B.O.R.E.D.
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B.O.R.E.D
Box Office Reported Eloquently by Daniel
Summer Recap/Fall Preview
Welcome to a new feature on Laughingplace.com! Here I will give my analysis on
film box office both past and present. I've been watching the box office for
about 3 years steadily now, so I will also give my opinions/predictions on
upcoming releases. Along the way be prepared for some doses of history and lots
of sarcasm. Ok, here we gooooo. . . .off to movieland!
A Truly Magical Year Indeed
At the beginning of the year while sitting in a movie theater watching The
Lizzie Maguire movie I leaned to my friend and whispered, "This will be a
record year for Disney." Well, 2/3rds into this year Disney has pulled in over
$1.2 billion dollars in ticket sales already. With Haunted Mansion and
Brother Bear coming out, who knows where the grand total ends up? Finding
Nemo started with the biggest weekend ever for an animated film, around $70
million dollars. Currently it's on pace to just come close to reaching Lord
of the Rings:The Two Towers for 8th place on the all time top 10 list of
movies (unadjusted for inflation of course). Before July 9th, nobody was quite
sure of the box office potential of Pirates of the Caribbean. Would it
hit? Would it flop? The $140+ million dollar budget rumored for the film raised
the stakes even further. Before Pirates of the Caribbean the biggest
live-action film under the Walt Disney Pictures name was Who Framed Roger
Rabbit? That brought in $156 million back in 1988. There was a hope that
Pirates of the Caribbean would bring in a similar audience to the one that
made Lord of the Rings such a huge success. Ironically Mirimax, a
subsiduary of the Walt Disney Company, was offered the chance to do Lord of
the Rings but denied it. It appears that the last laugh may be on Disney
though because Pirates is in place for a chance at breaking into the top
15 on the all-time chart. With two more films in the works, Disney may finally
have a succesful live-action franchise.
The fall schedule for Disney features some exciting releases. Brother Bear is an epic 2-D animated film with trailers promising beautiful images and a Tarzan-like score from Phil Collins. It's hard for me to tell right now exactly how well Brother Bear will do, but I think it's safe to say another Treasure Planet disaster isn't likely here. Although the competition from Looney Tunes: Back in Action and Cat in the Hat will be fierce, I think Brother Bear has a good chance at reaching the $100 million dollar mark. The success of Haunted Mansion depends more on word-of-mouth than the advertising. The name alone will get people in the first weekend and bring in a huge opening. After that though, it will be up to the word-of-mouth to carry the film through the holiday season. I think Haunted Mansion is a lock for $120+ million and has the potential of reaching $200+ million easy.
Coming up for Disney (including subsiduaries): Shaolin Soccer (distributed foreign film), Cold Creek Manor, Under the Tuscan Sun, Duplex, The Station Agent, Kill Bill, Veronica Guerin, Brother Bear, Les Invasions Barbares - Le Declin Continue (distrubted foreign film), The Haunted Mansion.
This Weekend
It's rather ironic that this feature start this weekend, considering it's always
hard to predict weekends after a holiday period. With school back in session and
the summer season over, all box office should plummet and it will be surprising
if the top film of the weekend grosses more than $10 million dollars.
The two new openers are both rather strange films. First is Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star from Paramount Pictures. Anticipation doesn't appear to be high for this film so I wouldn't expect a very big first weekend. Dickie Roberts could open as low as $6.8 million dollars. The Order probably will fair slighty worse and start it's box office run with around $6 million dollars. Although it's not impossible for either films to do better.
Disney's hit family comedy Freaky Friday will be hurt with children back at school. It still though should hold up fairly well. Look for Freaky Friday to drop about 50% and pick up $6.3 million. Pirates of the Caribbean should dip slightly less, around 42% to add $6.2 million to it's total.
Open Range should slip around 53% for $5 million. Sony Pictures' S.W.A.T. will fair a little better and could fall 52% for $4.9 million. Seabiscuit has already shown tremendous legs with a total 5 times that of the opening weekend so far. Generally films do much poorer, with 4 or more times the opening being a good multiplier. Seabiscuit's audience will be cut about half and the weekend should bring in $4.5 million.
The two horror films, Freddy Vs Jason and Jeepers Creepers 2, could see a harsh decline of about 67% each. That would give them $2.8 and $6.1 million respectively.
The Jackie Chan flick, The Medallion should round out the top 10 with $2.6 million.
Predicted Top 10 Chart:
#1 - Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star $6.8 million
#2 - Freaky Friday $6.3 million
#3 - Pirates of the Caribbean $6.2 million
#4 - Jeepers Creepers 2 $6.1 million
#5 - The Order $6 million
#6 - Open Range $5 million
#7 - S.W.A.T $4.9 million
#8 - Seabiscuit $4.5 million
#9 - Freddy Vs Jason $2.8 million
#10 - The Medallion $2.6 million
Did you know?
The Hunchback of Notre Dame is #2 on Disney's all-time animated film
chart for releases in France. It grossed close to double of Toy Story and
made more money than Spiderman! The Hunchback of Notre Dame also
is Disney's 5th biggest animated film overall internationally.
Discuss It
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-- Daniel Kaplan
-- Posted September 5, 2003