films. “Thor” opened at $65 million in early May and “X-Men: First Class” opened at $55 million in early June.

More worrisome for Warner Bros. is the dropoff from Friday to Saturday: -22%, compared to -8% for “Thor” and -7% for “XMFC.” It's the worst Friday-to-Saturday dropoff of the year (for wide-release films), and the 27th-worst of all time (or at least on box office mojo's charts). True, this kind of Friday-to-Saturday dropoff can occur with big-buzz movies (“The Dark Knight”: -29%), or with films that appeal to an intense but narrow demographic, such as horror (three of the “Saw” films are on this list), or the “Twilight” franchise (two of the “Twilight”s are near the top of the list). But it can also indicate bad word-of-mouth. Another film that dropped -22%? “Sex and the City 2.”

“Mr. Popper's Penguins” opened less well, at $18 million.

Among the returning wide releases, “Bridesmaids” again fell off at a fraction of the rate of the others: -25%. It's now grossed $136 million.

The shocker, for me anyway, is seeing how well Woody Allen's “Midnight in Paris” is doing. Its widest release is just over 1,000 theaters yet after another $5 million weekend its domestic total stands at $21.8 million. That's already sixth-best among unadjusted Woody Allen films, and less than $2 million away from passing both “Match Point” ($23.1) and “Vicki Cristina Barcelona” ($23.2) in the battle of Woody's Western European locales. The 3,2, 1 slots for the Woodman, for those intereested, are “Annie Hall” ($38m), “Manhattan” ($39m) and “Hannah and Her Sisters” ($40m). Adjust for inflation, and it's “Annie Hall” by a nose over “Manhattan”: $134m to $125m.

The not-so-green totals here.

“Bridesmaids” has always been a bridesmaid; it has never hit no. 1 on the weekend box office charts. But it is in the process of manhandling a bunch of the He-Men of Summer.

In its first weekend, May 13-15, the only other big opener was the apocalypse/vampire flick “Priest,” which finished with about half of “Bridesmaid”'s gross—$14 million to $26 million—while “Bridesmaids” finished second to the second weekend of “Thor”:

The next weekend, “Thor” fell 55%, “Bridesmaids” only 20%, so Wiig and copmany were now ahead of the God of Thunder; but their movie still finished second, way second, to the latest “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie: $20 million to $90 million. (Keep that $70 million difference in your back pocket for a moment.) “Priest” fell a whopping 68% for fifth place. It was soon out of the picture.

Memorial weekend? That was the “Hangover II” weekend, with a relatively weak open for “Kung Fu Panda 2” and a huge drop for “Pirates 4.” “Bridesmaids” dropped marginally: another 20%.

First weekend in June? “X-Men: First Class” opened with $55 million and pushed “Bridesmaids” to fifth place. This was the biggest drop, percentage-wise, for the film, 27%, but it was still dropping at only half the rate of the men around it. Oh, and that $70 million “Pirates” advantage you kept in your back pocket? Take it out now. It's down to $5 million:

Which brings us to this past weekend. “Bridesmaids” and “Pirates 4” are now neck-in-neck.

“Bridesmaids”'s opening weekend was the 15th best opening of the year but the movie's domestic gross, $123 million, is now 7th best for the year. That's legs. That's word-of-mouth. The movie keeps on keeping on.

Just a few words on Hollywood box office during the week I was on vacation.

“X-Men: First Class” opened poorly, or poorly for an “X-Men” movie, grossing $55 million in 3,641 theaters, down from “Wolverine”“s $85 million, which was down from ”X-Men: Last Stand“'s $102 million, which was better than ”X2“'s $85 million, which was again better than ”X-Men“'s $54 million in 2000. So 11 years later, the last has tied the first. That's unadjusted, of course. Adjust for inflation and the original ”X-Men“ earned $79 million, blowing away the recent prequel.

Industry blah-blahers attribute this lack of interest to the lack of Wolverine, the most popular of Charles Xavier's mutants, but I attribute it to the presence of ”Wolverine,“ the prequel that preceded this prequel, which sucked (a 17% top critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

Industry analysts still don't get it. With sequels, opening weekends are all about the previous film, not the current one. ”X2“ opened well because ”X-Men“ was good. ”X-Men: The Last Stand“ opened gangbusters because ”X2“ rocked. ”Wolverine“ opened less well because ”X-Men: The Last Stand“ reeked. The opening weekend box office of ”First Class“ is thus a reflection on ”Wolverine“ and ”Last Stand,“ as well as Fox's superhero films in general. Don't real foxes suck eggs? So does this Fox. Again and again.

In better box office news, I'm overjoyed by the continued success of ”Bridesmaids," which, since it opened May 13th, has dropped, weekend to weekend, only marginally: -20.4%, -20.7%, and -27.3%. Each drop is the lowest of the weekend for wide-release films. It's called word of mouth, people. The movie has now grossed $113 million. My girls got legs.

I hope everyone who ignored the 22% Rotten-Tomatoes rating (top critics) for “The Hangover Part II” is feeling a bit hungover this Memorial Day weekend, after wasting their time and money, and our cultural capital, on such a worthless sequel. And before anyone gets all “What do critics know anyway” on me, the first “Hangover,” two years ago, garnered a 77% RT/TC rating. Critics liked it. This one? Not so much. Yet the unwashed flocked. Because they remembered the first one.

Suckers.

One still born every minute, apparently. “Hangover II”'s Thursday opening, $31 million, was the third-best Thursday ever—after “Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith” and “Matrix Reloaded”—and it still had enough in the tank to deliver the second-best three-day opening this year, $86 million, second only to “Pirates of the Caribbean 3”'s $90 million. Summer's officially here. We're flocking to crap.

The other big opener, “Kung Fu Panda 2,” grossed a mere $48 million. Despite good reviews.

“Pirates of the Caribbean” fell 56.4% to $39 million and third place. I doubt it'll gross even as much as the first one grossed in the summer of 2003 ($305 million) but doubt Disney cares. $152 million in the U.S. so far but more than $623 million already worldwide. Pirates.

But let's highlight two other comedies in the top 10.

“Bridesmaids,” in its third weekend, continued to have legs despite the comedic competition. It fell only 21% for $16.3 millon and fourth place. That drop, by the way, is by far the lowest drop among wide releases. “Fast Five,” at 37%, is second. “Bridesmaids” has now grossed $85 million domestic and seems a sure thing for $100 million.

Meanwhile, Woody Allen's “Midnight in Paris,” recent of the Cannes Film Festival, grossed $1.9 million for 7th place. Why talk about a $1.9 million movie when others are making more than half a billion? Because “Midnight” played in only 58 theaters yet made more money than “Something Borrowed, which played in 1,440 theaters, ”Rio,“ which played in 1,672 theaters, and ”Priest," which played in 1,918 theaters. Mazel tov.

The crooked numbers here.

Nothing says remembering your war dead like hijinks in Bangkok.

The fourth “Pirates,” “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides,” won the weekend with the best opening weekend of the year, but its openings have definitely fallen over the years:

• POTC: Dead Man's Chest (2006): $135 million
• POTC: At World's End (2007): $114 million
• POTC: On Stranger Tides (2011): $90 million

That's unadjusted. Here's what the numbers look like when you adjust for inflation:

• POTC: Dead Man's Chest (2006): $162 million
• POTC: At World's End (2007): $131 million
• POTC: On Stranger Tides (2011): $90 million

Plus with all those 3-D prices, I wouldn't be surprised if “Pirates” has lost more than half the audience it had in 2006. How does a franchise do that in five years? Here are its Rotten Tomatoes (top critic) numbers:

• POTC: Dead Man's Chest (2006): 41%
• POTC: At World's End (2007): 35%
• POTC: On Stranger Tides (2011): 32%

And I think those numbers are kind. Forty-one percent for “Dead Man's Chest”? I had to see it for this article on Johnny Depp and was too kind myself:

“Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” is Depp’s first sequel, and, like most sequels, it’s bigger, louder and longer than the first. The set pieces are overwhelming. Everything is broader, including the comedy. That might not be a good thing.

The point is, you keep building crap and only the moviegoers with drool coming out of the sides of their mouths will keep showing up.

Meanwhile, “Bridesmaids” added 19 theaters and barely dropped at all, only 19 percent, good enough for $21 million and second place. I feel like I'm personally responsible for 100 of those people, I've talked it up so much. The movie's now at $59 million and could eventually make the $100 million mark.

“Thor” fell to earth like Thor falling to earth, slipping 55% to $15.5 million and third place. It now looks like it won't make that $200 million mark I talked up last week. “Fast Five” will, though. It added another $10 million for A domestic total of $186 million.

The box-office booty here.

Arrr-ugh.

Last weekend I wondered if “Thor,” grossing only $66 million opening weekend ($65.7, it turned out), could become a $200 million movie. This weekend is a good step in that direction. On early estimates, the movie only dropped 47.5 percent from its opening, raking in $34 million to finish in first place.

Why is that good? In a chart of superhero movies similar to “Thor” (that is: non-sequels or reboots), “Thor” has the sixth-lowest second-weekend drop:

And, really, the first two movies on this chart don't even count, being released in 1978 and 1989, respectively, which are different eras in movie distribution. So “Thor” is really fourth. And of those four, only one, “Spider-Man,” grossed more opening weekend.

More importantly, look at the movies behind it: “Iron Man” and “Dark Knight,” both of which had great word-of-mouth.

I'm assuming “Thor”'s word-of-mouth isn't as good, since the movie isn't as good. But the movie isn't “Fantastic Four” bad so the drop-off isn't “Fantastic Four” bad. Which is good news for Paramount and Marvel and the God of Thunder.

Meanwhile, my favorite comedy of the year, “Bridesmaids,” opened well, with an estimated $24.4 million in 2,918 theaters. Have you seen it yet? Do you need a laugh? Go. Spread the word.

“Fast Five” added 131 theaters and fell off only 39.8 percent from its second weeked to finish third. At $168 million, it looks poised to become the year's first $200 million movie. 

“Priest,” opening in 2,800+ theaters to bad reviews, finished fourth, with $14.5 million.

Box Office Mojo's totals here.

Wiig salutes the happy couple: Thor and Jane Foster.

When is a $66 million opening weekend a meh opening weekend? When it's a tentpole superhero movie (“Thor”), released into nearly 4,000 theaters (3,995), during the first weekend of May (prime movie real estate).

Here are the big grossers for the first weekend of May during the last few years:

• 2010: “Iron Man 2” ($128m)
• 2009: “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” ($85m)
• 2008: “Iron Man” ($98.6m)
• 2007: “Spider-Man 3” ($151.1m)

You'd have to go all the way back to 2006, and Tom Cruise's “Mission Impossible III” to find a lower opening gross, $47.7m, than the $66 million “Thor” pulled in.

I'm sure Paramount and Marvel Entertainment were hoping for an “Iron Man,” or even a “Wolverine.” Instead “Thor”'s open is closer to “Hulk” ($62m in 2003) and “Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer” ($58m in 2007). It's the 55th biggest opening weekend ever, which ain't bad, but adjust for inflation and it falls to 101st, behind such tentpole flicks as “The Waterboy” and “Scooby Doo.” And “Hulk” and “Fantastic Four.”

So we know “Thor” won't be a $300 million movie. But can it be a $200 million movie? To do so, it would have to triple its opening weekend total, i.e., make opening weekend 33 percent of its overall gross. That's doable, but would require some strong legs. “Iron Man” did it in 2008. Its opening weekend was 31 percent of its overall gross. But “Iron Man” had great word-of-mouth and cast-iron legs.

On the plus side, “Thor” has already grossed $176 milliion overseas. Asgard's box office: n/a.

In other news, “Fast Five” dropped fast. It finished second for the weekend but dropped 62.3 percent from the previous weekend.

The thunderous totals here.

Strong arms, yes, but you lift with your legs.

This weekend “Fast Five” had the 27th best opening in movie history, unadjusted, grossing $83 million, and has already surpassed the total domestic gross of the third film in the franchise, “Tokyo Drift.”

It's actually worthwhile comparing these “Fast and Furious” movies, which began, in its current Vin Diesel-fueled incarnation, in the summer of 2001. First, let's remove “Tokyo Drift,” the red-headed stepchild of the franchise, from the equation, since it didn't include any of the original stars. Without it, a clear pattern emerges that is at one with the industry: bigger and bigger opening weekends, shorter and shorter legs:

• “The Fast and the Furious” (2001) grossed $40 million during its opening but $144 million overall. Opening as percentage of total? 28%
• “2 Fast 2 Furious” (2003), the Diesel-less sequel, grossed $50 million opening and $127 overall: 40%.
• “Fast and Furious” (2009)?  $70 million opening, $155 overall: 46%

Each movie makes a bigger splash but with smaller ripples. And if you adjust for inflation, well, nothing's surpassed the original in popularity and dough. 

It'll be interesting to see if “Fast Five” is running on sprinter's legs, like the others, or if it has a bit of the long-distance runner in it. Because for the first time since the first movie, a “Fast and Furious” did well with critics:

• “The Fast and the Furious”: 64%
• “2 Fast 2 Furious”: 39%
• “Tokyo Drift”:43%
• “Fast and Furious”: 21%
• “Fast Five”: 81%

Will these higher numbers translate into a wider audience, and longer legs, or is the audience for these kinds of movies irrevocably narrow, the film's legs inevitably short and stubby?

Elsewhere, both “Prom” and “Hoodwinked Too!” bombed, grossing $5m and $4.1m in 2,700 and 2,500 theaters, respectively. “Dylan Dog,” with former (and underrated) Superman Brandon Routh in the lead, did even worse. It opened in 875 theaters and grossed less than $1 million, which is only a triumph on Bizarro world.

The quick totals.

Sure, “Fast Five” has arms; but does it have legs? (The above photo could also make a good caption contest, if anyone's willing.)

There are many reasons why the box office for a movie, in its second, third and fourth weekends, goes against the norm and doesn't drop off more than 30 percent.

It might have opened poorly and doesn't have much to drop off from. It might have opened opposite a blockbuster, “The Dark Knight,” say, so it takes a while for the audience to go, “Oh yeah, that one.” The distributor might have added hundreds of theaters. It could be the weekend after the Oscar noms, or the Oscars themselves, and that generates buzz. There's also positive word-of-mouth. Better movies, one assumes, have longer legs.

But it's rarity when this happens. How rare? Let's start with wide releases, 2,000+ theaters, where, weekend to weekend, no more than 300 theaters were added. That gives us 107 results for this year.

Of those 107, only 23 dropped off less than 30 percent from one weekend to the next. Here they are, sorted chronologically:

A lot of Oscar contenders here (“True Grit,” “Black Swan,” “King's Speech”), where word of mouth was presumably good. A lot of second-rate animated features (“Yogi Bear,” “Gnomeo and Juliet,” “Mars Needs Moms”), which didn't open well and made up for it in subsequent weekends.

But no weekend has more than three such results. This month it's been even rarer: Just three results for the entire month. And two are the same movie (“Insidious”).

But this weekend it happened five times. Five wide-release films dropped off less than 30 percent from the previous weekend.

It wasn't the number one movie, “Rio,” which dropped off 31 percent.

Numbers two and three were new releases: Tyler Perry's latest, which grossed $25.7, and “Water for Elephants,” which grossed $17.5

Number four? Yes. “Hop,” in its fourth weekend, Easter weekend, added 16.8 percent in revenue over last weekend. Easy to see why.

Number five, “Scream 4,” got killed in its second weekend—like most horror movies. It dropped 61.7 percent.

The rest of the movies I'm talking about are numbers seven through 10: “Soul Surfer” (-23%), “Insidious” (-20.2%), “Hanna” (-27.5%) and “Source Code” (-18.5%). One wonders about their staying power.

Is it the Easter weekend? Maybe. Last Easter weekend, though (April 4), every returning movie dropped more than 30 percent, and the year before, in 2009 (April 11), only two movies (“Knowing” and “I Love You, Man”) dropped less than 30 percent.

Is it word of mouth? Possibly. With the exception of “Hop” and “Soul Surfer,” all the movies have fresh Rotten Tomatoes ratings.

Crappy openings? Sure. With the exception of “Hop,” none of these movies opened with more than $15 million.

In the end, I'd say it's a combination of the Easter weekend, which gets people out, some postive word-of-mouth, which gets people remembering, and the fact that nothing exciting opened. A year ago, when every returning movie dropped more than 30  percent, “Clash of Titans” opened with more than $60 million. A year ago, I imagine families flocking to “Titans” without thought. This weekend, I imagine families looking up at the options, crinkling their noses, and going, “Well ... I heard 'Source Code' is supposed to be pretty good...”

The numbers resurrected at Box Office Mojo here.

What would Ayn Rand make of the opening weekend of “Atlas Shrugged”? What would John Galt? It grossed $1.6 million for 14th place. Sure, it played in a mere 300 theaters so the game was kind of rigged; but the marketplace is always rigged, and whining about it seems somehow unGaltian. Even if you sort by per-theater-average, “Atlas” only rises to 7th place, behind not only the opening weekends of “Scream 4,” “Rio” and the Italian thriller “Double Hour” (playing in only two theaters), but the second weekend of “Meek's Cutoff.” That last title seems particularly appropriate.

So “Rio” won the weekend: $40 million, first place. That's actually the best opening weekend for the year. Eesh. By this time last year we'd already seen opening weekends of $116 million (“Alice in Wonderland”), $61 million (“Clash of the Titans”), $56 million (“Valentine's Day”), $43 million (“How to Train Your Dragon”) and $41 million (“Shutter Island”). We'll shatter that $40 million in two weeks but it demonstrates just how slow 2011 has been out of the gate.

“Scream 4” came in second with $19 million. “Hop” keeps bouncing, finishing with $11.1 million and third, while “Soul Surfer,” the God-has-a-plan-because-a-shark-bit-off-my-arm movie, dropped only 30%, for $7.4 and fourth. “Hanna,” the movie I saw, and recommend, dropped 40% for $7.1 and fifth.

The other new film, Robert Redford's “The Conspirator,” grossed $3.9 in 707 theaters. Ninth.

“Rio” was also the no. 1 movie in 27 other countries. Here are a few of the countries that didn't succumb to Hollywood this weekend (links lead to trailers):

• France: Titeuf, le film
• Japan: OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders
• Netherlands: Gooische vrouwen
• Thailand: King Naresuan: Part Three

My initial intention with the trailers was to show what else was out there, and I assumed, in a grass-is-greener way, that they would be good; but each of these trailers looks horrendous. Which of the four would you sit through? The Thai film looks most Hollywoody, the Japanese flick most Saturday-morning cartoony, so I might go with whatever the hell that Dutch film is. Just to embrace the difference.

OOO, Den-O, All Riders: Let's Go Kamen Riders

Eesh. Not a good weekend for new movies. Four opened, but none came within half of the second weekend of “Hop,” which still dropped 42.2%.

Here's how the top six fared by gross, via boxofficemojo.com, with the four new films in yellow:

Among the newbies, “Arthur” prevailed, barely, but it was also the movie playing in the most theaters. Take theater average and it's ladies first: “Soul Surfer,” then “Hanna,” then “Arthur,” and—last no matter how you slice it—“Your Highness.”

RT numbers are bad on all of these, although “Hannah” almost makes the cut. IMDb numbers are bad on all of these but “Hannah” and ... “Your Highness”? Really?

Does this mean “Your Highness” delivers for its core audience, which is small and stoned? It'll be interesting to see how the films fall off next weekend. Or by how much “Your Highness”'s IMDb numbers fall off.

Miserable.

On the plus side, “Sucker Punch” shed half its theaters and is already out of the top 10.

The three movies that opened in more than 2,000 theaters this weekend finished (big surprise) first, second and third. “Hop,” from Universal, a mix of animation and live-action that didn't do well with the critics (25% on RT) nor, it seems, with audiences (5.5 on IMDb.com), came in first, way first, with $38.1 million. “Source Code,” from Summit Entertainment, garnered good reviews (85%) and $15 million, while “Insidious” got mixed reviews (56%) and $13.4 mil.

I doubt I'll see any of these movies.

But because I'm interested in the upcoming movie, “Superman: Man of Steel,” directed by Zack Snyder, and due out in ... 2013?, I went to see Snyder's “Sucker Punch,” wondering if it was as bad as it seemed. It was. And people know. The movie grossed $19.1 million last weekend (2nd place) but only an estimated $6 million this weekend (7th place), which is a 68.1% drop. How bad is that? For super-saturated movies (3,000+ theaters), it's the 15th worst drop in movie history. And guess what's in 16th place? “Watchmen,” also by Zack Snyder. So we have something of a trend.

Poor Superman. That's worse than being in the hands of Lex Luthor.

Here's the list, from Box Office Mojo, of horrible films that “Sucker Punch” is most deservedly joining. My review up soon:

This is the weekend, the last weekend in March, when not one movie but two movies finally huffed over the $100 million mark. Congratulations, “Rango,” now at $105 million. You, too, “Just Go With It,” now at $100 million. Nice try, “Green Hornet,” stuck at $97 million. On the plus side, you have the largest worldwide gross of any 2011 movie: $227 million. 

These three movies, by the way, are also the three movies that opened in the most theaters this year.

Let's look at that, shall we? Thus far in 2011, we have 12 movies that have opened in more than 3,000 theaters. Here they are: sorted by domestic gross, and including top critics/Rotten Tomatoes score. Think of them as the movies Hollywood thinks we want to watch :

Basically one decent movie out of 12. In baseball, that's an .083 batting average, which is the kind of average that gets you canned. But in baseball, you're still judged more on the quality of play than the number of asses in the seats.

It's nice to see that the one “hit” is also the one hit. The best-reviewed, “Rango,” is the most-watched. Meanwhile, crap movies for boys can do well (“Green Hornet,” “Just Go With It”) but crap movies for girls tend to die quickly (“Red Riding Hood”). Why Hollywood focuses on the boys.

The sad totals.

We're nearly at the vernal equinox and no 2011 movie has grossed more than $100 million. “Just Go With It” (that Adam Sandler thing) is at $98 m, “The Green Hornet” is at $97m, “Gnomeo and Juliet” $93.6m. The quality of the top three raises the question of whether any 2011 movie deserves to be over $100 million; but then I hear Clint Eastwood's voice of wisdom in my head, reminding me, “Deserves got nothin' to do with it, kid.”

Even so, I was semi-intrigued: When was the last time no film had reached $100m by the vernal equinox? Last year at this time, after all, three movies were already past that mark, and one, “Alice in Wonderland,” was on its way to $300 million. The year before we had (or you had) “Paul Blart,” and the year before that ... OK, that was the last time we didn't have a $100 million grosser by this point: 2008. Just “Cloverfield,” “Jumper,” “27 Dresses,” all in the $70m range.

As I kept checking back in time, though, confirming this and that, I began to pay less attention to the grosses and more attention to the movies themselves. The first three months of the year are traditional dumping grounds for studios, and the top three films by the first day of spring often read like a triple feature in hell. Pick your poison:

2011

• “Just Go With It”
• “The Green Hornet”
• “Gnomeo and Juliet”

2010

• “Alice in Wonderland”
• “Shutter Island”
• “Valentine's Day”

2009

• “Paul Blart, Mall Cop”
• “Taken”
• “Watchmen”

2008

• “Cloverfield”
• “Jumper”
• “27 Dresses”

2007

• “300”
• “Ghost Rider”
• “Wild Hogs”

2006

• “The Pink Panther”
• “Eight Below”
• “Big Momma's House 2”

2005

• “Hitch”
• “Are We There Yet?”
• “The Pacifier”

2004

• “The Passion of the Christ”
• “50 First Dates”
• “Along Came Polly”

2003

• “Daredevil”
• “How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days”
• “Bringing Down the House”

2002

• “Snow Dogs”
• “John Q”
• “Ice Age”

2001

• “Hannibal”
• “Save the Last Dance”
• “The Wedding Planner”

Which is the worst? To me, it's gotta be 2007. Machismo repeating itself, first as tragedy (“300”), then as farce (“Wild Hogs”). Not even a frilly, stupid, rom-com as a somewhat icky palate cleanser. Instead just raw meat. How frightened and cowardly does a country have to be to keep indulging in this kind of crap?

If you go far back enough, of course, you reach a time before everything became solidified and commodified, and good movies might reign even in late winter:

• 1985
  • “Witness”
  • “The Breakfast Club”
  • “The Falcon and the Snowman”

Give or take, that's a triple feature worth seeing.

So “Unknown,” with 58-year-old Liam Neeson in the lead, took the top weekend spot from a bunch of kids in “I Am Number Four.” Final estimates: $21.7m vs. $19.5m. Through Sunday.

The bigger news is that two Oscar contenders, “Black Swan” and “The King's Speech,” each passed the $100 million dollar mark, while “True Grit,” despite losing 607 theaters, grossed enough to pass “Grown Ups” and “Clash of the Titans” for 13th place on the 2010 box office chart. Its current gross: $164 million. Wow.

I wrote about the surprising box-office success of best-picture nominees a few weeks ago (“Are Best Picture Nominees Making a Comeback?”), and Patrick Goldstein finally got off the schnied to write about it last week (“The Oscar box office mystery: What brought adult moviegoers back to the theaters?”); but even with his L.A. Times access, he's not asking the right questions; or maybe he's just not getting the right answers.

Why is this happening? Here's an easy answer: It's the distribution, Stupid.

For most of the 2000s, certainly in the second half of the 2000s, Oscar pictures barely got seen because they barely got distributed.

In 2005, one only of the best picture nominees, “Brokeback Mountain,” was distributed into more than 2,000 theaters, and that high point lasted exactly one week.

Things have gotten better since.

In 2006, one picture, “The Departed,” was distributed into more than 2,000 theaters, for a total of six weeks.

In 2007, three pictures, “Juno,” “No Country for Old Men,” and “Michael Clayton,” were thus distributed, for a total of 10 weeks.

In 2008, two pictures, “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Benjamin Button,” for a total of 11 weeks.

In 2009, among the best director nominees—the best correlation to five best picture nominees we now have—three pics (“Avatar,” “Inglourious Basterds” and “Up in the Air”) were in 2,000+ theaters for a total of 19 weeks, but that was mostly “Avatar.”

2010? All five nominees have been distributed into more than 2,000 theaters for a total of 27 weeks. And counting. (“The King's Speech” is currently at 2,086, but I wouldn't be surprised if it dipped below 2,000 next week.)

Some may say, “Well, sure. Movies in general get wider distribution now.” Yes and no. In 2005, 109 of the movies released during the year were distributed into more than 2,000 theaters. By 2008, it was 123 movies. In 2010? Only 121 movies.

No, these best picture/best director movies are getting wider distribution, and sooner in their runs, less from historical trends than because each is perceived to have box office potential.

But this only raises the deeper question: Studios, movies or audience? Are the studios reawakening to the box office potential of Oscar films and getting them out there? Or are these particular movies somehow more distributable/more appealing than the nominees five years ago? Or is the audience for such pictures simply there in a way they weren't five years ago?

And that's just the start.

Why is “The King's Speech” more than doubling “The Queen”'s box office take from four years ago?

How did “Black Swan” get to $100 million? A claustrophobic, paranoiac, Darren Aranofsky film about ballet? Is it that Fox Searchlight can distribute and market anything? Or is “Black Swan” less about ballet than about the cattiness and competition of girls, and thus has that B-movie “Single White Female” appeal?

Oddly, the one of the five movies that seemed to have the best shot at boffo box office, “The Fighter,” an uplifting underdog story starring a pumped-up leading man and a slimmed-down superhero, is doing the least well of the five. Find me somebody who predicted that in November.

Chart below.

No. of weeks best picture nominees were distributed
into more than 1,000 or 2,000 theaters: 2005-2010

I don't know if I was late to Box Office Magazine's Web site, boxoffice.com, or if Box Office Magazine, in print since the 1920s, was late to the Web, but I discovered the site last November and have visited it occasionally since. Along with the usual suspects (weekend estimates/actuals), it displays more modern indicators of moviegoer interest: Facebook (“Transformers: Dark Side of the Moon” already has 3.8 million fans), Twitter (don't mess with Justin Bieber) and Most-Viewed Trailers (the last installment of “Harry Potter”: by far).

What intrigued me the most, though, was a section called Long Term Projections. Here's a screenshot I took last November, which includes projections of films all the way to “No Strings Attached”:

Table 1: Boxoffice.com's Long-Term Projectons: Nov-Jan

I was curious to see how predictable we are.

And?

And ... we're getting there. But not yet.

Here's a chart of boxoffice.com's opening weekend predictions versus the actual opening-weekend grosses, sorted by how well a movie did against the prediction:

Table 2: Opening Weekend Projections vs. Actuals (in millions)

So boxoffice.com got one exactly right (“The Fighter”). It was within 10 percent for four of the 20 movies, within 25 percent for nine of the 20. It was off by more than 50 percent for four of the films, and off by more than 100 percent for one film.

“True Grit” has certainly lived up to its name. It was supposed to fold out of the gate but started strong. Plus it's not fading. (More on that later.) That same wekeend in December, “Little Fockers” opened slightly bigger, with $30 million, but against a predicted $45 million. Plus it's kind of sputtered. (More on that later.)

The bigger bombs, against the long-term projections, are “The Dilemma,” “Gulliver's Travels,” “How Do You Know” and “The Tourist.” What do these films have in common? With the exception of “Gulliver's,” they're all vaguely funny/vaguely serious films aimed at grown-ups. Plus they all received bad reviews. (More on that later.)

As for how well boxoffice.com predicted each film's total grosses? Obviously it's a little early for some of these, but let's take a look:

Table 3: Total Gross: Projections vs. Actuals (in millions)

Only one film, “Harry Potter,” is within 10% of the prediction. That one will creep closer to 100% but not close enough. It's already running out of steam. “Tron” won't make the prediction, either, but it could crawl to within 10%. Of the other 11 films below “Tron,” only “No Strings Attached,” which just opened, has a chance to come close to the prediction. The others are floundering, listing, or have already sunk. (I had to look up “The Next Three Days” to even remember what it was.)

Again, boxoffice.com completely underestimated “True Grit,” which, despite grossing almost twice as much as the site predicted, is still going strong. This past weekend it finished in fifth place with another $8 million, down only 27%. Next weekend it'll probably catch “Little Fockers.” Did anyone see that coming in November? A film by the Coen Bros., who have never had a film gross more than $75 million, outperforming “Fockers,” whose previous film grossed $279 million in 2004 dollars? That sound you hear, by the way, is the sound of me smiling.

Before signing off, let me add two more tables. They're the same two tables as above but with one additional column: the Rotten Tomatoes top critics rating for each film (“fresh” films in red):

Table 4: Opening Weekend Projections vs. Actuals (with RT scores)

Table 3: Total Gross: Projections vs. Actuals (with RT scores)

It's a small sample size but quality seems to matter—as I've argued here and here and here. And everywhere. Making a quality film and releasing it wide may not guarantee big bucks; but you're almost guaranteed that the film will do better than you, or boxoffice.com, thinks.

This year I’ve been reading and immensely enjoying Neal Gabler’s 1989 book “An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood” (more on this in later posts), so it’s a supreme bummer to come across Gabler’s recent article, “The end of cultural elitism,” in The Boston Globe.

I found it in the usual, pinball-y, online manner: a post from Roger Ebert on Facebook bounced me to A.O. Scott’s takedown in The New York Times which pinged me over to Gabler’s original article.

Except his thought isn’t that original. Did you know elitists have been telling the people, which is you and I, what to see and like since the republic began? But now, with the help of that great, democratizing medium, the Web, with its aggregate and social networking sites, the people, which is you and I, are fighting back? And the year that just passed is the year we finally won?

Evidence? He gives three examples of products pushed on the public that the public pushed back, unopened:

• “The Social Network": Critics loved it but, according to Gabler, “something startling happened. Audiences didn’t bow. They yawned.”
• Jonathan Franzen’s novel, “Freedom,” which “soared to the top of the bestseller lists but didn’t linger long.”
• HBO’s “Boardwalk Empire”: “Once again, the tastemakers proved far more enthusiastic than audiences. Though HBO, as a subscription service, is not ratings addicted, the show’s ratings have plummeted, and ‘Boardwalk Empire’ has hardly made the kind of impression that ‘The Sopranos’ did.

A.O. Scott comes to the defense of each of these examples but I’ll just deal with the first.

“The Social Network” was the no. 1 movie in America during its first two weekends, and has thus far grossed $94 million, which makes it (again: thus far) the 31st highest-grossing movie of the year. Not bad for a drama in which words employ the same function as guns in most Hollywood films. (Vocabulary is to Aaron Sorkin as gunpowder is to Michael Bay.)

It's also the current favorite to win the best picture Oscar. Last year’s best picture winner, “The Hurt Locker,” grossed only $17 million, which was only good enough for 116th place for the year, which is some kind of low point for best picture winners. So why doesn't Gabler make 2009 his year that people stopped listening to the cultural elites? Because then Gabler couldn’t sell his article? Because he didn’t notice what he thinks is a pattern until 2010?

I confess: I’m not seeing his pattern. I’m seeing the opposite of his pattern. Critically acclaimed movies that I thought would be released like “The Hurt Locker” (that is: parsimoniously) and gross like “The Hurt Locker” (that is: painstakingly), are actually filling theaters. It’s not just “The Social Network.”

“True Grit,” a western from the Coen brothers, whose previous highest grosser stopped at $74 million, is currently riding the high country at $126 million and shows no signs of slowing down.

More amazingly, “The Black Swan,” a film about ballet, of all subjects, directed by indie and critical darling Darren Aronofsky, of all directors, whose previous four films have grossed a combined $43 million, has currently grossed $74 million, and is set to pass such would-be tentpole flicks as “The A-Team.” That’s something to be celebrated.

Add in “Inception,” “Shutter Island” and “The Town,” and 2010 was a pretty good year for audiences turning out to watch sometimes difficult, critically acclaimed films. As I've written before, critics and moviegoers have more in common than critics and moviegoers realize.

If Gabler is saying that moviegoers are showing up for the good films (“True Grit”), and ignoring the bad ones (“How Do You Know”), because of word-of-mouth engendered by social networking sites like Facebook, and aggregate sites like Rotten Tomatoes, and that these sites are cutting into the traditional cultural authority of critics, well, then Gabler is saying this poorly, with horrible examples, and with a demonization and sense of conspiracy from an Other (“cultural elitists” and “commissars”) that stinks of the cheap shots and half-truths of a Michael Medved.

I would add the following. It relates to something A.O. Scott writes in his sharp rebuttal:

There is a cultural elite, in America, which tries its utmost to manipulate the habits and tastes of consumers. It consists of the corporations who sell nearly everything with the possible exception of classical music and conceptual arts, and while its methods include some of the publicity-driven hype that finds its way into newspapers, magazines and other traditional media, its main tool is not criticism but marketing.

If social networking sites like Facebook, and aggregated sites like Rotten Tomatoes, are cutting into any authority, it’s not the critics', who are aggregated, after all, on Rotten Tomatoes, and who, as A.O. Scott reminds us, have rarely been listened to anyway. The authority that’s being cut into is the corporations', the marketers', the PR people, who have spent decades pushing crap on us and calling it ice cream.

Gabler (left) feels the cultural elites have finally been defeated; Scott (right) feels they were never in power.

Last week Brandon Gray over at boxofficemojo.com pointed out that November's box office was down by 10% compared with last year, while actual attendance hit a 15-year low.

The second weekend in December isn't helping matters.

Just last month, a rival site, boxoffice.com, predicted the third in the “Chronicles of Narnia” series would open at $36 million, while the Johnny Depp/Angelina Jolie thriller, “The Tourist,” would come in second at $32 million. It got one thing right: Both films finished 1 and 2. The numbers were slightly off, though: $24.5m and $17m.

Not good. When the first “Chronicles” opened in '05, it grossed $65 million on its way to $290 million domestic. The second in '08? Opened with $55 million on its way to $141 million domestic. Now $24 million. On its way to $70 million? That tentpole ain't holding up much tent. Fickle Christians.

“The Tourist”'s numbers are also surprising. The last time a Johnny Depp film opened in more than 2,000 theaters and made less money opening weekend was in October 2001, pre-Capt. Jack Black, when “From Hell” grossed $11 million a month after 9/11. Even “Secret Window” in '04 grossed more opening weekend.

Neither “Narnia” nor “Tourist” was well-reviewed, by the way. Top critics gave “Narnia” 48% and “The Tourist” just 7%. Word gets around, times are tough, presents need to be bought. Better movies are coming.

Totals here.

They've killed their God. Or at least their God's franchise.

Weekend reports are in, and with no movies opening superwide, this weekend's top 5 is a slightly rejiggered version of last weekend's top 5. Instead of 1) Harry Potter, 2) Tangled, 3) Megamind, 4) Burlesque, 5) Unstoppable, it's 1) Tangled, 2) Harry Potter, 3) Burlesque, 4) Unstoppable, 5) Love and Other Drugs. (“Megamind” dropped 238 theaters in the interim.)

So it's a good weekend to talk about legs. As in movies with legs. As in movies that last. We're in the 12th month of the year: Which movies lasted?

My methodology is simple. I take the total box-office take of a film and divide it by its opening weekend. The movies with the best legs tend to make four to five times their opening-weekend haul; the worst can't even duplicate their opening weekend.

I've discounted films that open on Wednesdays (“Twilight: Eclipse”), since their opening weekend is weaker, making their legs look better, as well as movies that opened in limited release and then went wide (“Hereafter”). A film's opening release should be within spitting range of its widest release.

I eliminated “The Girl Who Played with Fire,” for example. In terms of legs, it's got 'em, grossing more than eight times its opening-weekend box office of $904,000. But its widest release (185 theaters) is almost twice its opening release (108 theaters) and that's not spitting range. (Discussion for another time: only 185 theaters? Isn't Music Box Films being cautious with a movie based on one of the most talked-about books of the 21st century? Or is it not their choice?)

So, given those parameters, here are the movies with the best legs of 2010:

Kind of what we expected. You've got your kids movies (“Dragon,” “Despicable”), movies for older folks who don't rush to movies (“Secretariat,” “Red”), movies for girls (“The Runaways,” “Letters to Juliet”), and the critically acclaimed (“Inception,” “The Social Network”). What you don't have, what you can't have, are sequels. Sequels draw opening weekend. The audience is already there, it doesn't have to be encouraged to get there. (In case you're wondering, the 2010 sequel with the longest legs is, “Toy Story 3,” which opened with $110 million and still grossed 3.76 times that number. It's why it's the no. 1 movie of the year.)

As for the worst legs? I've eliminated November releases since they haven't had a chance to outdistance their opening-weekend take yet. (But I'm watching you, “Skyline.”) Here they are:

Again, kind of expected. Horror movies (“Elm Street,” “Wolfman,” “Daybreakers,” “Exorcism,” “Saw 3D”) tend to decompose quickly. They basically appeal to one demographic and no one else. “Jonah Hex” was a famous bust (and a semi-horror film, now that I think about it), so that's no surprise, either. I almost took “Valentine's Day” and “The Wolfman” off the list because they opened on a four-day weekend, a kind of holiday weekend, but the above numbers are only through its opening Sunday. So they stayed.

But look at that. Five of these movies couldn't even double their opening weekend take. The horror, the horror.

In the end, this is all about word-of-mouth, or attempting to calculate word-of-mouth. The films in the first table just tend to be better than the films in the second table. As measured by the top critics of Rotten Tomatoes, Table A films averaged a 63.5% rating (from “The Social Network” at 100% to “Grown Ups” at 10%), while Table B films averaged a 28.9% rating (from “The Last Exorcism” at 71% to “Jonah Hex” at 7%).

Most of the films I've recommended this year, when asked, tend to be those films that opened in NY and LA and then went limited (“Un Prophete”; “Restrepo”), but I have recommended two from Table A: “Inception” and “Social Network.”

What about you? Which movies have you recommended? Which movies have been recommended to you?

The seventh “Harry Potter” movie had the sixth-best opening weekend in U.S. box office history, grossing an estimated $125 million in three days, which is the best opening ever for Harry, Ron and Hermione. Unless you adjust for inflation. Then it's the third-best, after “Goblet of Fire” in '05 ($127 million) and “Sorcerer's Stone” in '01 ($126 million).

(You could argue that “Sorcerer's” did so well because it was the first, while “Goblet” did well because it followed “Prisoner of Azkaban,” which, according to my nephew, Jordy, is the best of the lot.)

Keep in mind, though: the last two, “Half Blood Prince” and “Order of the Phoenix” opened on Wednesdays, so you don't have that true boffo box-office weekend. Regardless, there's obvious interest in “Harry Potter 7.”

How much interest? All of the returning wide-release movies fell off by at least 40%, which doesn't happen often, while the only other new, wide-release movie, Russell Crowe's “The Next Three Days” (awful title), grossed only $6.7 million, for fifth place.

BTW: all of those returning films that fell off by 40-50%? “Skyline” wishes it was one of them. Universal added three theaters but “Skyline” still dropped more than 70% to gross $3.4 million. Good enough for 7th place this weekend but bad enough for the 12th-worst second-weekend drop among wide-release films ever:

The magical totals here.

How odd to be Tony Scott. You've directed 16 movies and the most popular is your second, “Top Gun” ($176 million in 1986), and your second-most popular is your third, “Beverly Hills Cop II” ($153 million in 1987), and since then only one of your movies, “Enemy of the State” ($111 million in 1998), has topped $100 million.

That's unadjusted, by the way. So your current movies, with all that inflation, don't come close to your 1986 movie and its puny 1986 dollars. Ouch.

But at least you keep making movies. And at least you keep making movies with Denzel—despite diminishing returns: “Crimson Tide” in '95 ($91 million), “Man on Fire” in '04 ($77 million), “Deja Vu” in '06 ($64 million) and “The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3” in '09 ($65 million). That last movie was considered a box-office disappointment but you've got balls. So does Denzel. A Tony Scott-directed movie about trains starring Denzel did so-so business, so you're back with... a Tony Scott-directed movie about trains starring Denzel. It does similarly. “Pelham” opened at $23.3m, “Unstoppable” at $23.5m. “Unstoppable” wound up second for the weekend to “Megamind,” which, in 10 days, has already grossed more than “The Social Network” has in 45 days ($89m vs. $87m). Inventing Facebook? We prefer our megaminds to be cartoons, thank you.

The two other big openers didn't open well. The low-budget but high-tech “Skyline” grossed $11m in 2800 theaters, while the adult drama, “Morning Glory,” about the dumbing down of morning talk shows, grossed $9m in 2500 theaters. They finished 4th and 5th, respectively. “Due Date,” or “Planes, Trains and Automobiles Redux,” came in third.

In other, better news, the “Saw” franchise appears to be dead. It peaked in '05 with “Saw II” ($86m) and it's been downhilll ever since. “Saw VI” only made $27m but I guess LionsGate wanted to see what sadism looked like in 3D. Opening weekend worked: $22 million. But now they're pulling out fast, dumping 800+ theaters, and last weekend it only grossed $2.7m for a 17-day total of not even twice as much as its three-day opener: $43m. Please play taps already.

Clint Eastwood's “Hereafter” (or, in self-help mood: “Hereafter: How Your Dead Loved Ones Can Help You Live a Better Life”), is also dead. Warner Bros. pulled it from 674 theaters and it responded with $1.3m and 13th place, for a total gross of $31 million. With the exception of “Letters from Iwo Jima” (which was in Japanese and did lousy business) and “Gran Torino” (in which Clint killed bad guys and which did boffo business), Eastwood's last six films have all settled in the $30 million range:

“Hereafter”: $31.4 (*still playing)
“Invictus”: $37.4
“Changeling”: $35.7
“Flags of Our Fathers”: $33.6

Many of these did better abroad—particularly in France. “Changeling” made $77m in the foreign market, “Invictus” $84m. “Hereafter” hasn't been released globally yet but one imagines it will since it's got an international cast and inernational settings. Clint Eastwood, the All-American tough guy, has become, in box-office terms, Woody Allen: more appreciated abroad than at home.

The sad totals.

I went to the movies twice last week, Tuesday and Friday, both times at the Uptown Cinemas in lower Queen Anne. For the Tuesday night show, “A Film Unfinished,” a documentary analyzing a Nazi propaganda film about the Warsaw ghetto (review up tomorrow), there was only one other person in the audience. For the Friday evening show, the Chinese film “Aftershock,” a melodrama about a family torn apart by the Tangshan earthquake of 1976, the theater wasn't so crowded. It was just me. Seriously.

This is what everyone else was going to see this weekend:

1. An estimated 2,830,200 moviegoers saw the sixth installment of a horror franchise in which a maniac makes victims saw off parts of their own bodies to survive. 
2. Two million people saw the second installment of a horror franchise involving security cameras and the supernatural.
3. More than 1.3 million people went for an action-comedy about four elderly CIA agents who come out of retirement to kill the vice-president of the United States.
4. More than a million people went for a TV comedy/documentary in which amateurs do crazy stunts and hurt themselves.
5. Around 795K tried a drama in which the dead help the living get on with their lives.
6. 637K saw a family film about a 1970s racehorse touched by God.
7. Half a million went for a drama about the founding of Facebook.
8. Half a million saw a romantic comedy about a man and a woman who don't like each other but who have to raise an orphaned girl together.
9. A quarter million went for a drama about the romance between a bank robber and a bank manager.
10. Finally, a little over 200,000 moviegoers saw a based-on-a-true-story drama about a woman who puts herself through law school to help her imprisoned brother.

And all this time I thought I was at odds with my country politically.

The sad totals here.

Of the above movies that I haven't seen, I'm only interested in “The Town” (no. 8), and maybe “Conviction” (no. 10).

The movies I recommend? “The Social Network” and “A Film Unfinished.”

What about you? See anything this weekend? Any recommendations?

Yes, “Jackass 3-D” was no. 1 at the box office this weekend. Yes, it set a record for September/October by opening with an estimated $50 million. Yes, that's the best opening weekend since “Inception”'s in mid-July. Yes yes yes.

I'm more interested in this number: 38. That's the percentage difference between the number of Rotten Tomato's top critics who liked “Jackass 3D” (29%) and the overall critics who liked “Jackass 3D” (67%).

That's a huge discrepancy.

How huge? The difference for “Red,” which opened in second place with $22 million, is 10% (70% for all critics, 60% for top critics).

The difference for “The Social Network,” which fell only 28.8% for another $11 million and third place, is 3% (97% for all critics, 100% for top critics).

In fact, among the top 10 films, the largest discrepancy for a film other than “Jackass”'s 38% is “Easy A”'s 11% (86% from all critics, 97% from top critics).

“Jackass”'s huge discrepancy may be due partly to the small sample size. There are usually 100-200 reviews for a film opening wide. As of this morning, there are only 45 for “Jackass.” Paramount didn't screen it for critics because it didn't have to. Critics just get in the way of these kinds of things. 

Besides, if you're a critic, what do you say about a movie like this? That it's stupid and disgusting? That it loves groin shots and midget bar fights? And poop geysers? (Best line I've read comes from Kurt Loder, who, according to RT's system, gave it a thumbs up: “Most of us think of a penis as having two purposes. But as we learn in Jackass 3D, this is a narrow view.”)

Either way, “Jackass” seems the 38th parallel of movies: forever dividing top critics, who want story, and online critics, who want.

I'm also intrigued, in an offhand kind of way, with which of these two groups goes higher for which film. The expectation is for top critics to be more discrminating than all critics, but, among the top 10, that's not nearly true. Top Critics gave lower numbers to only four of the 10 (“Jackass,” “Red,” “The Town,” and “My Soul to Take”), but gave higher numbers to the other six (“The Social Network,” “Secretariat,” “Life As We Know It,” “Ga'Hoole,” “Easy A” and “Wall Street”).

Mostly, though, I know the $50 million open means we'll not only get another “Jackass” sequel in a year or four, but copycat “Jackass”es from other studios.

The sad totals here.

I'm glad "The Social Network" won the weekend again. It's a good movie, possibly a great movie, that deserves a wide audience. 

I'm also glad the new wide releases, "Life As We Know It," "Secretariat," and "My Soul to Take" all tanked. Both the first and the third look like crap movies (28% and 6% on Rotten Tomatoes), while the second is a crap movie, a pile of non-horse crap (since we don't see much of the horse), which somehow garnered a...WTF? 65% rating on Rotten Tomatoes? And 75% from TOP critics? Is the world insane? One critic, Jenna Busch of Huffington Post, while applauding the film, counsels caution: "...but I'm not sure the Oscar buzz is appropriate here." That's like telling baseball fans that MVP buzz for Willie Bloomquist isn't quite appropriate. You only have to make such a statement in a world where B.S. and P.R. rule.

Here's my cautionary statement: Last weekend was still the second-weakest weekend of the year: $92 million overall.

And comparing this weekend, the 41st weekend, to the same weekend in other years? Not good. Every 41st weekend since 2001, except for 2005 (remake of "The Fog"), grossed better numbers. That's undadjusted for inflation.

Adjust, and you have to go back to 1995, with the top draw another David Fincher film, "Seven," for lower numbers.

But so what, right? I'd rather have fewer people show up in the theaters for "The Social Network" or "Seven," than 10 percent more show up for the likes of "Beverly Hills Chihuaua" (2008) or "Couples Retreat" (2009).

The happy totals here.

Marion aime "The Social Network," a film with legs.

Patrick Goldstein needs to work on his follow-ups.

In this post, he begins well. He notices that Ron Howard's film, "The Dilemma," with Vince Vaughn, Kevin James, Jennifer Connelly and Queen Latifah, opens in January—the traditional dumping ground for crap movies. He wonders: Has a Ron Howard film ever opened in January? He answers his question: Nope.

So he goes to Universal Pictures, Howard's longtime studio, and asks why they're dumping "The Dilemma" in January.

Michael Moses, Universal's co-president of marketing, tells him: "We really believe that there are 52 good opportunities a year for the right movie. It's gotten to the point where you can have success in virtually any month of the year, if you position the film correctly." Then he points to the success Universal had in 2009 with "Fast and Furious" (April) and "Couples Retreat" (October) as examples.

Quick quiz: What's the follow-up question? Here a a few off the top of my head:

• "Even so: Why 'The Dilemma'? Why not another Universal pic?"
• "Yeah, but 'Fast and Furious' wasn't a star-powered film and 'Couples Retreat' wasn't funny. Both are B- or C-grade films, and it makes sense to push a B- or C-grade films into weaker months. Is that what's going on with 'The Dilemma'? Is it just not very good? Is it tracking badly?
• "Would you ever open a tentpole film in January?"

Instead Goldstein asks...nothing. He has no follow-up. In the post, he accepts what Moses says as gospel; as if it came from the other Moses.

Well, he does have a few follow-ups. Unfortunately, they're asked of his readership:

So what will become the new dump month? With the Oscars moving up, could it be February? With global warming increasing each year, could it be August? If anyone wants to nominate a deserving new month, I'm all ears.

All ears. I remember when writers were more than that.

Some of the great, great films that were positioned correctly last January.

I've been a bit lax with this column for reasons of travel, sickness, and September box-office blues, along with some aspect of hosting Sunday-night get-togethers to watch HBO's "Boardwalk Empire" (are we the only ones doing this?), but thought I'd post tardily on "The Social Network" weekend anyway.

First, kudos to Sony/Columbia for opening the film in more than 2,000 theaters. The first weekend in October is the weekend Warner Bros., in 2007, opened "Michael Clayton"—another well-reviewed film with Oscar potential—but in only 15 theaters. A week later, they opened it wider but it finished fourth, and floundered from there, never finding its audience until DVD when it didn't matter. No doubt the subject matter of "The Social Network" (internets!), and the average age of its stars (young!), helped Sony push it wider. Is that where we're going now? We can only get smart dramas in theaters if they star kids?

Thankfully "TSN" and its 97% Rotten Tomatoes rating won the weekend, grossing more than twice as much ($22m to $10m) as runner-up "Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole," in its second weekend, and far ahead of new releases "Case 39" and "Let Me In," which finished 7th and 8th respectively. 

All good. Except last weekend's overall take, $94 million, was the second-worst of the year, behind only the $81 million from weekend no. 37 (the "Resident Evil" weekend). Every other weekend this year has grossed between $100 million and $220 million.

One might blame the time of year. It's all apple-picking and football-watching now. Except the first weekend in October in 2009, 2008, 2006, 2005 and 2004 all did better—even unadjusted for inflation. Only 2007, the weekend both "The Heartbreak Kid" and "The Seeker: The Dark is Rising" opened and bombed, saw worse numbers. 

On the plus side, "The Social Network" seems to be getting good word-of-mouth. Its Sunday and Monday percentage drops were less than every other film in the top 10.

My concern, though, is that many moviegoers are like my friend Vinny, who saw the trailer and thought, "That looks like a rental." They'll wait until it comes out in DVD. When it won't matter.

Totals here.

"If you guys wanted to see 'The Social Network,'
you'd have seen 'The Social Network.'"

Well, that sucked.

We knew it would. The big opener, the only wide opener, was the fourth “Resident: Evil” movie, and none of these movies (the first, “Apocalypse,” “Exctinction” and now “Afterlife”) has ever garnered higher than a 17% rating among top critics on Rotten Tomatoes, and none has grossed more than $55 million at the U.S. box office.

“Afterlife” opened better than the rest, $27.7m, unless you adjust for inflation, in which case it's still second-best. Expect a big drop next weekend, though. Every one of these things, even the first, dropped between 62% and 67% during the second weekend. There's a small but loyal audience for this crap so every three years ScreenGems trots out something during a weak weekend in September. 

How weak was this weekend? The weakest of the year: $77 million, shattering the previous low of $100 million set back during April when “The Back-Up Plan” and “The Losers” opened. Par for the course. The second weekend in September is often among the lowest earners of the year. It was second-worst in 2009, 2007, 2005, 2003, and worst in 2006. Fifteen weekends left this year. Place your bets.

“Takers,” a forgettable movie in its third week, finished second, with $6.1m. Last weekend's champ, “The American,” fell off 55 percent for $5.8 million and third place.

The sad totals here.

In other news: Two weekends ago, I wrote that “Twilight” is only $2 million from $300 million but down to 400+ theaters so it probably wouldn't make that milestone. Well, this weekend, at this late stage, Summit Entertainment added 791 theaters, so apparently they're gunning for it. The movie took in another $745K, which puts it less than $400K away.

“Inception” pulled in another $3 million for $282 million for the year. Worldwide it's at $701 million. That's 41st best ever. 18th best ever among non-sequels. Unadjusted.

Have you seen “Restrepo”? Do! It's playing in 37 theaters around the  U.S., has grossed $1.2 million, and is one of the best movies of the year.

Me, I took advantage of the crap weekend to see “Winter's Bone,” which has been out since June, but never in more than 141 theaters. It's now grossed $5.6 million. Not sure where it landed this weekend, since it isn't among the estimates, but to its $5.6 mil add my $9 times the six people in the Uptown Theater Friday evening. Review up tomorrow.

Alice keeps living here anymore.

It's been a while since I've ranted about Michael Cieply or Brooks Barnes over at The New York Times, but Barnes' latest, “Even Hits Like 'Kick-Ass' Can Seem Misses at Debut,” pissed me off all over again.

It's not the sentiment behind it: Too much attention is paid to opening weekends. I agree with that. I'd like more attention paid to movies with legs, too.

It's the numbers. They keep fudging the numbers.

Here's the lede:

LOS ANGELES — In early April, as Lionsgate prepared to release “Kick-Ass,” the movie capital buzzed that the film looked to be a smash hit. Lionsgate had acquired it for just $15 million, and surveys that track audience interest projected a $30 million opening weekend.

The movie, directed by Matthew Vaughn, instead opened with $19.8 million, and the chatter, fueled by the blogosphere, abruptly turned negative. Misfire! Bomb! Flop!

As it turns out, “Kick-Ass” is living up to its title. The picture, about a teenager who tries to become a superhero, went on to generate about $97 million in ticket sales and is on track to sell over two million copies on DVD and digital download services.

Nice Hollywood ending for “Kick-Ass.” But like most Hollywood endings, it's false. Or fudged.

The movie opened with $19.8 million domestically. It closed with $97 million worldwide. Its domestic close was $48 million—not even three times its opening weekend. It may be profitable, but that's hardly a movie with legs.

Barnes keeps doing this, too. Here's a graf later in the article:

There are other recent examples of movies that were quickly deemed misses but turned into hits. “Date Night,” the 20th Century Fox comedy starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey, was branded a disappointment when it opened to $25 million. Yet it finally captured over $152 million. “The Last Song” had a $16 million opening in March — lower than expected — but went on to sell $89 million at the global box office for Walt Disney Studios.

“Date Night” opened at $25 million domestically but grossed $152 million worldwide ($98 million domestically). “The Last Song” opened at $16 million domestically and grossed $89 million worldwide ($62.9 million domestically).

It's not just that Barnes isn't comparing the same things. He's not telling his readers that he's not comparing the same things.

And if you're going to do a piece like this, on the long legs of some modern movies, why not focus on the film that has the longest legs this year? “How to Train Your Dragon” opened at $43 million domestically and grossed $217 million domestically, or five times its opening, but that film only gets a graf midway through Barnes' article. Most of the article is about LionsGate's “Kick-Ass,” which didn't even gross three times its opening. Why?

Here are some past arguments I've had with Barnes/Cieply:

• What's Brooks Barnes Got Against Pixar? (June 1, 2009)
• Two Face (July 28, 2008)
• Why is The New York Times Encouraging Hollywood's Myopia? (May 16, 2008)

I guess the theme snaking through these arguments is that Barnes/Cieply cover the industry for the industry and not for moviegoers. Not sure why you would do that.

Why does Hollywood treat Labor Day as the red-headed stepchild of four-day weekends? It’s stuck there at the end of summer, the kids are going back to school, but can’t a brother get a last gasp? Instead of looking back to fun and sun, Hollywood uses the holiday to look ahead to the horrors of October and the semi-seriousness of autumn—but not with their best stuff. Usually with lousy stuff. Moviegoers respond accordingly by not showing up.

Here are the biggest box-office openers for each four-day weekend:

1. Memorial Day: "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End": $139,802,190
2. Presidents Day: "Valentine's Day": $63,135,312
3. MLK Day: "Cloverfield" $46,146,546
4. Labor Day: "Halloween (2007)": $30,591,759

Not even close. Plus the films the studios trot out over Labor Day read like a marquee in hell: “Jeepers Creepers” (1 and 2), “Balls of Fury,” “All About Steve,” “The Wicker Man,” “Babylon A.D.” And those are the popular ones.

So consider ourselves lucky that we got “The American” this weekend and some of us (including Patricia and I—review up soon) actually went to see it. It topped the three-day weekend with $13 million and the four-day weekend with $16 million—just ahead of “Machete”’s $11 million and $14 million, and far ahead of “Going the Distance”’s $6.9 million and $8.6 million. The Justin Long-Drew Barrymore rom-com finished in fifth place. Barrymore has been with us forever but she’s still only 35, so, despite the soft open, expect more of these. Someone, by the way, should do a look at the history of the Barrymore rom-com: from Adam Sandler (9 years older) through Hugh Grant (15 years older) to Justin Long (3 years younger).

Last weeks’s 1 and 2, “Takers” and “The Last Exorcism,” finished 3 and 4, falling off, respectively, 46.9% and 63.6%. Normal falls for such films, but, given the holiday weekend, fairly steep falls.

“The Expendables,” in comparison, dropped only 30% and has now grossed $94 million; the $100 million mark is only a matter of time. “The Other Guys,” fell off only 15% to bring its cumulative take to $108 million and put “Robin Hood” ($105m) in its rearview mirror. In its headlights? “Valentine’s Day” ($110m).

In 8th place? “Eat, Pray, Love,” which fell off only 29% and has steadily climbed to a $70 million gross. No. 9, “Inception,” dropped just 7% and stands at $278m (and $696m worldwide). Somewhere in the last week, “Despicable Me” passed “Shrek Forever After.”

The totals.

Finally a request. Box Office Mojo? Your abs ads are beginning to creep me out. More reptile than man. Turn it down a notch, will ya?

Researching predictions about how 2010 summer box office would turn out, I came across this April piece from Gregory Ellwood on Hitflix.com. I'm not a fan of prognostication but he does pretty well. Here's his numbers against the actual rankings:

He predicts three of the 10 exactly right. He also predicts which five movies will be in the top five. Flip a couple ("TS3" and "IM2") and he has seven of the 10. Add "The Other Guys," which has a chance to finish the summer ranked 10th and he has 8 of the 10. That's pretty stunning. Someone call Nate Silver.

The only two he gets wrong are "Sex and the City 2," which bombed because it stunk, and "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," about which, in the "pro" section of that film, he writes, "If 'Persia' is a disappointment, Jerry Bruckheimer can't be wrong about two potential summer tentpoles can he?" Answer: Yes, he can. So "Sorcerer's" is really only there because he figured "Persia" wouldn't live up to the hype. Which it didn't.

To give you an idea what he was predicting against, here are some readers' comments at the end:

• Seeing as how the 10th movie in this list is expected to gross $110 million, I find it kinda hard to understand why Prince of Persia wasn't included. Do you think it won't even cross 100mil Greg? (It didn't: it topped out at $90.6 million domestically.)
• Not enough attn. paid to Prince of Persia here imo. (Shows what your o is worth, kid.)
  
• Prince of Persia will also make close to $200 million just on the fact that it's similar to POTC. ("Prince of the City"? Oh, "Pirates of the Caribbean." Really? It is? Even the backdrop seems diametrically opposed: sand vs. water.)
  
• Where's 'The A-Team' and 'Knight & Day'?? (Finishing 16th and 17th for the summer, respectively.)
  

On the other hand, there's this from a guy named Yun Xia. He actually gets the top 5 in the right order... but then screws up with "Sex and the City" and "Prince of Persia" and "The A-Team." Interestingly, he gets "Robin Hood"'s b.o. totals exactly right, $105 million, just not its place in the pantheon. It's higher up: 10th not 15th. Thus far. Even so: hen hao.

So did anyone screw up? Well, the folks at "Get the Big Picture" did think both "Iron Man" and "Shrek" would both beat "Toy Story," and they include both Bruckheimer films in the top 10. The also predict big for "Robin Hood." Bigger, I should say.

But, overall, most of the April 2010 predictors predicted the top 5 correctly. It's numbers 6-10 where people stumbled.

Glad to see we're not completely predictable. Yet.

Marion will haunt your dreams for thinking so highly of Bruckheimer.

“The Last Exorcism” won the weekend with $21.3 million but big deal. It made $9.4 million on Friday then kept dropping as the first-night horror crowd went elsewhere and no word-of-mouth bucked it up. Finishing second, or possibly first if these estimates are off, is “Takers,” a third-rate heist film with a sixth-rate title, currently at $21 milliion. Both movies will be gone and forgotten in two weeks. They are the dregs of summer—the last gasp before the studios begin to get semi-serious in September.

This weekend's overall take, $113 million, was also the lowest of the summer. Only the last two weekends in April did worse business for the year.

Of the other new films, none are new films. “Avatar: Special Edition,” playing in 812 theaters, grossed another $4 million, while the movie I saw this weekend, “Mesrine: L'instinct de mort,” a 2008 French film starring Vincent Cassel, grossed $150K in 28 theaters. Review up tomorrow.

Of the returning films still in wide release (2,000+ theaters), the one that held up best was, again, “Inception,” losing 331 theaters and dropping only 34.9%. The biggest drop among wide releases? “Piranha 3D,” 57.4%, followed closely by “Vampires Suck” at 56.6%.

Milestones? “Toy Story 3” became the seventh film, and the first animated film, to gross more than $1 billion worldwide—although it's still no. 2 for the year, $12 million behind “Alice in Wonderland,” which topped out at $1.024 billion this spring. Both are Buena Vista.

As summer dies, “Inception” keeps firing away.

UPDATE: RE: The estimates being off? Yes.

This was a good weekend to catch up on better movies that opened earlier in the summer—Patricia and I did this with Will Ferrell's "The Other Guys," which is pretty damned funny (review up tomorrow)—and while it can be argued that most of us did do this, since the five new releases finished second, fourth, and six through eight, still, this weekend, nearly $50 million was spent on them, with the best-reviewed of the lot, "Nanny McPhee Returns," doing worst, and the worst-reviewed of the lot, "Vampires Suck," a parody of the "Twilight" movies, doing best: $12.2 million, good enough for second place. Sad. That $50 million works out to about 6.2 million people who couldn't figure out better ways to spend their money and time. BTW: There's always an uproar when some critic doesn't like a popular movie and ruins its 100% Rotten Tomatoes rating (see: Armond White and "Toy Story 3"), but what about when a critic likes a crap movie and ruins its 0% rating? Michael Ordona, I'm looking at you and "Vampires Suck."

Everyone will say that "The Expendables" rocked this weekend (or "muscled out the competition," or "pumped itself up to no. 1"), but its numbers still fell off by 52.6%, which is the biggest fall-off of any movie that didn't lose theaters this weekend. "Scott Pilgrim," meanwhile, gained two theaters but still fell off 52.6%. Girly man.

The wide-release movie that fell off the least? "Inception," which dropped 719 screens yet dropped only 32%. It has now grossed $261m domestic, $315m abroad.

Complete weekend box office estimates here.

There are still good movies to see, people. "Restrepo" is still playing in 44 theaters, and two new docs, "The Tillman Story" and "A Film Unfinished," just opened in NY and LA. One hopes they go wider.

Meanwhile, spurred by Uncle Vinny's post, I went to see "Two in the Wave" ("Deux de la vague"), a French doc about Truffaut and Godard, which is playing at Northwest Film Forum on Capitol Hill in Seattle. It doesn't go as deeply into their films as I would like, but it does go into their history: their initial friendship and rivalry, and what broke them up in 1973: Of all things, Truffaut's "Day for Night," which I love and Godard couldn't stand. But then I can't stomach Godard after '65. Seattlities, it's playing all week. Go see it some American night.

I was wondering whether "Toy Story 3" might reach $400 million domestic (it's at $389 right now, and last week fell off by only 27% for another $14 million, so if it falls off by something similar this week, hey, that's about $10 million right there, nearly the $11 million it needs, BUT its weekend numbers are already off by 43%, SO...) when I saw its worldwide take stood at $826 million. Immediately the more interesting question became whether the movie might crack the $1 billion mark. Only six movies have ever done that. (TRIVIA: Can you name them? They'll be in the comments field at the end of this post.)

It could happen. Pixar movies tend to do better abroad than in the states, generating between 58-60% of their total from foreign sales. Right now "Toy Story 3"'s foreign component is at 52.8%. Is it lagging? Probably not. It only recently opened in France (Bastille Day, actually), Hong Kong (July 15) Spain (July 22) and the U.K. (July 23), and it doesn't open in Germany until August 5th, so the foreign money's still flowing in rather than trickling in. Put it this way: If it doesn't break a billion it'll be close.

For the weekend, yes, "Inception" fell off by only 35% and came out ahead of newcomer "Dinner with Schmucks": $27m to $23m. It's the first movie since "Alice in Wonderland" to be no. 1 at the box office three weekends in a row. Keep in mind, too: "Alice" did it in March, an easier month to stay on top, since the competition is so weak.

On the other hand, "Inception"'s competition has hardly been strong. None of the new films managed even a "fresh" rating from top critics at Rotten Tomatoes. Paramount's "Schmucks" came closest at 47%, and made $23 million in 2,922 theaters. Warner Bros.'s "Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore," which I'd barely heard of (thanks niche marketing), got a 35% rating of shrugs and managed only $12 million in 3,700 theaters. That's bad. Finally, Universal's Zac Effron vehicle, "Charlie St. Cloud" (19%), grossed $12 million in 2,700 theaters. The three newbies finished second, fifth and sixth, respectively.

The totals here.

Has this been a bad summer? Last week in the Wall Street Journal, Joe Queenan had a blistering, funny, open letter to Hollywood, which included this advice:

Stop making movies like "Grown Ups," "Sex and the City 2," "Prince of Persia" and anything that positions Jennifer Aniston or John C. Reilly at the top of the marquee. Stop trying to pass off Shia LaBeouf—who looks a bit like the young George W. Bush—as the second coming of Tom Cruise. Stop casting Gerard Butler in roles where he is called upon to emote. And if "Legion" and "Edge of Darkness" and "The Back-up Plan" and "Hot Tub Time Machine" are the best you can do, stop making movies, period. Humanity will thank you for it.

I agree with almost everything he says in the piece—the Vin Diesel riff had me laughing out loud—except for the way it was marketed by WSJ: WORST YEAR EVER?

No. Not even close. At least not to me. It hurts me more when Hollywood serves us crap and we eat it all up with a smile. Remember last summer? "Transformers 2"? How's that taste now? Or the summer of 2007? "Spider-Man 3," "Shrek the Third," and all the other crappy 3s? Or the summer of 2006 when the second "Pirates of the Caribbean" ruled the seas? These were each summer's most popular movies. This summer, our most popular movie is a good movie, "Toy Story 3," while a new film, which is creative and dark and forces even adults to tax their minds as they're watching it, is now no. 1 for three weekends in a row. It'll probably wind up in the top 10 for the year. That's not a bad summer to me.

But then, I wasn't forced to watch "Grown Ups."

"Inception" was the no. 1 movie for the second week in a row, grossing an estimated $43.5 million. The initial interest in Christopher Nolan's dream thriller is apparently carrying over into either repeat viewings (to doublecheck one's own theories, or the theories of others) or new viewers (because they heard).

Its second weekend drop is, in fact, the lowest drop of the year for any no. 1 movie not named "Avatar":

Either way, it's a triumph for originality and creativity in the heat of summer. Now watch studio execs attempt to duplicate that originality.

Overall, movies may have been down from the previous week, but a lot of the returning movies still did well. "Despicable Me," at no. 3, fell off only 26%, and made another $24 million to raise its gross to $161 million.  "Toy Story 3" lost 411 theaters but fell off only 24% for another $9 million. It's at $379 million and has a real shot to become the 11th film to break the $400 million barrier. "Grown Ups" fell off only 23%; it's at $142 million.

My favorite stat: No. 10, "Predators," in 1,846 theaters, barely beat no. 11, "The Kids Are All Right," in 201 theaters: $2.8 million to $2.6 million.

Of the new films, Angelina Jolie's "Salt" finished close to "Inception" with $36 million, while Fox's "Ramona and Beezus," which I've barely heard about, finished no. 6: $8 million in 2,719 theaters. Not good.

The big news is that Christopher Nolan's "Inception," despite requiring work from moviegoers, did well at the box office: $60 million. Not sure what the word-of-mouth is from others but the word from my mouth is: "Go."

Meanwhile, "Sorcerer's Apprentice," the Disney/Bruckheimer thing starring Nicholas Cage, fared poorly with only $17 million. Yes, it opened on a Wednesday, but its total domestic take is still just $24 mil. Another faulty tentpole. Its 31% rating from the top critics at Rotten Tomatoes isn't horrible, but it only got there because reviews such as this one from Owen Gleiberman were labeled positive: "The Sorcerer's Apprentice is too long, and it's ersatz magic, but at least it casts an ersatz spell." The most important review, meanwhile, isn't even on RT. It comes from my 9-year-old, movie-reviewing nephew, Jordy, who told me over the weekend that "SA" sucked. The words from his mouth: Don't go.

So quality wins out again. One wonders when the studios will get it.

The biggest drops? "The A-Team" shed 808 theaters, down to 428, and lost 73.2% of its business. "Predators" shed no theaters, staying at 2,669, and lost 72.5% of its business. Not good for either film but particularly the latter. In fact it's the biggest second-week drop of the year. Both films, by the way, are from Fox. No surprise.

The full weekend chart can be read here.