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.