- Wild upside for the weekend box office. Box office receipts for the top 12 movies over the Oct. 16 – 18 weekend, the 42nd of the theater year, rose a whopping 53.2% year-over-year to $129.8 million, $38.0 million above our estimate for an 8.3% increase, according to preliminary data from boxofficemojo.com. Where the Wild Things Are [WILD], from Spike Jonze and Warner Brothers, came in first with a $32.5 million opening weekend, $8.2 million above our estimate. Overture’s Law Abiding Citizen [LACTZ] ranked second with $21.3 million in its opening weekend, $17.2 million above our estimate. Paramount’s Paranormal Activity [PNACT] placed third with $20.2 million, $16.0 million above our estimate. This weekend was the film’s third in theaters, and it expanded to 760 from 160 locations. Next weekend it plays in 1,800 theaters.
- Beatable estimates for next week. Next weekend, we’re sticking for now with estimates that look beatable — a 9.9% year over year decline in box office for the top 12 movies to $108.0 million. Because of the way it played over its first release weekend, failing to see a meaningful bump in box office on Saturday over Friday, we’re assuming that Where the Wild Things Are descends like a typical movie, rather than retaining audience like a family movie. We forecast a nearly 45% weekend over weekend box office decline for Wild Things to $17.9 million. Even though it adds more screens, we’re assuming that Paranormal Activity has peaked, and sees a box office dip to $16.5 million. We see Astro Boy [ASBOY], a 3-D, PG-rated Summit Entertainment animated feature, ranking third with $12.6 million in its opening weekend. The top release last year was High School Musical 3, which pulled in $42.0 million in its first weekend. We forecast an 11.0% year-over-year decline in total receipts for theater week 43, ending October 23.
- This Is It a wild card. The Michael Jackson farewell concert movie This Is It [JACKO] debuts on Wednesday, Oct. 28. Based on HSX inputs, we’re assuming $65 million total run domestic box office over several weeks rather than the brief two-week run currently scheduled. But some reports argue for much higher receipts. For instance, influential Hollywood blogger Nikki Finke this week ran a report quoting unnamed sources from concert promoter AEG saying that the movie’s first five-day global total box office haul could be $250 million. Online movie ticketing website Fandango has reportedly sold out 1,000 showtimes, and Fandango presales at this point are topping any other movie this year.
- Updating 4Q09 box office estimates. We’ve upped our 4Q09 calendar domestic box office growth estimate to 9.0%, from 7.9% previously, due primarily to higher estimates for Law Abiding Citizen, which we now see reaching $61 million domestic box office, versus $15 million previously, and Paranormal Activity, which we now put at $81 million, versus $26 million previously. Our industry box office estimates argue for moderate upside to our 4Q09 estimates for theater companies Cinemark and Regal Entertainment.
Tag(s): WILD, LACTZ, PNACT, ASBOY, JACKO