While revenue will surpass the $9.45 billion record set in 2004, attendance was little changed, Media By Numbers said. Ticket sales dropped in 11 of the past 14 weeks from a year earlier as films including Iraq war dramas “In the Valley of Elah” and “Redacted” made less than $2 million each in their opening weekends. “Compass,” a fantasy based on the book by Phillip Pullman, fell short of analysts’ expectations.
“There were some great films, but you add them all together and they don’t amount to one blockbuster,” Paul Dergarabedian, president of Encino, California-based Media By Numbers, said in an interview.
The number of tickets sold this year will be about 1.41 billion, about the same as last year, and down 12 percent from the record of 1.61 billion in 2002, according to Media By Numbers.
Movies attacking U.S. troops and religion (i.e., The Golden Compass) were not the ticket to riches. Who’da thunkit? Meanwhile, Juno — a movie that depicts an abortion clinic as a rather creepy place — made it into the Top Ten last weekend, despite being on only 304 screens. It expanded to 998 screens on Christmas Day, and has earned $9.8 million on a rumored $2.5 million budget.
Update: This weekend, Juno leapt to No. 5 and has earned an estimated $25.7 million to date. I also note in passing that between Juno and Knocked Up, pregnancy=profit at the cineplex.
The Juno/Searchlight people bought some NPR time and in their little promo they just describe the movie as “a girl dealing with situations well above her maturity level.” I got a kick out of that.
“Dealing with situations well above her maturity level†is what Juno tells her father when asked where she’s been (somewhere in the second half of the film, iirc).
I love that actress by the way. I first saw her in an anti-american little Canadian tv show called ReGenesis and then she was amazing in Hard Candy. I imagine she’s well on her way to becoming thoroughly obnoxious but still she’s a talented one.
Sorry. I don’t mean to sound so jaundiced it’s just that Reese really hurt me with that Rendition business and I’m having trust issues.
Ellen Page was also Kitty Pryde in the third X-Men flick. So far, she’s managing to at least not sound obnoxious.
Hard Candy was excellent, if disturbing. Perhaps excellent because of how it was disturbing.
I guess not. But it says her next film is called An American Crime which may just be cause Canada doesn’t have any decent crime so they have to use American ones or it could be foreshadowing.
Yes. Hard Candy is not for everyone even me. I was really impressed with her in ReGenesis is the only reason I saw that.
After the crime pic is Jack and Diane, in which she’s playing a teen lesbian opposite her Juno co-star Olivia Thirlby. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I love the coinage, Karl. Don’t change it.
Aw.
Karl, are you trying to say that insulting your customers might be bad for business? If this gets out, I bet the transition to “Stump-Toothed-Trailer-Trash-Mart” is off indefinitely for the Walton clan.
I’ll put it this way. Someone at work gave me a gift card for AMC theaters last Christmas, and I haven’t used it yet. (actually, I forgot I had it when we saw 300, but that was a special “RTO is home on leave otherwise I don’t go to the theater” thing.)
I went all year without going to a movie. It was on purpose and I’m very proud of myself. But Cloverfield is probably gonna break me.
Looks like the trailer for JJ’s Star Trek reboot will be on Cloverfield, too.
1.18.08
aw, happyfeet. I’m thinking I might go see Kite Runner. or, um, I forget. but really, the big honkin’ tv and netflix is good for me. though lately we’ve been watching TV shows.
If you’re an either/or type I’ve heard it’s the book you want hands down on Kite Runner. Yeah. I did tv mostly this year cause I had had a big hiatus and missed a lot.
happyfeet –
“…trust issues…”
Hmmm. My problem is more with thrust issues.
I haven’t been to a movie theater since I quit smoking pot (at least twenty years).
How can anybody sit still for that long? Until Uma Thurman makes an HD, 3-D, hot porno movie, I’ll pass.
I recommend Ratatouille for Netflixers.
yeah, we read the book a couple years ago. It’s fun to run those kinds of things by RTO and ask, “is it really like that?”
LostDog,
Near-nekkid 3-D CGI Angelina Jolie in Beowulf was pretty close.
By the way this was my second year back watching tv and the only finds were Meadowlands and maybe Jericho. I like bad tv so it’s ok but I don’t think they’re trying very hard.
we’ve been watching Doctor Who and Torchwood.
I watched both of those maggie and they work, especially Torchwood cause it’s darker, but they both seem sort of contrived in a I’m-not-sure-this-is-going-anywhere kind of way. The Doctor Who “Blink” episode I thought transcended that though.
(That was the one with the statues)
I used to watch Doctor Who regularly when they were showing the Tom Baker-era on PBS.
I rationalize my media consumption as an adjunct to my regular web gig. In fact, later tonight, I’m off to an advance screening of There Will Be Blood. I’m hoping Daniel Day-Lewis will gnaw the scenery sufficiently to overcome the underlying socialism.
oh, we just watched the end of series 2 a couple nights ago.
netflix, Karl, netflix.
Convinient way to enjoy anti-American movies.
happyfeet – I liked What About Brian.
And Beowulf was awesome.
sashal,
“Enjoy” was probably not the ideal word choice there. I stayed away from the Iraq-related stuff. …Blood is a period piece, so the underlying socialism stuff may well be amusing, now that we know how it turned out.
What About Brian I hadn’t heard of but will check it out. It says it has Rosanna Arquette in it so I don’t really see how I can’t.
Oh – right Maggie – Blink is #10 in season 3… No spoilers I promise.
I still think Giant is the definitive oil movie.
Happyfeet,
I agree I think “Blink” was the best episode of the new Doctor Who series.
Seriously, Karl, me too.
Great historical events need time for the real art full description to come out.
Recall, when the “Apocalypse Now” was created, way after the actual events.
My favorites this year were “Atonement”, “No Country for Old Men” and “Eastern Promises”
sashal,
Just saw Atonement yesterday, and agree all three were among the best of the year. Juno is there, too. Charlie Wilson’s War was as good as could be expected from Hollywood. And (again) Ratatouille, which was the best-reviewed movie of the first half of the year, according to RottenTomatoes.
Yeah MTW – it was just fun in a very Joss Whedon kind of way I thought. Which, also, I have to give the Dr. Who series credit for seemingly consciously picking up on his “there are no inconsequential characters” approach…
NB: The second Narnia movie comes out next spring/summer. A must-see.
CHRISTIANIST!!!
The guy in the next two Narnia movies was cast out of pretty much complete obscurity. That never happens to anyone I know is all I’m saying.
Guilty as charged, Karl…well, I’m an Anglican, so calibrate your outrage accordingly.
Hollywood’s war movies suck because they don’t spend the cash and get Soldiers to be consultants.
You know, for the authenticity.
Some of you are under the false assumption that Hollywood went too far in how they depicted Soldiers and war. Not so! They didn’t go far enough!! That’s the problem!
Por ejemplo, I would encourage them to put in more baby-raping scenes. And goat raping scenes. And sheep raping scenes.
And they also need to put in a lot more of how war fucks with your mind, man. Like this one time, I walked into my trailer, and I caught my roommate watching Pretty Woman. Oh sure, he changed the channel really quick and tried to wipe the tears from his eyes, but the cat was out of the bag. That night, I slept with my back against the wall because once your roomy goes queer you can’t be too careful. Shit like that stays with you for life.
Karl- I loved Atonement (loved the book too). I got to see a screening with Joe Wright and James McEvoy. The long shot in Atonement is remarkable.
I loved Juno, too. I laughed so hard at some of the scenes, and loved the way some really simple things made it human and funny. I liked the way the boy handled himself, too.
Maggie, I will see Kite Runner with you.
And happyfeet, if it makes you feel better, I never once read/saw an interview with Reese where she got political about the movie. I read a few where she basically said, she doesn’t run the world so she isn’t going to get into why some decisions are made. OTOH, I really wanted my hair to be like hers, but the texture wasn’t working for me.
That makes me feel better, really. We’ve had a good relationship since Freeway and S.F.W. so I’m hoping this is something we can work through.
That long shot in Atonement is remarkable, right up there with the long takes in “Children of Men,” which was politicized in a manner very contra the book.
Just got back from the sneak of “There Will Be Blood,” and my main criticism is — oddly enough — that PTAnderson took out almost all of the socialism, such that a main plot twist makes no sense. Go figure. Day-Lewis does work his way up to some mighty scenery chewing, though.
Karl: I haven’t seen Atonement yet but I was thinking of that incredible long tracking shot in Children of Men, following the main characters through the middle of the firefight. That thing lasted about 20 minutes, I think. You guys have convinced me to see Atonement.
I’d like to see The Kite Runner as I loved the book but the wife is balking at the sadness.
The best new Doctor Who episode was the one where he ran into Sarah Jane Smith.
As for Torchwood — interesting, fun at times, but I have a major problem with it. OK, so Queen Victoria started this organization that has hunting down the Doctor as one of their primary goals. Where were they during the UNIT years, when the Doctor was unable to leave Earth and constantly in contact with the British government?!
Yes, I’m a geek. And proud of it.
Day-Lewis is always my first choice when I need a bit of scenery-chewing, I’ll admit. No Country for Old Men was good. 300 kicked ass. Several other shoot-em-ups I saw were good fun, if not necessarily realistic.
Just as a by the way thing I saw the new Dr. Who Christmas special last night with the Kylie and it was extremely awkward and just really unambiguously not good I thought. Cringingly bad at times.
BJTexas- you are invited to come to Kite Runner with maggie and me.
I went to see “The Debaters” with the wife this past week. Regal Theaters Hollywood 24 off I-85 in Atlanta. First movie we’d been out to in a while
Shock #1: Tickets for 2, $20.
Shock #2: Two Cokes, medium popcorn, Raisinettes: $20. And don’t even think of bringing food in!
Forget the crappy anti-American war movies. For $40, I’ll wait for the DVD, buy a copy for me and a friend on Amazon, and still come out ahead.
So but was The Debaters any good?
“Near-nekkid 3-D CGI Angelina Jolie in Beowulf was pretty close.”
And I like her work with animals. She’s got some of the best looking puppies I’ve ever seen…
God, I hate being old.
“The Debaters” was pretty good. Very uplifting.
A few white-on-black hate cringe moments, but it is set in the South, pre-WWII.
I saw an uplifting movie once. It was about this little alien that just wanted to go home. White people tried to stop him and for a little bit it looked like they had killed him but in the end he not only got away but he healed the heart of the little boy who helped him.
And that is the story of how Reese’s Pieces had an unprecedented breakthrough in the marketplace through the judicious use of product placement.
For a second, I thought you were talking about Twilight, until I realized you meant the candy.
$25.7 million is a LOT of Pop Tarts.
Yeah, I don’t know if I buy the Wiki budget of $2.5 million, but even at a $5-10 million budget, Juno is going to have one helluva ROI.
For some reason, I now feel hot, white, and sticky.
Morphology, together with syntax, constitutes the classical domain of recursion à la HCF. ,
This, at any rate, is the opinion of leading geneticists such as Haldane and Darlington, and we shall soon have to refer to genetic experiments which come very near to proving it. ,