Coming in really late, but I've got my October predictions up on goddOS.

Now I just need to finish that damn Soulcalibur review.

My predictions for September are up here on goddOS.

Also, my eyes are itching.

My July Movie Recap is up on goddOS.net. I'm surprised to find that my accuracy was relatively high for the month. I need to get started on my September preview.

I'm also back in Washington for a week, since it's my grandmother's 90th birthday party this weekend.

The weather is awesome.

SF's weather is not.

Over on goddOS.net, I've written a good 2000 words about the already massive run for The Dark Knight.

June was an awesome month for movies.

I've gone and looked at how my predictions stood up to the actual performance of all the films in May. Gritty details ahoy!

August predictions are up. There's some possibility for excitement, but I don't think we're going to see anything too far from the ordinary.

Next up I'll need to start doing post-month recaps.

The further out we are from the releases, the less sure I am of my predictions.

Of course, given how much I blew the Speed Racer prediction less than two weeks before the release, I'm not sure it really matters. (Good lord that was bad. It's not going to earn in total what I predicted for its opening weekend.)

Still, July is up here.

Also, the weather is absolutely spectacular at the moment. I'm wearing shorts!

June movie predictions.

I'm already behind the curve on Iron Man. I'm not feeling good about my Speed Racer prediction, either.

***

In other news, I tried out Camino as a new browser. It's nice, but unfortunatley it won't suffice. I was willing to try and learn to live without my CoLT plug-in or the ability to recover a closed tab at a keypress, but I found a deal-breaker. It won't remember the information I put into forms. Considering how much of my work is doing that, it's absolutely necessary for productivity.

I pondered trying Shiira, but it doesn't seem set up for what I'd require.

So I switched up to the Firefox 3 Beta. So far it's working out quite well. Seems to be a bit quicker and smoother than 2, and I like the new look. I lost the Tabs Mix Plus plug-in, but I found another that gives the the keypress recovery.

I should be looking into upgrading to Leopard one of these days, though.

Iron Opens today. It seems Chu has already seen it. I've heard from others that it is the BEST SUPERHERO MOVIE EVAR!

Who knows, they could be right.

But it also means that Summer's here, and it's time, once again, for me to do my bold predictions!

I'm breaking them up by month and posting them over in teh blog. May can be found here

Let's jump back three months, shall we?

At this time in September, the movie forecast looked rosy. The summer had been spectacular, and domestically, movies had passed the 7 million mark faster than any year on record. Even if the big three of may didn't quite live up to expectations, other films exceeded things to an extraordinary level (notably Transfomers).

And the beginning of Fall season had gotten off to a promising start, with 3:10 to Yuma garnering praise and audience reception, and the question hung: would this be the first year to pass ten billion in revenue?

And then, over the course of September, things started to falter a little. The Brave One disappointed, as did The Kingdom. While The Game Plan was a modest success, it wasn't enough to keep the momentum.

Then October hit and the box office train swerved off the rails. The Heartbreak Kid? Flop. 30 Days of Night? Massive underperformer. Saw IV? Sure, it opened large, but not even as large as the previous in the series, and the legs were abysmal.

The brightest October spots were Why Did I get Married, Gone, Baby, Gone, and Dan in Real Life. All three of them rather niche films that weren't likely to break out huge no matter what happened.

November seemed to get off to a promising start, as both Bee Movie and American Gangster opened large. However, in the following weekends, film after film has underperformed. Fred Clause and Beowulf both showed well under what their studios probably wanted. Films like Mr. Magorium and Lions for Lambs are down in the severely embarassing category.

In fact the weekend Beowulf opened is typically one of the strongest each year. As a lead-in to Thanksgiving, it's been a typical tentpole slot. Harry Potter, Happy Feet, James Bond, Dr. Seuss. Just some of the huge films that have started in that slot. Granted, name recognition helps, but it's not everything.

This year was the first time since 1998 that the pre-Thanksgiving weekend top 12 has failed to earn over $100 million collectively. Hell, since 2001, every weekend in November through Thanksgiving has earned at least $100m in the top 12. But not this year. Two weekends in a row that failed to hit that mark.

The $92 million that this year pulled for the top 12 was nearly matched by Harry Potter 1 and beaten by $10 million by Harry Potter 4.

Now, Thanksgiving itself was rather nice. Enchanted was the biggest film to open on Thanksgiving since Toy Story 2 in 1999. And This Christmas managed to surprise and exceed expectations. Even Hitman and August Rush, otherwise forgettable, managed to hit about par.

All told, it was a good weekend. But Thanksgiving is followed by a typically bad weekend, as any existing film falls hard and nearly anything that opens fails. So it wasn't a good weekend, but also not bad, compared to some.

Of course, this most recent weekend brings more question marks. The Golden Compass, New Line's attempt to create another LotR-esque franchise... or at least something vaguely comparable to Narnia, earned about $26m for the opening. No other films opened.

Much like Beowulf, this isn't really far off of expectations, but probably well less than the studio would like. And since nothing else opened, the rest of the films in release just shed business. It was actually a worse weekend than the post-Thanksgiving one, something that hasn't happened since 2003 (and the numbers were bigger then).

Since the end of summer, when Superbad became the last of many to cross the $100m barrier, only two films have hit the Century mark: American Gangster and Bee Movie. Enchanted will likely do so in a few weekends, but that's still just three movies so far over the entire holiday set.

Right now, it's doubtful the year is going to pull in $10 billion. Heck, at this point, it's a question if 2007 is still going to beat 2004 as the biggest year on record. It's still ahead, but only by a thin $135 million (note that this is total gross for all movies in the calendar year, so that's less than a 2% advantage at this point.)

Now, 2004 didn't have a strong December. At this point, Ocean's Twelve had just opened strong, but the legs were crap. Lemony Snicket underperformed. However Meet the Fockers was a huge success.

Still, at this point one wonders what the rest of December has for this year. The biggest films are likely I Am Legend and National Treasure 2. IAL is likely to do well, but it may not be huge. Will Smith hasn't hit $200m since 1998. Even so, he's amazingly consistent. Just last year, he had The Pursuit of Happyness hit $163m and it opened this same weekend. Plus, IAL is likely to have a bigger opening.

National Treasure, though, is less clear. The first film was huge, to be sure, but was it a lighting-in-a-bottle situation? Who knows if it can happen again.

As for everything else, we've got Alvin and the Chipmunks (another Fat Albert?), Charlie Wilson's War (Tom Hanks is strong, and the reviews are too, but is the audience?), Sweeney Todd (conceptually awesome, looks amazing, but the questions are numerous), Walk Hard (can Judd Apatow strike gold three times in one year?), and Alien vs. Predator 2 (Not holding my breath that it'll break out).

It's possible we'll see a resurgence, but I'm not holding my breath.

So, three months ago, when I looked ahead at the months to come, I noted that there were a lot of question marks in the holiday season. Unfortunately, it seems like most of those have returned questionable results.

In one day, Halloween is already the 6th or 7th highest grossing film over the entire 4 day labor day weekend. (It really depends on how the estimate pans out compared to The Constant Gardner).

This is a guarantee that it will have the record for biggest Labor Day opening of all time. Not that that's saying a whole lot. The current record holder is Transporter 2, which gathered a massive $20.1 million two years ago.

It's also likely to have the biggest Labor Day weekend ever, which is currently held by The Sixth Sense at just under $30 million.

It's not that great of a box office weekend, really.

Summer's almost over, and I need to do a final box office recap for it, but I want to see how Labor Day pans out. I've also started looking at the films coming out in the two month fall season for anything of interest.

With that said, I thought I'd take a look at the amount required to hit a certain place on the all time list.

#1 - $600,788,189. $1 more than Titanic to become the highest grossing film of all time. With the way the movie industry has changed, I don't think this is going to fall for quite some time. Inflation makes it inevitable, but it'll probably be another 10 years before anything's close enough.

#5 - $431,088,302. To crack the top 5, you need to beat Star Wars Episode 1. Only one film has done that since it was released, and that's Shrek 2, the least deserving uber blockbuster ever.

#10 - $373,585,826 - I honestly thought that at least one film this year would get that high. It's not to be, however. It's finally at the level where such a thing is possible, but most of the huge franchises are pretty worn out at the moment, so i'm going to peg Transformers 2 as the next likely candidate.

#15 - $336,530,303 - With a caveat that Spidey 3 is still earning money, although not much. If you get to $337 million, you're golden. Again, I'm not sure what's likely to do this.

#20 - $314,776,170 - Truth be told, I expect this to fall in the next couple months. Transformers is getting an IMAX release, which should grant it another $5 million at least to crack the top 20.

#27 - $293,506,293. There's this odd gap after this. The next film on the list is the first Pirates, which has $305m. So if a film does hit the tri-century mark, it's golden for at least 27th.

#30 - $290,013,037 - Currently held by Harry Potter 4. Soon to be held by Harry Potter 5, although it's not likely to get much further.

#40 - $255,873,251 - $250 million doesn't even get you into the top 40 movies of all time anymore.

#50 - $241,438,209 - But it will get you in the top 50. I expect that about two movies a year, minimum, will cross the $250m threshold, so at the worst, we'll see this as the barrier for the top 50 in 2010. I'm going to guess it'll happen in 2009, though.

#60 - $219,195,244 - $220 million cracks the top 60.

#70 - $210,609,763 - At one time, Back to the Future was one of the biggest films of all time. Now it's down around the Austin Powers Sequels.

#75 - $204,843,346 - For the next few weeks, at least, T2 is the 75th biggest fim of all time.

#80 - $198,676,459 - Ladies and gentlemen, the most successful movie of all time: Gone with the Wind. When it was released in 1939, it earned $189 million. To match such a feat, you'd have to earn upwards of a billion dollars in the domestic box office. However, it's likely to fall off the unadjusted chart in under a week, as it's passed by the Bourne Ultimatum. Which will pass Ratatouille, as well, meaning that every film in the top 80 will have at least $200 million.

#100 - $181,410,616 - When I started following box office numbers about 13 years ago, $180 million would have gotten you to #26 on the all time chart (just missing the top 25 by $4 million). Now it's not even enough to crack the top 100. But that's the way things go.

Since 2001, at least six films every year have crossed $200 million. The best year, in this regard, is the much maligned 2005, which had eight films do that. Once Bourne and Ratatouille do it, that'll be 8 for this year, with the entire Holiday season to come, although nothing there really screams $200 million successful.

But that probably means that something will surprise me.

The summer's been rather interesting since the release of Shrek 3.

Pirates managed the fourth biggest opening of all time, has earned over $300 million domestic and may end up just the fourth film to cross the billion dollar mark worldwide and it's still considered a disappointing performance. I suppose when you're at that level and you just barely top your budget in domestic gross AND you're not likely to gross more than a few million than the first film AND you're over $100m short of the second, it doesn't look good.

But with the film looking to get close to $700m internationally, I don't think Disney cares. Those numbers may be enough to spawn another Pirates film (yay!), but I expect the budget will drop down to Dead Man's Chest levels, at least.

June wasn't a stellar box office month. It started off well, with Knocked Up, which has managed to exceed almost every expectation. It's opening weekend managed to match the $30 million budget, and it's had some incredible legs, with $132m so far and likely another $10-20 left. It's not really sequel material, but it does bode well for Judd Apatow's career. And I think the prospects of Superbad later this summer are improved, too, since it's likely to have some similar humor.

Ocean's Thirteen managed to keep audiences engaged, but opened smaller than both previous films in the series and is going to lag behind them in the final tally, too. It's hit $110 million after the $36m opening, which shows some pretty solid legs, but this may be the end for Danny Ocean and his crew. (OTOH, if you accept that the performance of a film is dictated by the reception of the previous film, there's every reason to believe that another Ocean film will do quite well.)

The same weekend Surfs Up opened softly and will likely be quickly forgotten. Consider it a misstep for Shia LaBeouf. The shine on computer animated productions continues to wear off.

The following weekend, Fantastic Four 2 took in $58 million, fairly impressive and slighty ahead of its predecessor. However, audience reception hasn't been great and it's earned just $124m thus far. It should end up with around the same final tally as Hulk - $132 million, which is a far cry from the $155m the first FF gathered (granted, FF opened in a much weaker year.)

While the big three may films all have had somewhat disappointing response, all three are bona fide successful. The same cannot be said for Evan Almighty. The most expensive comedy in history earned a paltry $31 million opening weekend. It's gathered $79m total, but even $100m is looking like a distant dream. With a budget of $175m, this is a veritable bomb. Hopefully, Steve Carell can step into the right movie from here.

And then there's Pixar and Bruce Willis. Ratatouille managed to earn $47m its opening weekend while Live Free or Die Hard earned $33m. Both openings are softer than expected, but exemplary performance during the days since have turned things around for both. Ratatoille might end up being the lowest grossing Pixar film since A Bug's Life, but I think it's got enough left to at least match last year's Cars and still cross $250m. It's sitting at $110m so far. Die Hard has earned $84m, and should see at least another $50m before it leaves theaters. Call it a successful re-establishment of a franchise.

And then there's Transformers. Despite a questionable director, odd release schedule, and potentially vindictive fans, it's managed to deliver completely giving audiences three enjoyable films in a single week. With the July 4 falling on a Wednesday, Paramount started things extra early with previews starting at 8pm on Monday.

The tale of the tape is $155 million in 6+ days of release. While the $70m opening weekend doesn't look spectacular, and the full release isn't a weekend by any stretch of the imagination, this looks like a home run. Bucking the trend of nearly every fanboy film in recent memory, Transformers managed to keep strong, sustained business on every day of release.

The big question is how far it will go from here. Audience response is very good and the lack of frontloading means it's probably a good bet to have some legs to it.

A point of concern is the opening of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in a couple days. It may eat up Transformers' audience. Of course, I expected the opening of Transformers to eat into the audience of both Die Hard and Ratatouille, but that didn't happen for either one, so I think audiences will be able to make both TF and HP massively successful.

So, assuming that it doesn't get murdered, the question of how far it goes remains. Despite the odd release schedule, I think that it can be compared to Independence Day openers from previous years. Every single one of those films opened a few days earlier than the weekend, which gives some comparison between the extended opening frame and the final tally, as so:

Film			Full Opening	Final Gross	Ratio
Superman Returns	$84m		$200m		2.38
War o/t Worlds	        $100m		$234m		2.34
Spider-Man 2	        $152m		$373m		2.45
Terminator 3		$72m		$150m		2.08
MiiB			$87m		$190m		2.18

Giving Transformers an average multiplier of those films (2.26) and its extended opening of $155m and we'd be looking at a $350m total, which is probably more than good enough to be the #1 movie of the year (and about twice as much as what I expected earlier this summer.) Even if that's optimistic, we could give it the worst ratio of any of those films (the same as Terminator 3), and it'd still be at $322m, which is likely to be ahead of where Shrek 3 lands. Right now, I think $300m is incredibly likely, and a worst-case scenario has it very near that mark.

When we consider that Transformers was made for just under $150m, a modest budget for such a film nowadays, it's a surefire winner. I expect the first sequel to hit in 2010 at the latest.

Plus, it's a damn awesome movie.

Shrek the Third's opening weekend clocked in around 122 million, including the extended preview showings starting at 10pm on Thursday.

Third biggest opening in history (after Spidey 3 and Dead Man's Chest). Biggest animated opening in history (ahead of Shrek 2). Clearly it's another film that's going to cross $300 million with relative ease.

How it stacks up is a bit of an interesting question, though. See, while it technically has a larger opening than Shrek 2, it's already behind the pace. Shrek 2 opened on a Wednesday and earned 20 million in 2 days before clocking in that huge 108 million opening. By Sunday, it had a 5 day opening of 129 million, or nearly 7 million better than Shrek 3's total at that point.

And from here on out, it's going to lag further behind. The monday numbers show that, which has Shrek 3's 9.5 million about 2 million short of Shrek 2's first monday. Every day this week should be behind the pace. Shrek 2 faced a well-selling, but completely different league film over Memorial Day - The Day After Tomorrow is no Pirates of the Caribbean. Shrek 2 managed to see a fairly miniscule drop to have the largest second weekend in history and earned almost 100 million over the 4 day frame.

For Shrek 3, it's not going to repeat that. For one thing, it's not nearly as well received as the previous Shrek films were. For another, legs on sequels always tend to lag behind their predecessors. They open bigger and fall faster. It's just how movies are. So even while Shrek 3 is 2 million behind 2 on Monday, it may see itself 3 million behind per day on Thursday, and won't see quite the same uptick over the weekend.

Against Pirates, which has an extremely broad demographic, it's likely to crumble a fair bit. Falling 50% over the three day is likely, 80 million over the four day is probably near the best it can hope for. That'll still be huge, and put it around 230 million after 11 days, but Shrek 2 was at 260 million by that point, if you want a bit of comparison. Shrek 3 might get within 100 million of Shrek 2's total, but probably not by much,

Spider-Man continues to fall fairly fast from its incredible $151 million opening. On Sunday it finally fell behind the pace of the first Spider-Man, and it's going to see continued erosion in comparison. It'll pass $300 million, likely on Saturday, but the life is clearly leaking rather quickly. While Spidey 2's 373 million was within spitting distance of the 403 million of the first film, Spidey 3 is probably going to see a larger gap. If it only ends up 30 million short, again, it'll be doing quite well.

The performance of Spidey and (to a lesser extent) Shrek create an odd situation this weekend as Pirates 3 opens. While both films have done tremendously good in straight business, they're not quite breaking the bank as well as they might. A few times recently I've wondered at the case of a 200 million earner that's considered a flop. We could be looking at a couple 300 million earners which are disappointments. (Although both will be unqualified money-makers, especially when you consider foreign grosses.)

So ironically, despite the success, there could be a case of audiences wanting to have a satisfying movie experience. There's hope that Pirates can provide that, so people could turn out in droves looking for that something.

It could backfire, especially if the film isn't as good at delivering the fun as the previous two (no clue about that, really. There's no review consensus, yet.) but for this weekend it should play very well.

It's getting started quite early, with the "midnight" showings starting at 8pm on Thursday. When you consider the fact that kids are still in school and all, matinee showings during the week are a bit superflurous. It's almost like getting an extra day. It may not see quite the extra push from these, though, since theaters may take advantage of the extra hours by foregoing the round-the-clock showings through the Friday morning hours.

Even so, it's going to be really huge. With the Thursday showings, an "opening day" of 65 million wouldn't surprise me. If it loses 10 million a day through the weekend, it'll see 200 million in four days. That's an optimistic prediction, but 180 million in four wouldn't surprise me.

Exciting times.

When an opening weekend record falls, it really falls hard. The Lost World beat Batman Forever to the tune of 20 million. Harry Potter bet that mark by 18 million. Spider-Man set the record by 24 million. Dead Man's Chest was another 21 million beyond that. And Spider-Man 3 has a new record by 16 million dollars.

151 million. In three days. Apparently I lowballed my weekend prediction.

I'm not altogether sure what this implies for Pirates 3. It's slightly iffy that it'll beat Spidey 3, if only because of the more congested marketplace at the end of the month and the likelihood that it won't have quite the same ubiquity as Spidey. By reports, the film showed in well over 10,000 screens, including a huge number of IMAX showings. If Pirates doesn't have IMAX, it may find topping the record to be quite a challenge.

But it's still possible, given the holiday weekend.

Hmm... 4/29. That can only mean one thing.

In a few days, summer starts. At least it does ifyou ignore those pesky astronomical details. Some scientists may put stock in that, but I know that summer runs four months of every year, give or take a little bit. And in keeping with tradition, it starts off big. Movie season is upon us, and while the Holidays may provide a fair share of newsworthy flicks and something always tends to make a name for itself somehow in the offseasons, by and large summer is where movie box office stories are made.

This summer is a few steps above the rest, though. While many a year has had feel of a "summer of sequel" there may never be another summer quite like 2007, where we not only get a huge helping of sequels, most of them are at LEAST second sequels. I've heard it's been dubbed the Summer of Threequels, in fact. If a bit kludgy, it's an accurate descriptor as six franchises are seeing their third sequel hit sometime in the next four months. Three of those are three of the four biggest franchises this decade.

Hell, those three are hitting us just in MAY.

Beyond that, there's tons of big word offerings from perennial blockbuster names like Pixar, Michael Bay, and JK Rowling. And even if some things aren't going to break the bank, in four months there's plenty of time to spread the moviegoing love around to some smaller offerings.

So what's this summer going to look like?

( May )

( June )

( July )

( August )


Ultimately? The summer's going to start off awesome and while there's enough high points there's a definite downward trend as it goes on. Even so, the possibilty of four films hitting $300 million or more is exciting.

The big news of the weekend was 300's stunning success. $70 million may not be as impressive an opening weekend number as it was a decade ago (when it had happened never), but it's still sufficiently large to make people take notice.

What's the biggest part of this story, though?

Is it the fact that 300 snagged a March record (topping last year's Ice Age 2), and the third biggest R-rated opening of all time (following The Passion and Matrix Reloaded)? No.

Is it the fact that it managed to do this opening despite having no bankable stars, a relative newcomer as a director, and no wide public recognition for the original work (although well regarded, 300 probably wasn't known outside of comic circles... and even there it might have only been the 5th most well-known Frank Miller work... at best)? No.

Is it the fact that up until about 4 weeks ago, barely anyone knew that 300 was going to come out? No.

Is it the fact that it managed to top its entire budget ($65 million) in only 3 days? Nope, not that either.

The biggest part of this story is the fact that it came from Warner Bros and it managed to succeed. Outside of the impossible to screw up franchise Harry Potter, the WB's had a difficult time at the box office in the past few years. There have been a few successes (Batman Begins, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), but the monumental screw-ups more than offset that. And it's not that WB's been making bad movies. The quality from the studio is likely no better or worse than any other big producer.

It's the marketing, baby. The company probably would have been better served to just put the movies in the theaters and NOT advertise, given how often their films underperformed. It's like their every effort was chosen to undermine any chance of success. I can only assume that Harry Potter would be a series of $400 million films if not for the efforts of marketing.

300, perhaps, marks a change. I suppose there's something in the late, guerilla timing of the campaign that helped it work really well. Even if (as is likely), the film drops like a rock from here on out, it's still going to cruise past $150 million. Mark it as a win and they better hope they can duplicate it. There's some cause for worry. Is TMNT still a valid film product? Can Lucky You work as successful counter-programming to Spider-Man 3 (umm... no.) Will Ocean's Thirteen be better than Twelve (and hopefully better than Eleven)? Is there anything besides Harry Potter that can be guaranteed to sell?

I suppose we'll find out a couple weeks before each film's release.

***

I made another chili today. No onion, light on the beans, heavy on the meat (Turkey this time). Nice bit of warmth that hit right at the back of the throat, but I think I prefer more beans.

I need to learn how to make home-made soup, next. I'm a bit concerned about the sodium content from the mixes and whatnot.

***

Also, apparently today is both "Pi Day" and "Steak and Blowjob Day".

Frankly, I think someone dropped the ball while coming up with S&BJ Day.

It should really be Pie and Blowjob day. (Not that I'm expecting either.)

Last weekend, Borat made some pretty large waves in box office. These waves were to the tune of about $26.5 million. Which is an absolutely astounding number.

No, seriously. To put it bluntly, in two days, Borat became the highest grossing mockumentary in history (previous winner: Best in Show, with 18.7 million back in 2000). And most projections for Borat, even the ones considered "best of all possible worlds" were shooting at little more than half that. Most expected The Santa Clause 3 (franchise gross upwards of $275 million) to take the lead, with Flushed Away coming in second. Borat should have been fighting Saw III for #3 on the list in the best case scenario, or, by most conservative asusmptions, been in the middle of the pack with The Departed (Martin Scorsese's highest grossing movie, now) and The Prestige.

As it happens, all those other movies did fine. But Borat amazed.

There's more to the story. Truth be told, when a movie opens up the holiday season below $30 million and it's considered really good news, something's not quite normal. In this case, it's one little number: 837. That's the number of theaters Borat opened in. Technically, it's a wide release, but most top-of-the-box films have at least four times that screencount.

Because of that, it's per theater average came in to $31,607. For a wide release, that's only been topped twice. The first was Spider-Man, which broke all kinds of records when it opened in 2004. The second was Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which did the same thing four months ago. Clearly, Borat's in some pretty heady company. Among some of the films it got a better per-theater average: Revenge of the Sith, X-Men: The Last Stand, Passion of the Christ, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, and Shrek 2. (For those counting at home, that's four films which have earned $100 million opening weekend, and three more which have earned at least $350 million at the box office.)

Put it another way, if Borat had opened on a normal 3,200 theaters and kept that per-theater average (not likely, but it's good for comparison purposes), it would be a $100 million earner. (It cost $18 million to make, so consider EVERYTHING it does from now on to be profit.)

Well, to be fair, this isn't -entirely- unprecedented. 2.5 years ago, a film was released on a handful of theaters. It managed to become the highest grossing film in its genre in two days, and made a lot of news as it went well above and beyond any expectations. That was Farenheit 9/11, which completely changed how documentaries are received (although I suppose some people could argue that Borat's more a documentary and Farenheit is more a mockumentary). Its average was a slightly lower $27,558 and it opened on a slightly wider 868 theaters, but there are strong points for comparison.

One thing that speaks strongly in Borat's favor is that films that do open like this (The Blair Witch Project, another genre-defying and defining movie, is another) tend to stay around for quite a long time. Farenheit earned $119 million. Blair Witch earned $144 million. It's incredibly likely that Borat will do the same. In fact, due to the nice holiday placement and how it can play well as a counterpoint film to the traditional holiday fare, it should earn well throughout the next two months. $200 million would not surprise me.

Among the more traditional fare, two family films hit the screens, and while neither wowed anyone, both performed fairly well. Tim Allen's third go-round as Santa Clause took #2 and earned just under $20 million. This is a bit of a step down from the last film ($29 million), but given how it plays, a final tally north of $100 million again doesn't seem like too big of a stretch.

Flushed Away, Aardman's first CGI film (apparently due to the difficulty of animating water with claymation) clocked in at third, with just under $19 million. This is slightly ahead of both of the previous Aardman releases, Chicken Run and Wallace and Gromit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit. Both of which opened around $17 million. Chicken Run played much better overall, with a final tally of $106 million, but Wallace and Gromit earned $53 million. Flushed Away probably has a future between those two benchmarks. As is typical with films released by Dreamworks, it had an incredibly wide 3,707 theaters, by far the highest of any film in release.

Saw III fell heavily, losing over half its business and falling behind the pace of Saw II. Even so, it held up better than horror films tend to and there's a fourth film in the series due. Probaby next Halloween. A final tally between $70 and $80 million is likely. And Saw V will probably kill the franchise, until someone comes along in a decade to try and revive it. Jigsaw vs. Jason, or something.

The Departed is now (well, at some point on Monday), the highest grossing film of Martin Scorsese's career. Perhaps even better, it may be the film which gets him (finally) the Best Director Oscar. Oscar loves big business, after all. It's still playing very well, and dropped only about 1/5 of its business this weekend. It's probably got a couple more of life left until James Bond opens and takes the action/drama business away.

The Prestige, like The Departed, had a very small drop this weekend, while it doesn't seem to be headed towards any awards, it is playing very well and keeping business longer than most expectations. It's sitting just shy of $40 million, and could go above $60 by the end of its run, which is quite respectable for a fall release.

Down near the bottom of the top ten is Flags of Our Fathers. This was supposed to be Clint Eastwood's bid for another Best Director nod, but it's not quite wowing people as expected. It's only grossed about 1/4th what The Departed has, and probably won't even get to $40 million. Worse, since it was pretty expensive ($90 million), it's probably going to cause some worry for next year's Letters from Iwo Jima.

Man of the Year probably has its last weekend of good business. Since it's now Election Tuesday, people will probably forget all about politics until 2008 after today. That includes political movies.

Open Season took a beating this weekend, finally. Even so, the mid-tier animated film has chugged along nicely in its run and is north of $80 million total.

And, to bring things around to surprising films, The Queen rounded out the top 10, despite playing in under 400 theaters. Oscar likes good business, so expect at least a Best Actress from this.

Aug 11-13 $7,237,927 2,941 $2,461
Aug 18-21 $5,212,351 2,277 $2,289
Aug 25-27 $4,006,000 1,701 $2,355

The first column's obviously a weekend. The second is the weekend gross. The third is the # of theaters. The fourth is the theater average. The weekend to weekend drops are quite good taken alone. They're below 30%, which is usually spectacular for most films. The theater drops from weekend to weekend are fairly normal for a film late in its run. The per-theater average, however, is spectacular.

Basically, each theater is seeing the same number of patrons each weekend. If they keep the film, they're going to see the business come back. Usually, there's some dropoff, at a slightly lower percentage than the total dropoff, but to pretty much stay level? Astounding. The film, of course, is Pirates 2.

Of course, the first Pirates film pretty much did the same thing, at the same point in its run... and it managed to earn more per weekend while doing so. Still, the steam hasn't run out of PotC 2 just yet. It's sitting at #6 all time (having passed Spider-Man this weekend), and while it won't get to #5 (currently Star Wars Episode I), it could get to $420 or so.