Box Office Report: 2-18-07

Dude here again. After recovering from the disturbing shock of last week's Norbit #1 (and the subsequent dollars it made while I sit here clipping coupons and counting pennies) , I am finally prepared to bring you some more numbers of many new releases. And I do it a day early, too, given that it's a three day weekend.

This weekend, though, the news isn't that much greater. We also had five movies open in wide release, covering a wide variety of genres and audiences. And yet, Ghost Rider still took in an obscene amount of money. Even more than Norbit did last week. Let's go to the numbers, shall we? (All in millions, remember, and these are the studio estimates, the actuals will be available on Monday, then Tuesday with the 4-day totals for aforementioned holiday weekend. Just to prove me wrong).

1. Ghost Rider (Sony) - $44.5, 3619 screens, week 1, $44.5 total

2. Bridge to Terabithia (BV) - $22.075, 3139 screens, week 1, $22.075 total

3. Norbit (DW) - $16.8, 3138 screens, week 2, $58.88 total

4. Music and Lyrics (WB) - $14.0, 2955 screens, week 1, $19.5 total (Wed opening)

5. Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls (LG)- $12.1, 2111 screens, week 1, $17.79 total (Wed opening)

6. Breach (Uni) - $10.37, 1489 screens, week 1, $10.37 total

7. Hannibal Rising (MGM) - $5.465, 3003 screens, week 2, $22.1 total

8. Because I Said So (Uni) - $4.99, 2446 screens, week 3, $33.2 total

9. The Messengers (ScrGems)- $3.8, 2183 screens, week 3, $30.5 total

10. Night At The Museum (Fox) - $3.7, 2042 screens, week 9, $237.333 total

Ok, those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means that no matter how bad a film looks in the trailers, people will pay exorbitant amounts of money to see the crap. Seriously. Last week Norbit, this week Ghost Rider takes in $44 million?!?! While I'm happy that a comic book movie featuring a character not THAT familiar with most people took in money (as it will definitely allow future obscure characters to come to the big screen), this movie looks just plain bad. I blame the marketing once again. But anyway, I'd expect a very large drop off next week for this one.

Bridge to Terabithia took in an impressive $22 million this weekend in a nice bit of counter-programming. I expect this will tie into a lot of school vacations, and parents will take children to see it because it's based on a book most of the parents read a long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away), as I once did. Haven't seen the movie yet, but I have heard that the film is not what it's being marketed as, and it has a lot more heart, and deals with a lot of serious issues that the fantasy-laden ads would never lead you to believe. It sounds like a PG Pan's Labyrinth, when I put it like that.

Tyler Perry's Daddy's Little Girls and Music and Lyrics both opened on Wednesday to get a head start on the weekend (and in Music's case, to provide a cute date movie for Valentines all over.. stupid holiday) and managed to pull in some decent numbers. However, I think the audience for Tyler Perry movies only come out in droves when his Madea character is involved, which film does not seem to have, given that this film took in significantly less than previous Perry outings.. But it does have Lou Gossett Jr, and he's just solid all around.
Oh, and Music and Lyrics is actually quite decent for a romantic comedy, and worth it for Hugh Grant alone.

And now we come to Breach, a film I was supposed to see last week but got stuck in lots of traffic, and then a slight run-in with Johnny Law prevented me from doing so. (Oh, and this is how I'm informing the staff why they haven't gotten my review for it yet. Been a helluva week, guys, sorry.) The spy thriller took in $10 million, which is pretty good for a spy thriller, and it's even more impressive that it wasn't thinned from the herd with the other releases this week.

And in the "Because It's There" series: The Departed took in $350,000 on 320 screens, bringing it's grand total to $131,441,000 in 20 weeks. (What makes this more impressive is that the film was released on DVD this week, and it STILL took in this much).

There you have my break down. Next week, we get an unfunny Jim Carrey, who will hopefully provide me with a series of "23" jokes depending on how much money it pulls in (I'm hoping for $23 million, or $2.3, or $230 million, or something just shy of either number). And we also get a bunch of funny fake cops, uncensored, which should be a fun time, even if the movie is just a variation on Police Academy 5 (my personal favorite of the bunch).

Until next weekend....