Weekend Box Office

There are days the internet is not my friend, and yesterday was one of them. I was busy during my lunch hour, so I decided to post after work, but all the links to articles I wanted to comment on didn't come up right. I'd get Internet Explorer, and the world would spin for a while, load the banner ad, and then down at the bottom it would say "Done" but the text part of the page stayed white. It did this for AOL News, WorldNetDaily, The Scotsman (UK), but apparently only on the articles I was interested in. Other articles loaded just fine. So I just went to bed.

But that was yesterday. Today life is so much better.

AOLNews reported the weekend's box office receipts, along with a bit of detectable media bias. The encouraging part of this was that the four top-grossing films were family-friendly films. These were:

1. "Hoodwinked," Weinstein Co., $16.6 million.
2. "Glory Road," Disney, $16.5 million.
3. "Last Holiday," Paramount, $15.7 million.
4. "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," Disney, $12.2 million

Number five was the horror flim, Hostel, with $11.7 million.

"Hoodwinked" received mixed critical reviews but its opening day was a financial triumph for a movie that was made for a relatively paltry $15 to $20 million. Weinstein Co. hoped to expand its showings this week to as many as 3,000 screens.

The "mixed critical reviews" is common for family (kid) films. Many critics only appreciate "daring" or "bold" films that "push the envelope." Films like Brokeback Mountain. But for a film that families enjoy, the critics say, "ptooey!" which is what I say to their reviews.

Another PG-rated film, "Glory Road," was in second place and made some $3 million dollars more in its opening than expected.

Why is it that the people who estimate the "expected" box office take never seem to realize how badly Americans want to see a movie they can wholeheartedly enjoy or that will not offend their faith? The Passion of the Christ was horribly underestimated. So was Narnia.

[Hoodwinked] was held back to January so it wouldn't have to face the big Christmas-season guns such as "King Kong" or "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," which was fourth for the weekend and has now grossed more than $260 million. (emphasis added)

In terms of lasting power, Narnia is a winner. It opened a week before King Kong, and is beating out King Kong weekly now.

But the really agenda-driven statistic from this article is this one (obviously written before the Golden Globes were announced):

"Brokeback Mountain," director Ang Lee's story of two rugged Western family men concealing their homosexual affair, had the highest per-location average of any movie in the top 10, at $10,330 per location. It was ranked No. 9 in ticket sales over the long weekend.

In spite of - or perhaps because of - the controversy over its gay theme, "Brokeback Mountain" has done well in every market where it has played.

"This film has everything going for it: the critical acclaim, the word of mouth and, of course, the seven Golden Globe nominations never hurt," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "It's become the must-see movie of the season."

So with all the other movies, they looked at total box office take, or at accumulated gross sales. But with Brokeback Mountain, they had to look at per-location average in order to find some good financial numbers to report. Because they needed to find some good numbers to support their statement that Brokeback is "the must-see movie of the season."

But, if you look at the top-ten list, it's obvious that "Fun With Dick and Jane" is more of a must-see than Brokeback. And Narnia, with $260 million gross (so far) is actually the must-see movie of the season.

They don't get it. They won't get it. And they really hope that we won't get it either.