- Bah humbug for A Christmas Carol [CAROL]. Weekend box office receipts were light, mainly because tallies for two high profile new releases, Disney’s PG-rated, 3-D A Christmas Carol, and Overture’s The Men Who Stare at Goats [MGOAT], starring George Clooney, fell short of our estimates. Box office for the top 12 movies over the Nov. 6 – 8 weekend, the 45th of the theater year, fell 13.4% y/y to $110.6 million, according to preliminary data from boxofficemojo.com, $15.0 million below our estimate for a 1.7% decline. Christmas Carol’s $31 million haul, while topping the weekend, missed our estimate by $18.8 million. Goats ranked third, with $13.3 million, $3.9 million below our estimate. Michael Jackson’s This Is It [JACKO], from Sony, came in second with $14.0 million in its second weekend, $1.8 million above our estimate. Paramount’s Paranormal Activity came in fifth with $8.6 million — $0.1 million below our estimate.
- 3-D story still positive with Christmas Carol. Even though the movie fell short of our estimate, 3-D clearly boosted receipts for A Christmas Carol, which, according to rottentomatoes.com, received more negative reviews from top critics than positive ones, with a 44% fresh rating. According to boxofficemojo.com, 55% of Christmas Carol’s 6,500 opening weekend screens were 3-D, generating 74% of the movie’s box office. Using this data, we estimate that Christmas Carol’s 3-D screens generated 2.3x the box office and 1.6x the attendance of its 2-D screens. Those ratios were 2.2x and 1.5x, respectively, for Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, and 3.0x and 2.1x for this summer’s Ice Age sequel. We estimate that the average 3-D surcharge for Christmas Carol, based on a sample of theaters, was near $3.25, near other 3-D movies this year.
- Next weekend forecast. We expect a 22.5% y/y drop in box office receipts for the top 12 movies next weekend to $106.7 million. We see Sony’s end-of-the-world drama 2012 [2012S] pulling in $36.9 million in its opening weekend. We see A Christmas Carol ranking second with $17.9 million. We see Michael Jackson’s This Is It third with $8.8 million. Last year’s top performer, Quantum of Solace, pulled in $67.5 million in its first weekend.
- Updating 4Q09 box office estimates. Our 4Q09 calendar domestic box office growth estimate drops to 8.2%, from 9.9% previously, due to scaled-back estimates for this week’s releases. Quarter-to-date (Oct. 1 – Nov. 8), box office is up 7.6% to $875.1 million, according to boxofficemojo, accounting for 34.5% of our overall box office estimate for calendar 4Q09. Our current 4Q09 industry estimates are comfortably above our assumption for BUY-rated Cinemark, and consistent with our assumption for HOLD-rated Regal.
Tag(s): CAROL, MGOAT, JACKO, 2012S