Inglourious Basterds: Second Weekend

Inglourious Basterds had a glorious second weekend. If it doesn't look impressive-it is! Tarantino films often play out like fanboy releases; that is, they attract the core following on opening weekend and then register precipitous drops thereafter. Such, evidently, is not the case with Inglourious Basterds, which suggests that the film is having very strong word of mouth. The $19.3m figure is considerably down from the $20m weekend estimate, but it is more than enough to guarantee a final tally well above $100m. This is a bona fide success for Tarantino and his actors.

And just for the sake of curiosity, and also to provide a proper context for IB's second weekend drop, here are the major 2009 releases and their second weekend drops. IB holds up quite well in this comparison:

The Final Destination & Halloween II (2009) Opening Weekends

The Final Destination registered the 298th largest opening of all time last weekend, while Halloween II is much lower on the chart, at #652. The two films largely avoided the worst case scenario, whereby they affected each other's performances severely, given their essentially similar nature. Clearly, each film must have had an impact on the other, but Halloween II also suffered from the negative reception of its predecessor.

The Final Destination, on the other had, outperformed estimates by a bit, and continued the trend started by its predecessors, where each film's opening increased over the other:

BOM reports that fully 70% of the film's opening figure, or $19m, came from 1,652 sites that showed the film in 3D. This strongly suggests that the newest installment in the franchise benefitted from the 3D gimmick, rather than from faithfulness to the franchise itself. The opening number, either way, is very impressive. It marks the 18th largest opening for an August release, and is also the 28th biggest opening of 2009 (Halloween II ranks at #49):

Note that no less than 7 of the top 50 opening weekends this year were released in August, underscoring just how strong a month this has been.

Labor Day Weekend should help both films, but only a bit. I expect The Final Destination to have by far the lowest multiplier in the franchise, but its large opening ensures that it will be the biggest of the four films. I expect a finish at around $65m at this point.

Top Film of the Weekend: 2004

2004 was a very strong year for opening weekends, as is evident from this graph. The Passion of the Christ's superb opening tilts the graph to the left, which is quite unusual. Its opening and second weekends were among the best of the year. Shrek 2, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and Spider-Man 2 offered strong numbers during the summer, while The Incredibles contributed greatly during the fall.

Overall, one of the most exciting years for chart tracking, and one of the most equally spread out.

Top Film of the Weekend: 2005

2005 was one of those rare instances where the end of the year had as many big openers as the summer period. The summer was dominated, clearly, by Revenge of the Sith's opening, while the fall/holiday period was dominated by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. War of the Worlds in the summer and The Chronicles of Narnia in the winter look almost like sidekicks to the two big openers.

Top Film of the Weekend: 2006

Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest is the obvious, dominant film here, although X-Men: The Last Stand's $100m weekend prevents it from completely dominating the year. Except for The Da Vinci Code's and Ice Age 2's openings, you can see that 2006 was an otherwise ho-hum year for big openers. DMC'2 second weekend, in fact, was bigger than all but four opening weekends.

Top Film of the Weekend: 2007-2009

I won't bother listing all the names for the releases, but you can tell the big ones straight away, I think. By way of comparison, it is clear that 2007 and 2008 have had a heads up on 2009 thus far. I do expect the rest of this year to give us a few more big openings, above all New Moon, which I think can outgross I Am Legend. I Am Legend is that big bar that sticks up between the summer 2007 and summer 2008 blocks.

Top Film of the Weekend: 2007

Again, curiosity got the best of me. 2007 was a stellar year for opening weekends, and it shows, especially in the fact that Spider-Man 3 does not dominate the graph despite having the biggest opening weekend of all time. Note how low the graph goes just before Spider-Man 3's opening weekend.

Top Film of the Weekend: 2008

I made this just out of curiosity, to see how The Dark Knight stacks up. Oh boy, does it stick out like a sore thumb. I mean, THAT is total domination.

Top Film of the Weekend: 2009

Below is a graph featuring the grosses for all of the #1 films of this year, chronologically. What is striking about the graph, at least for me, is that it shows that the beginning of the year had such impressive figures that it looks to be almost on par with the late summer. That, and the outstanding figure for Transformers 2.

For reference, these are the exact figures for the films:

Marley and Me $24,263,763
Gran Torino $29,484,388
Paul Blart: Mall Cop $31,832,636
Paul Blart: Mall Cop $21,623,182
Taken $24,717,037
He's Just Not That Into You $27,785,487
Friday the 13th (2009) $40,570,365
Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail $41,030,947
Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail $16,175,926
Watchmen $55,214,334
Race to Witch Mountain $24,402,214
Knowing $24,604,751
Monsters Vs. Aliens $59,321,095
Fast and Furious $70,950,500
Hannah Montana The Movie $32,324,487
17 Again $23,722,310
Obsessed $28,612,730
X-Men Origins: Wolverine $85,058,003
Star Trek $75,204,289
Angels & Demons $46,204,168
Night at the Museum $54,173,286
Up $68,108,790
The Hangover $44,979,319
The Hangover $32,794,387
The Proposal $33,627,598
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $108,966,307
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen $42,320,877
Bruno $30,619,130
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince $77,835,727
G-Force $31,706,934
Funny People $22,657,780
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra $54,713,046
District 9 $37,354,308
Inglourious Basterds $37,602,000

Biggest August Opening Weekends

August 2009 now accounts for a larger number of top openings weekends than any other year, both in the top 12 and the top 40. The month has been quite impressive thus far, either way you look at it.

Top Second Weekends 2009

The August releases have been less impressive performers as regards their second weekends, with none of them approaching the figures for the top tier early summer films such as Up and The Hangover. District 9's second weekend is a bit inflated due to a low Sunday drop estimate, but the film's drop, either way, is quite reasonable all things considered. I do not expect Inglourious Basterds to match it next weekend.

Biggest Opening Weekends of 2009 (Thus Far)

My apologies for the lack of updates recently. Let's get going again.

August 2009 has thus far been very impressive, giving us, in District 9's and Inglourious Basterds' openings, two very strong weekends and in G.I. Joes's and Julie & Julia's two very good figures as well. All four openers rank in the top 40 for this year, with the former 3 in the top 20.

As far as admissions go:

1 Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen 14,825,348
2 X-Men Origins: Wolverine 11,572,517
3 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince 10,589,895
4 Star Trek 10,231,876
5 Fast and Furious 9,653,129
6 Up 9,266,502
7 Monsters Vs. Aliens 8,070,897
8 Watchmen 7,512,154
9 G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra 7,443,952
10 Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian 7,370,515
11 Angels & Demons 6,286,281
12 The Hangover 6,119,635
13 Terminator Salvation 5,790,257
14 Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs 5,672,161
15 Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail 5,582,442
16 Friday the 13th (2009) 5,519,778
17 Inglourious Basterds 5,115,918
18 District 9 5,082,219
19 The Proposal 4,575,183
20 Hannah Montana The Movie 4,397,889

Preliminary Predictions for the Upcoming Weekend

Just a few quick thoughts:

I'm going safe with G.I. Joe and predicting $25m. If that is safe. I suspect it could drop just 50% and end up around $27m, but I'm not willing to give it that at this moment.

District 9 has been marketed terrifically, in my opinion. I found the trailer to be very effective. I could see a high-20s opening for it. Let's say $27-8m for now.

I'm very bullish on The Time Traveler's Wife. The book has been a wild success for years, and it's main demographic-basically, women-continues to be underrated at the box office. The theatre count is low, yes, but I do wonder if mid-30s is attainable. I suspect this is just hyperbole speaking right now, so I'll probably lower it to $30-32m, and go with that.

Whatever the case, we're going to have a strong weekend ahead.

Biggest August Opening Weekends

I've mentioned before that August is generally not known for large openings. Looking at the chart below, I think one gains a greater appreciation for G.I. Joe's and Julie & Julia's opening weekends, which are both now among the just 31 August releases to open with $20m or more. G.I. Joe's opening is the 4th largest ever, while Julie & Julia's comes in at #31.

G.I. Joe: First Weekend

G.I. Joe's opening weekend marks the 73rd biggest opening of all time, and the 9th biggest opening of 2009.

In terms of admissions, the film ranks much lower, landing in the 135th spot on the all-time chart:

And adjusted for inflation:

Brief Weekend Recap (August 7th-9th, 2009)

Here's the weekend chart, with actuals.

A few briefs comments:

-G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra had a strong opening with $54.7m, which was down considerably from the $56.2m estimate due to a larger Sunday drop than the one predicted by the studio. The film defied bad publicity at several stages of its development and pre-release. Its subequent run will depend on several factors over the coming days, but the film looks to have a fairly solid overall gross as well. Word of mouth is average, which suggests that it might not help up too well in the face of mounting competition in the weeks to come. Working away from an assumed $23-25m second weekend, I'd put the total at $145m at this point.

-Julie & Julia had a good opening with $20m. Films of this kind tend to have healthy runs, and the film has enough room to acquire audiences over the next month or two. I think it's too early to tell at this point whether it can get close to $100m, but $80-90m should be easily achievable.

-Terrible hold for Funny People. Look for the film to fizzle out even further as it starts shedding theatres. I see $57m at most, unless the film stabilizes at some point later on and adds a few more million.

-The 50% drop for Harry Potter is unfortunate, but the film is still headed toward $300m. Potter was evidently affected by G.I. Joe, but the steep thearte count drop is partly responsible as well.

-The Hangover held up well again, despite the fact that this is its second worst drop. A remarkable performance continues to be, well, remarkable. $270m is within easy reach, and I suspect the film might even get past $273m.

-Transformers looks safe to pass $400m, while Ice Age 3 will miss the $200m mark due to the theatre count drop. International figures more than make up for anything domestic shortcomings, however, as Ice Age 3 looks to possibly become one of the four biggest international films of all time. Up looks to finish with $289-290m.

The top 12 films this weekend grossed a total of $132m, up 16.3% from last weekend and 18.4% from the same weekend last year, when The Dark Knight continued at the top of the charts for a fourth weekend in a row. This is also the 16th biggest weekend of the year and the 12th biggest of this summer (that is, the 4th worst).

Charts coming up!

August 7-9, 2009: Weekend Estimates

Weekend estimates for this weekend are out now. Have a look here.

A few quick notes:

G.I. Joe's $56.2m constitutes a very good opening. The film has followed the trajectory of recent big films that open big on Friday and decline day to day over the weekend ($22.25m to &18.25m to &15.7m). I suspect the estimated 14% drop on Sunday is a bit too generous, but the film should stay above $55m, with actuals. This makes it the 8th largest opening weekend of the year and the 66th of all time. As far as August openings go, G.I. Joe can now claim the 4th biggest August opening of all time, after The Bourne Ultimatum ($69.3m), Rush Hour 2 ($67.4m), and Signs ($60.1m), and ahead of Rush Hour 3 $49.1m.

August tends to be quite strange for opening figures. It is generally not known for large openings, although the examples above make it clear that there is potential for big openings. Historically, the August-September period, like the Jan-Feb one, has been used as a kind of dumping ground by studios to dispose of low tier releases. This is partly why August has seen several breakout hits over the years that built up weekend to weekend, such as The Fugitive and The Sixth Sense.

G.I. Joe has given the lacklustre second part of this summer a welcome boost, and it should contribute another $100m or so to the overall tally.

The weekend's other major release, Julie & Julia, also did quite well, just passing the $20m mark. The most encouraging aspect of its performance is the Saturday increase, which bodes well for its overall run. It is difficult to determine at this point what its overall trajectory will be like, but the film looks set to pass the $70m hurdle at the least, and might even get to the $80m mark. $100m is also not entirely out of the question yet, although steady holds are required. Put this down as another success for both Meryl Streep and Amy Adams.

Regarding the other films, Funny People had a terrible sophomore session, dropping 65% from last weekend. The film is an unqualified failure for its director and two male leads. The holdovers in general had steep drops this weekend, with The Hangover having, unsurprisingly, the best drop in the top 10. (500) Days of Summer had a decent if not spectacular expansion.

Films With Most $20M+ Days

You can see my the relatively small number of films on this chart just how difficult it is for movies to have two or more $20m+ days, even with current inflationary forces at play at the box office. In general, films with 2 or 3 days above $20m tend to have large openings and precipitate drops, which is why they do not sustain such sums in subsequent weeks.

Films with 3 or more days above $20m tend to be 1) Thursday or Wednesday releases, 2) mid-week holiday releases, or 3) Memorial Day releases. Spider-Man 2, for example, was released on a Wednesday before the July 4h weekend, and managed to have 6 straight days of $20m+ grosses because its Monday fell on July 5th, giving it an added holiday boost.

Very rarely do films achieve $20m+ figures without holiday aid. There are three exceptions, in fact, and they are big ones:

-Spider-Man 1 opened with $114.8m in 2002, but remarkably, managed to have healthy drops subsequently. It had a $30.5m second Saturday (the only time a film has made more than $30m on a day after opening week) and a $21m second Sunday. Even more remarkably, it managed to register a $20m third Saturday, making it the only film to have a daily gross above $20m outside the first two weeks of release.

-Shrek 2 had a massive opening in 2004, and an even more impressive second weekend, which happened to fall during Memorial Day holidays. That allowed the film to add an additional 4 $20m+ days to its 3 opening weekend days, giving it a total of seven days, a previous record.

-The Dark Knight, which of course had a gargantuan opening weekend, had an even more impressive opening week. The film managed a jaw-dropping $24.5m on its first Monday without the aid of any holiday, and grossed another $20.9m on the following Tuesday. It registered another 3 $20m+ days during its sophomore session. Its total of 8 days above $20m is a stunning record, and a testament to the remarkable run it had, especially during its first few weeks.

$20m+ Days: Franchises & Brands

This chart counts entries for all franchises that had at least two films or more with $20m+ days. That excludes Jurassic Park, for example, because all 3 of its $20m+ days came from 1997's The Lost World.

If there is any doubt about Harry Potter's staying prowess, I think this dispels it. The films have had consistently large opening weekends, and several have had strong sophomore sessions. Expect the gulf between Potter and the other franchises to only widen with the release of the future films.

$20m+ Days By Studio

Just to explain the double rankings of WB and Paramount: DreamWorks has ceased to function as an independent studio and struck a deal with Paramount, so that many huge franchises, including the Shrek and Tranformers films, passed on to Paramount. The figure for DreamWorks covers that period during which it was independent of Paramount, and the same with Paramount's. The figure for Paramount (+DreamWorks) includes figures from DW after the coupling of the two studios. The same goes for WB and New Line.

Warner Bros. remains, either way, the leader by a huge margin, aided by Harry Potter and Batman. Fox has similarly benefitted from the Star Wars films.

Estimated Daily Admissions Figures

So these are the all-time biggest daily admissions figures, and it should come as no surprise that The Dark Knight tops this list as well, given the gargantuan figure it pulled off on opening day.

Staggering as these figures are, it is important to keep in mind that TDK's admissions still account for less than 2.8% of North America's population.

$20m+ Days By Year

I think these figures, more than anything else, highlight just how much has changed in so short a time period. Ticket prices are only part of the reason. Changes in release patterns, a shorter release window due to the increasing DVD and home video market, greater competition for more theatre space, and a greater emphasis on sequels and franchise films-all those factors have contributed to bigger and bigger opening days. Curiously, it seems we have stalled in the last few years after the surge between 1999 and 2001. I also find it interesting that three years this decade havae had exactly 30 $20m+ days. 2008's tally is due to The Dark Knight, above all and everything, while 2007's and 2004's were aided by the Shrek and Spider-Man films.

In graph format:

All-Time Daily Figures: A Summary

Alright, so by way of a summary of the two large preceding charts, let's consider first the breakdown for days above $20m:

Almost half of figures above $20m are also below $25m, suggesting a considerable barrier in that range. I would argue that this is due to the bigger, $25m+ days pushing several other days up with them. Take a film, for example, that opens with $30m on Friday, declines 20% on Saturday to $24m, and another 15% on Sunday to $20.4m. That's two $20-25m days for one $30m opener.

Now let's look at inflation and how inflated figures compare to actuals:

The effect is immediately visible and quite drastic. The change at the top is not particularly striking, largely because those figures come from recent releases anyway. But even there, the fact that the number of $60m+ days doubles is considerable. More startling is the jump in the number of $45m+ days, from 10 to 21.

Daily Figures: Adjusted for Inflation

Here's the chart for daily grosses adjusted for inflation. The one thing to take from this, which becomes clearer in the next post above, is that ticket price inflation has had a marked effect on the upsurge in higher daily numbers over the last decade. The benefit of these adjusted charts is that they do give greater prominence to some older films:

Daily Figures: An Overview of the Largest Daily Grosses

Daily figures are notoriously difficult to account for properly, especially since they were not tracked carefully until fairly recently. Having said that, the vast majority of films that have registered $20m+ grosses are so recent that the charts are generally accurate. Less so are the adjusted ones. At any rate, for a quick overview, here are the biggest daily grosses. Highlighted entries are 2009 releases.

I don't expect 2009 to have many more entries on this list, unless some fall or winter releases break out in a big way. The early and mid summer period releases tend to be dominant here.

A Comparative Analysis of the Weekend Performances of the Major 2009 Releases

I know that the huge chart below is bewildering, so allow me to explain.

I have essentially offered up a comparative analysis of the first nine weekends (or less, where applicable) of all the 16 films that have grossed more than $100m this year and were released in January or after. Each film's weekend gross was compared to those of all other films and is given as a percentage.

So, for example, Up's first weekend gross corresponds to 62.5% of Transformers' opening weekend, its second weekend corresponds to 104.29% of Transformers' second weekend. What this means is that Up had so good a hold in its second weekend that it managed to surpass Transformers despite having an opening less than two-thirds that of Transformers'. The films grow wider apart during the third weekend: Up's third weekend is 127% of Transformers 2's (or, conversley, Transformers 2's was 78.71% of Up's).

The point is the essentially the same that I made yesterday, which is that we have had several films this year that have held up remarkably well weekend to weekend. Consider The Hangover, whose opening weekend was only 41.28% of Transformers 2. Its second weekend was 77.49%, and by the third weekend, it had shot past Transformers 2, by having a weekend gross 110.49% of T2's. By the sixth weekend, The Hangover had more than doubled T2's correpsonding weekend gross! As impressively, Paul Blart and Taken each opened with, resp., 29.21% and 22.68% of T2's gross. By the fifth weekend, both were ahead of T2, at 135.19% and 121.41%.

Such figures are, I think, very important to keep in mind when assessing the dynamics at play between various films. 2009 has been an extraordinary year, and we have to account for the relationship between the various films and their performances to gain a proper understanding of it.

Sorry for the size of the font; Blogger resized it for some reason. For a larger version, go here.

2009's Top Films: A Comparative Graph

2009 has been a very curious year as regards major films, because we have witnessed several releases showcasing the kind of legs associated more commonly with the 1980s and 1990s. Paul Blart and Taken at the beginning of year, and The Hangover, The Proposal, and Up during the summer, have all had remarkable holds week after week. They have been countered by the usual suspects: the big films that have wide openings and then fizzle quickly. 2009 has given us several of those films, foremost among them Watchmen. Below are two graphs that pit all the 2009 $100m+ releases thus far against each other weekend to weekend. I know it's hard to make out sometimes, because of the number of films, but the main point, that films with smaller openings have outlasted films with larger ones, is clear enough. The first graph is for just the first four weekends, while the second one is for 12 weekends:

(500) Days of Summer

(500) Days of Summer is having a very good run thus far in a small number of theatres. It is, in fact, performing above standard compared to previous films that have been successful in limited run. Check out these two charts. The first is for films in their third weekends that in 1,000 or fewer theatres, and the second is for films that played in fewer than 500 theatres. Days of Summer is in the top 15 in the second chart based on just half the maximum number of theatres:

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Third Weekend

Potter had quite a healthy third weekend, boosted by the IMAX screens it got mid-week last week. The sub-40% drop effectively guarantees that the film will pass $300m, becoming only the second Potter film to do so. Half-Blood Prince registered the 86th best third weekend of all time:

Funny People Opening Weekend

A pretty dismal number, and far below the disappointment threshold for the film (which I'd place at $30m). Put it down to a confusing and generally ineffective advertising campaign and evidently, people's aversion toward less than ridiculous films starring Adam Sandler. There's no use ranking this on the all time chart (where it lands at around #390), and it's quite low on the 2009 opening weekend chart as well:

Also, in terms of estimated admissions:

The Dark Knight: A Retrospective

It was roughly one year ago that The Dark Knight began its historic journey to the top of the box office charts. So, what better time than to look back and assess the film's performance?

The film's final tally stands at $533.3m, making it the second biggest film of all time, behind Titanic. The figure translates into roughly 74.3m admissions in North America. Ticket prices have spiked up considerably since last year, and the film's current adjusted total is $546m.

Tally by month:

Weekend Data:

Weekends Trajectory:

Daily Statistics:

Daily Totals Trajectory:

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