Jon's blog

I'm going to keep it short and sweet this weekend. You see, "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" won the weekend, and quite handily. And that's the kind of thing that makes me feel sad. Sad in my soul.

With $29 million "BHC" — as those in the know call it — beat out last week's number one, "Eagle Eye," which accounted for $17 million. The latter film's $54 million in two weeks still accounts for less than 3/4 of the film's production budget. "BHC," barring some outrageous legal bills incurred through animal mistreatment (we can only pray) or mental anguish for viewers, should be well on its way to becoming a nice little score for Disney and Co.

At number three was the new film "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." I can't really tell you what's this film is about, but it stars Michael Cera and the daughter from "The 40-Year-Old Virgin," and the ads are sort of making me feel like an old person, which isn't cool. At $12 million, "Nick and Norah" was a modest success — though it's $5,000 per screen couldn't hold a candle to the Chihuahua's $9,000 per. Last week's number two, "Nights in Rodanthe" fell to number four, and was followed by the up-and-comer, "Appaloosa." Having rolled out to over 1,000 screens for the first time, "Appaloosa" brought in around $5,000 per in its third full weekend. It will be interesting to see if it can hang around, or if this new level of relative success will lead to a bigger rollout.

A couple of smaller political films made their way to theaters this week: the conservative "comedy" "An American Carol" and the Bill Maher/Larry Charles doc, "Religulous." The former opened on over 1,600 screens and made a paltry $2,300 per, while the latter opened on 500 screens and made nearly $7,000 per. Maybe the conservative base was still busying patronizing "Fireproof" because that film narrowly beat out both Maher and "Carol," though it took in significantly less per screen than Maher's religion hit-piece.

One other film of note is Jonathan Demme's new family drama, "Rachel Getting Married." Horror fans will know Demme as the director of "The Silence of the Lambs." This film however, is about as far from Hannibal and Clarice as one can get. It must have managed to strike a few chords though because while it only opened on nine screens, it's $33,000 per screen average was about as good as one could hope a film would perform.

Next weekend we might see some of these films go bigger, and it will be interesting to see how things go from here with many of these smaller films. Next week we'll also get our first look at Ridley "Alien" Scott's latest, "Body of Lies," which stars Russell Crow and Leonardo Di Caprio, and should obviously be awesome. The real story, as we all know, will be "Quarantine," which will stake it's claim to the pre-Halloween horror crown. See you back here next Sunday for what should be some more enlightening conversation, you know, once the Chihuahua stank has been washed from the box office.

The box office flirted with a $100 million total again this week, but sits (as of Sunday night) at $98. Maybe not other-worldly, but it's good enough for the 3rd highest total for the 39th weekend of the year. Leading the way was "Eagle Eye," the second film from DJ "Disturbia" Caruso. If you haven't heard of this one, you clearly haven't been exposed to any form of media in the last three weeks. From the looks of it, "Eagle Eye" has more in common with flashier blockbuster type films than it does with some of the smaller fare that we've seen at the box office the last couple of weekends. Paramount, the studio behind the film, was likely hoping that dropping this into theaters alongside "Nights in Rodanthe" and Spike Lee's "Miracle at St. Anna" would lead to a bigger draw and a bigger return. To the extent that the film placed number one, that plan worked. But an opening of $29 million for a film as highly promoted, not to mention as expensive ($80 million production budget), as "Eagle Eye," isn't necessarily a big success.

In second this week was "Nights in Rodanthe." There's really nothing to say about this movie, particularly on a horror site. "Lakeview Terrace," last week's number one fell to number three and made an additional $7 million. It's $25 million total is already 20% over the films' production budget.

While the top three films get most of the attention, this week it's the number four film that's really the story. Opening on less than 1,000 screens, "Fireproof," a Christian hug-fest starring Kirk Cameron (yes, he's still alive), made over $6 million. From what I can gather from the preview, Kirk plays a fireman who's having problems in his marriage. He decides to get a divorce, but his father convinces him to wait 40 days, saying that he'll send him a book to read. The book, of course, is the bible, and only through reading it does Kirk learn that to be a good husband you can't be a humongous douche all the time. I'm a little unclear exactly which parts of the bible were instructive, but from what I hear, it's all pretty good.

One has trouble fathoming how exactly "Fireproof" made as much money as it did. The preview makes the film seem several rungs lower than your typical made for Lifetime movie, and with a budget of a half million dollars, it's not that surprising. It also might be quite literally the most preachy film you'll find in the theater this year. Christian culture however, can be big business, so don't be surprised to see more like this coming down the pipeline.

While it's not a foregone conclusion, "Eagle Eye" will definitely have a chance to hold on to its number one spot. Next week sees several new openings, but nothing that's likely to go huge. The biggest film next week, as embarrassing as it is to say, may be "Beverly Hills Chihuahua." It's success will say a great deal about the average level of intelligence of US film goers, not to mention the tolerance of parents to put up with literal dog shit. Other than that, there's a number of smaller films, "Blindness," "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist," "How to Lose Friends and Alienate People," and "Flash of Genius." There's also "The Express," a feel-good, corny race-relations drama. All of these films will likely draw audiences (in that they won't utterly bomb), but it's going to be a flooded market, and in that situation, "Eagle Eye" might be best positioned to bring in some more dollars. I wouldn't be surprised if next weekend's number one has half the revenue of this week's, which would be pretty underwhelming.

It wasn't magic at the box office reminiscent of last weekend, but it wasn't a total disaster either. With a first place finish from the Samuel L. Jackson vehicle "Lakeview Terrace," theaters took in just under $90 million total; not bad for the midst of one of the worst financial crises the economy has ever faced. $15 million for the top film of the weekend isn't mindblowing, but on a budget of $20 million, what you have is a very nice little film that is about to become very profitable.

"Burn After Reading" had enough juice to hang on to the number two spot, which was good for another $11 million. Like "Lakeview," "Burn" will earn back the rest of its production budget this week, marking a second strong financial success for The Coens. At three and four were "My Best Friend's Girl" and "Igor," both hovering around the $8 million mark. And rounding out the top five is "Righteous Flop" which failed to meet half its production budget after two weekends. That's not good.

Aside from the above films, which all have succeeded to varying degrees when considered in context with their budgets, two other films produced some gaudy box office statistics, albeit on much smaller scales. "Appaloosa" and "The Duchess" (64% and 63% respectively on Rotten Tomatoes) opened on 14 and seven screens respectively, and both performed extremely well. At more than $27,000 per screen, "The Duchess" actually led that category for the entire weekend. "Appaloosa," at $17,775, came in second. While early limited release success is no guarantee of wider success, it does usually mean that a film will get a shot in more theaters. In the cases of these films, I'd look for "Appaloosa" to go wider first. With recognizable stars and an easily conveyed genre, it won't be hard to at the very least plant the seeds of interest. "The Duchess," a costumed period piece starring Kiera Knightley, may not have as large a potential pool of viewers, but still could do well with the right kind of roll-out and marketing campaign.

Next week will see a Hollywood Indian Summer of sorts, with the release of what looks to be a big budget, high-concept, action-thriller in "Eagle Eye." We'll also get a look at the newest Spike Lee film, "Miracle at St. Anna" and the Chuck Palahniuk adaptation "Choke." And for love-smitten nitwits, there's also "Nights at Rodanthe," which I just caught a trailer for earlier today and nearly went into a diabetic shock from saccharine overload. It's not a bad slate of offerings, but I still might take a pass and curl up with a nice pumpkin brew.

A couple of weeks back, FOBGH (that's friend of BGH) Prisoner Abel emailed me about a film series that was going to be showing at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (aka BAM). Now, if that sounds reprehensibly fancy, well that's because it is; but Abel and I are New Yorkers, and we like our culture extra fancy. BAM though, isn't just a snooty bastion of dance and theater, they also show current cinema (typically of the more independent variety) as well as film series, as I mentioned above.

What I'm getting to is that over Labor Day weekend, BAM ran a program called "A Four-Pack of Carpenter" where they featured four films by the genre master. Their choices, "Escape From New York," "The Thing," "Big Trouble in Little China" and "They Live," constitute the bulk of Carpenter's work during the 80's.

To accopany this set of films, "Moving Image Source," a website run by the Museum of the Moving Image (another awesomely fancy New York offering), featured a great critical essay by Benjamin Strong. It's entitled "Morning in America," a nod to the famous Reagan campaign commercial, and the piece looks at the four Carpenter films of that time as examinations of the cultural and sociopolitical milieu.

Strong provides some great nuggets about Carpenter and each of the films. In many ways, "Halloween" so thoroughly over-shadows Carpenter's other works that it's easy to forget just how talented a filmmaker he is. While it's not uncommon to encounter theorizing and critical analysis on "The Thing" and especially "They Live" in horror circles, Strong also gives a great deal of context on "Big Trouble" and "Escape." I can't say much more other than: go read it.

I spent some time two weeks ago talking about the late summer swoon we've seen this year at the box office. And then, only a week later, we hit a notable nadir. Well, apparently all that swooning may have been part of some sort of cathartic cleansing ritual because this week change came to the box office.

At $99 million, 2008's was the most lucrative 37th week on record. The previous high came in 2003 when "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" was number one. Even more surprising about this week's success is the fact that it came with four new releases in the top four positions. It's the first time that particular feat has been achieved this year. There's been three new releases in the top four on three separate occasions: week 16 ("Forbidden Kingdom"), week 10 ("10,000 BC") and week 7 ("Jumper"). And just to fully cover all the oddities that distinguish this week's success from other weeks: not one of the films cracked the $20 million barrier.

At number one was the new Coen Brothers film "Burn After Reading." It was a wide-ish release at 2,651 theaters, making its per screen pull of over $7,000 quite impressive. That number was actually second best on the weekend though behind the overall number two film at the box office: "Tyler Perry's The Family that Prays." This most recent offering from the prolific black director brought in over $8,700 per screen. There is currently no production budget info available, but I feel like it's a safe bet to assume that these Tyler Perry films make a killing. By way of example, "Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion" made $63 million on a budget of $6 million. That's a great way to ensure you can get your next film made (or your next 10 films, at the rate that Perry churns them out).

In what may come as a surprise to some, "Righteous Kill" aka "Old Men Shooting Guns," placed a disappointing third with $16.5 million. Considering this film likely wouldn't have gotten made without notable turns from De Niro and Pacino (neither of whom has actually worked for a paycheck in what seems like forever), the $16 million is probably the best that anyone could have hoped for. But with a budget of $60 million, you can bet that someone is at least going to be chewed out pretty hard over this nonsense. I'm not sure what to make of the director, Jon Avnet, on this one, who appears to have a long career as a director, but only possesses one film credit of any note. Even more bizarre is the fact that that credit is for "Fried Green Tomatoes", which, while Oscar nominated, seems to be pretty far away on the film spectrum from "Righteous Kill".

Lastly, among our top four films anyway, is "The Women", which has been virtually universally panned. "The Women" is notable only for the fact that there was some chatter about how this film was being heaped into the Hollywood dumpster earlier this year. That all changed when "Sex and the City" out performed everyone's expectations, and sent the message to producers that lady-folk would go to the theater if Hollywood gave them something worth seeing. Someone (possibly again heading for a chewing out) thought that that something could be "The Women" — it seems like a can't miss, right? Just look at the title — but the negative coverage and mediocre ads probably didn't help this one. With a budget of $16 million, however, Picturehosue can definitely chalk this one up in the win column.

Next week sees several interesting offerings making their way to some theaters. Going wide are "Lake Terrerce" aka "Don't Make Sam Jackson Start Swearing Now", "My Best Friend's Girl" aka "The Most Intolerable Dane Cook Film Since his Last Film", and Ricky Gervais's first starring turn "Ghost Town". In limited release though we're going to start seeing some potential award bait. "Blindness", starring Mark Ruffalo, Julianne Moore, and Gabriel Garcia Bernal, and directed by Fernando Meirelles ("City of God", "Constant Gardner") will probably be worth a look. "Appaloosa", a Western starring Viggo and Ed Harris, who also directs, will be getting a look from yours truly. And we'll also get a look at "Hounddog", which made waves a while back while on the festival circuit because it features a rape scene starring Dakota Fanning (yeah, the adolescent one).

If you need some economic stimulation of the horror variety, I did recently update the Horrors of 2008 spreadsheet. We're still a couple of weeks out from "Quarantine", but some of this year's earlier releases have been making some noise over seas. So check it out.

$51 million dollars.

That's it. There's the box office report. That's how much the top 12 films combined made this week. Nine films have made more than that in their opening weekend this year.

To find the next lowest weekend total, one has to travel all the way back to September 5th, 2003 (the 36th and same weekend as this year's epic fail). That week the top 12 films made $50 million, and "Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star" was the ignominious #1. Horror fans might remember that weekend as number two back then was "Jeepers Creepers 2."

This week the ignominious honor of being #1 goes to "Bangkok Dangerous," a Nic Cage vehicle that failed to break $8 million in its opening.

It's a bleak day for Hollywood. That's all there is to say.

Ah, Labor Day! That glorious day-off commemorating laborers across the US, and serving as a fine exclamation point on the sinful summer season. It's a great day for vacationers (unless you happen to have spent your Labor Day on an Amtrak train...), but alas, it's not such a great time for the the fine folks who produce cinema.

Indeed, this August has been one of the slowest in quite a while. Consider a couple of things: First, I couldn't even recall when asked this weekend, what the major releases were this past Friday. Upon further inspection, they were "Babylon A.D." and "Disaster Movie", although the latter in less than 3,000 theaters. Secondly, only two different films have occupied the top spot at the box office over the last seven weekends. Two films! They, of course, were "Tropic Thunder", which has been #1 now for three consecutive weeks, and "The Dark Knight", which held that spot for the four preceding weeks. And, thirdly, you have to go back to 2002 to find a 35th week that brought in less than the $73 million that came in this past weekend.

Diving into the numbers is even more fun. Below are the total revenues of the top 12 films in each of the last three weeks in August. While summer may often be considered the season for blockbusters, it's clear that that doesn't include the 8th month of the year. In fact, not once during any of weeks 33, 34, or 35 have the top 12 films combined to even sniff the total "Dark Knight" took home in its first 3 days.

(One note, because Labor Day falls on a range of different weekends, I'm using only the 3-day totals. That definitely screws with the numbers some, as this year's 4-day haul was a slightly more respectable $93 million, but for the sake of comparison, I've just gone with 3-day totals all around.)

End of August top 12 totals:

2005
33 - $98,812,402
34 - $83,107,152
35 - $78,053,732
2006
33 - $90,037,315
34 - $84,086,340
35 - $78,288,318
2007
33 - $114,003,153
34 - $88,882,100
35 - $97,371,568
2008
33 - $111,672,294
34 - $88,362,000
35 - $73,939,000

Week 33 Average - $103,631,291
Week 34 Average - $86,109,398
Week 35 Average - $81,913,154
33 to 35 Drop-off - 20.96%

By way of comparison, consider that week 25 averaged roughly $128 million over the same time period. And week 29, in which "Dark Knight" dropped this year — so admittedly a cherry-picked date — has averaged $168 million.

A lot of things could account for this drop-off in movie going enthusiasm among the public. Maybe most likely is sheer burnout; over the last decade, so much marketing energy has been focused on the late-April to late-July time period, that by the time August rolls around, we can't even stand to think about walking into a theater. August, and late-August in particular, may also be a bigger vacation time, which would distract folks from the machinations of Hollywood.

The explanation I think makes the most compelling argument though is that the releases during this time period are just god-awful, and discerning audiences have more or less stayed away. It's funny to think that exactly a year ago, the #1 film at the box office was Zombie's "Halloween." While in retrospect, its $26 million doesn't look all that impressive, it set a record for the largest 4-day labor day weekend opening. This year, the studios were lucky to have anything marshal even half of that. "Babylon A.D", the highest grossing new release of the weekend, brought in a laughable $12 million — a number that looks even worse when taken in context with the film's $70 million budget.

If one wants to find any bright spots in this Labor Day weekend's box office numbers, I might suggest "Traitor" and "Mamma Mia". The former was a smaller scale new release that with middle-of-the-road reviews (60 at Metacritic) managed to pull in the highest per screen numbers of all the films in the top 12 (it was a modest $4,868, but still). The latter film saw its revenue go up more than a third over last week's results, and also hung onto a spot in the top ten. "Mamma Mia" was released seven weeks ago, along with "The Dark Knight", and both films have been regulars on the box office charts ever since. At $132 million total, "Mamma Mia" is now the 3rd highest grossing musical since 1974, and is this year's 8th highest grossing film worldwide.

Going forward, there are some big names (De Niro and Pacino, The Coen Brothers, Nic Cage) with movies coming out, but we've definitely passed through the gluttonous summer period. Gaudy numbers like those seen during June and July are gone, but hopefully, they'll be replaced with some higher quality film offerings.

Alexandre Aja's directorial follow-up to "The Hills Have Eyes", received a lukewarm reception at the box office this weekend. In bringing in just over $11 million, "Mirrors" produced on par with some of this year's previous middling horror releases. While it outdrew films like "Shutter" and "The Ruins", it came in behind January's "Untraceable". Digging a little deeper into the numbers however, we can see that from a perspective of relative performance, "Mirrors" had one of the worst weekend's for a horror film all year. As a percentage of this week's top 12 grossing films (which brought in a combined $124.6 million), Aja's film, drawing 8.9% of the total box office dollars, only fared better than "X-Files" among 2008's wide horror releases.

A fourth place finish for "Mirrors" didn't even crack the headlines, what with a new "Star Wars" feature, a high-profile comedy release, and another film that just happened to have recently annihilated all box office precedent. At least when "The X-Files" tanked, folks were talking about it. Here, we could see "Mirrors" disappear without nary a peep. Of course, that wouldn't be too huge a loss, but it is a little sad to see an R-rated horror feature underwhelm to such an extent. Fox has yet to release any sort of budget info, so it's hard to get a sense of the kind of hole that they could be looking at here. For Aja, whose name gets tossed around as an up and coming horror director, this kind of box office performance won't exactly endear him to studio executives. Then again, "Piranha 3-D" is on the way next year and the potential hype behind the first 3-D horror feature since those hilarious red and blue glass went out of style, should at least inflate the early returns.

Though it may be hard to believe with all the headlines that the box office returns have been generating, August 2008 has not been a great month for movie studios or theater owners. In fact, through this past weekend, gross receipts are down more than 10 percent (11.9% based on top 12 weekly grosses). "The Dark Knight" almost single-handedly ensured that July 2008 outpaced July 2007 (by roughly 10 percent, in fact). But one could probably make the case that a combination of Batman hangover, and some less than stellar film offerings the last couple of weeks have combined to account for the sagging financial performance at the theater. While next week has a handful of interesting offerings — "The House Bunny" for some, "Death Race" for others — it's highly unlikely that either of those films (or the hilarious-looking Ice Cube vehicle "The Longshots"!) will be able to get Hollywood out of its current funk.

After four weeks (four!), "The Dark Knight" freight train that has demolished the box office looks like it might be creaking to a halt. The measly $26 million that Batman and company took in this weekend, on their way to another first place finish, brought the film's domestic total to over $440 million. That's good enough for third place all time, with "Star Wars" (episode 4) and it's $460 million easily in reach for second place (although that figure is greatly inflated due to "Star War's" re-release gross).

As an interesting chart at Box Office Mojo shows however, the Bat is definitely in decline. And not only that, "The Dark Knight" actually performed worse in it's fourth week than did any of the other films on the list ("Titanic", "Shrek 2", and "The Phantom Menace"). By way of explaining just how unbelievable "Titanic" was, consider that it wasn't until that film's 15th week in release that it made less money than "The Dark Knight" did this week.

All-time box office lists are really just not much fun, which is what has made writing about "The Dark Knight's" excellent performance kind of tough. Here's another number for you: two. That's the number of top 20 films on the all-time domestic gross list that were released before 1990, and both of those—"E.T." and "Star Wars"—benefited heavily from more modern re-releases. Only five other films on that top 20 list were released before 2000. So while "The Dark Knight" has dominated the box office, it's hard to put a lot of historic perspective on the performance. Tons of movies do well these days. "The Dark Knight" may be the top of that pile (and it may be different in that the critical response was almost unanimously positive), but the odds are actually pretty good that "The Dark Knight" won't inhabit that two spot (if it takes it) for very long. The top box office spots will also go to the new kids on the block, at least until the way American films are released changes dramatically.

As can be seen above, the other story this weekend was the latest Apatow joint, "Pineapple Express" hit theaters this weekend. It did well, particularly for an R-rated film, but after talking about "The Dark Knight," and top 20 all-time lists, that's not saying too much. This is notable for horror fans because it sounds like "Pineapple's" director, David Gordon Green, may be setting his sights on the genre, which would be fantastic.

As for horror, it's been a slow summer, as you can see by checking the Horrors of 2008 spreadsheet, but next week we'll get one of the bigger R-horror releases of the year thus far, and hopefully some interesting horror box office action to discuss.

With "The X-Files: I Want to Believe," horror saw its 10th release of the year. Now, as I discussed before, calling the "X-Files" a horror film is a stretch (and it's a little odd that King bashed on "The X-Files" because its budget was really nothing special), but when it's been a month and a half since the last theatrical horror release, I'll take some leeway with genre distinctions just to have something about which to talk.

Sadly for "The X-Files," the discussion here is a somber one. The reunion of Mulder and Scully led to a 4th place finish at the box office this week. And by virtue of another monster week from "The Dark Knight," "I Want to Believe" made nary a ripple in headlines. Even negative coverage would be better than the tumbleweed-quiet the film has gotten thus far. It wasn't long ago that "The X-Files" was genre gold, and despite the fact that 3 out of 3 BGH reviewers thought it was solid, "I Want to Believe" simply fell hard.

Looking at the numbers, it's hard to feel good about "The X-Files" prospects. It was the second worst horror opening of the year, and had the 2nd lowest per screen performance, while opening on the 2nd most screens. In terms of percentage of the top 12 films, "I Want to Believe" performed worse than any other horror release of 2008.

Personally, and maybe this is just the optimist in me talking, I think there are some reasons to be sunny on "X-Files'" long-term prospects. First of all, the other films to beat it out this week—"Step Brothers" and "Mamma Mia!"—aren't really direct competitors. Both of these films did quite well, but I'm dubious as to whether they siphoned off X-viewers. Instead, I don't think it's out of the question to see a slow but steady stream of "X-File" devotees turning out through this week and into next weekend. Despite it's poor opening, I would like to believe (pun intended!) that the Mulder/Scully fanboys have a little more in them than $10 million. It's entirely possible that they were all waiting in line to catch "The Dark Knight," and saving their "X-File" viewing for later.

But even if it doesn't go gang-busters in week two, Fox need not look at $10 million as a total failure. On a budget of $30 million, "I Want to Believe" can be seen as a costly advertisement that at the very least keeps "The X-Files" relevant for a little while longer. One could argue that a poor performance likely spells the end of new entries in the series for good, and that wouldn't be wrong, but I'd be willing to be that the movie helped move some DVD box sets and might even be used to drum up syndication viewership. And if a third "X-Files" film was to be shot, say for a far more modest $10 million, it might be viewed as a savvy play by Fox.

Next week, horror fans world wide should be readying themselves to vote with their feet for "Midnight Meat Train," which is being dumped into only a handful of theaters at last report. The unceremonious dropping of this Clive Barker joint is part of a sea change apparently underway at Lionsgate that could see far fewer horror films making their way to the screen under the production company's banner. Though it might be too late to change the fate of Lionsgate, a strong per screen performance for "Meat Train" should send the message (like "Strangers" did earlier this year) that horror can mean big business. Of course, if the movie's garbage, all bet's are off. Expect discussion here in a week's time.