Yuma On Track, Others Miss the Mark
September 11, 2007
The weekend after Labor Day is often the worst weekend of the year. Let's hope that's true this year as the overall box office was down to just $80 million, which was a drop-off of 32% from last weekend. On the other hand, it was up $10 million from the same weekend last year, which is a great sign for 2007's chances at breaking more records.
It was a very, very predictable weekend with nearly every film hitting a bullseye in terms of Thursday's predictions. This includes 3:10 to Yuma and its near perfectly-predicted $14.04 million. However, with the other new releases fumbling, it was able to win the box office race with ease instead of being in a tight race. With what could be the best reviews of the month, it should last long enough in theaters to be at least a midlevel hit. Maybe even long enough to earn some Oscar buzz, but that's being optimistic.
As expected, Halloween collapsed, and was down nearly 64% to $9.51 million.
With very weak reviews it is unlikely to do much better during the rest of its run. However, its 10-day total of $43.71 million is more than enough to cover its production budget and one has to assume someone has a sequel is in the works.
It was a milestone weekend for Superbad as it earned $7.55 million over the weekend for a running total of $103.22 million.
This made it the 20th film of the year to reach $100 million mark and with a production budget of under $20 million, it has already shown a profit and it hasn't even gone international yet.
Shoot 'Em Up was the first film to miss expectations this weekend. In fact, it wasn't even close. Over the weekend the film pulled in $5.72 million despite earning overall positive reviews. Given its per theater average, this film will collapse as theater owners will dump it as soon as they are contractually able to. On the other hand, I can see the Unrated DVD pulling in millions more.
The Bourne Ultimatum was a rounding error behind with $5.67 million while its total is now $210.29 million, which is less than $300,000 from overtaking 300 and jumping into sixth place for the year.
The only other new release of the week missed the top five. ... and the top ten ... and the top twenty.
In fact, The Brothers Solomon managed just 24th place with $509,000 in 700 theaters.
Good news: its reviews climbed from 0% positive all the way to 15%, so it will likely disappear from theaters while you are reading this and will never be heard from again.
Moving on to the sophomore class, Balls of Fury missed the top five by just over $20,000 after pulling in $5.65 million over the weekend for a two-week total of $24.24 million.
This is roughly what estimates peg its production budget at, which means profitability is very likely at this point.
Meanwhile, Death Sentence was down more than 60% to just $1.68 million for the weekend and $7.98 million in total.
There are no kind words to accurately describe the film's performance so far.
Filed under: The Bourne Ultimatum, Superbad, Halloween, Balls of Fury, Shoot 'Em Up, Death Sentence, The Brothers Solomon, 3:10 to Yuma