Not your average novel process … scene from Precious: Based On the Novel By Sapphire, which scored the highest screen average ever at the weekend
The winner
Disney’session A Christmas Carol may have opened at No 1 on $31m (£18m) but that’s a small chunk of change for a movie that cost in the region of $200m to produce and possibly a further $100m to market worldwide.
- Precious
- Production year: 2009
- Country: USA
- Directors: Lee Daniels
- Cast: Gabourey ‘Gabby’ Sidibe, Mariah Carey, Mo’Nique, Paula Patton
So this week’s real winner was Precious: Based On the Novel Push By Sapphire, which Lionsgate opened in 18 cinemas and took $1.8m. That amounts to a $100,000 per-site average, which is the biggest average by reason of any movie that has at all times been released in more than 10 cinemas. An extraordinary start for what promises to become a memorable run. Speaking of winners, Paranormal Activity added some other $8.6m in its seventh weekend and has grossed $97.4m. It will cross the magical $100m mark by next weekend.
The loser
This Is It probably won’face to face reach $100m. In its second weekend Michael Jackson fans decided they’d seen enough and Sony’s plan film fell 40% – a relatively mild drop-off for a movie in the second weekend, mind – and pulled in a further $14m to raise the score to $57.9m. Globally the movie has taken $185m, so it’s doing well enough considering Sony is believed to gain stumped up $60m for dole rights. Last weekend the studio said it would keep the movie in multiplexes for a season – a U-turn on its initial plan to limit the release to two weeks, but that had always looked like a transparent marketing ploy anyway.
The dark horse
On this weekend’s showing it seems inappropriate to label Precious a dark horse after it burst out of the blocks in such impressive style. Furthermore, it is backed through two of the biggest icons on the black media view – Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry. When the movie premiered in Sundance at the start of the year, the odds were against it, but one time the critics got behind it and Lionsgate stepped in to acquire distribution rights, Precious entered a whole new world of possibility and is going to detect some basting in the best delineate Oscar quality.
The real story
It’s going to have being rough to find nine worthy best picture Academy Award nominees who can go head-to-head with Precious. The Hurt Locker deserves to be up in that place, as does Jason Reitman’s Up in the Air. But other than that what is there? This hasn’confidentially been a vintage year for US cinema. Nobody’session seen Clint Eastwood’s Invictus yet, or Peter Jackson’session literary adaptation The Lovely Bones, but even granting that they make the grade that’s alone four. Enter Pixar’s Up, and peradventure something more relating to traffic. Transformers 2, then? The Hangover? After all, a desire to make the Oscars more populist was the driving force behind the Academy’s thinking when members expanded the category. Oy vey.
The future
Next week will be catastrophic. Sony unleashes 2012, Roland Emmerich’s latest assault on Earth, with a storyline predicated on an antique Mayan prophecy that the world will end in two years’ time. This raises couple points. Firstly, you wonder what happened to the German director in his youth that made him want to wreak such widespread violence so frequently. Secondly, if the Mayans could see into the future it seems a humble they missed the date of their admit demise.
North American top 10, 6-8 November
1. A Christmas Carol, $31m.
2. This Is It, $14m. Total $57.9m
3. The Men Who Stare at Goats, $13.3m
4. The Fourth Kind, $12.5m.
5. Paranormal Activity, $8.6m. Total: $97.4m
6. The Box, $7.9m
7. Couples Retreat, $6.4m. Total: $95.9m
8. Law Abiding Citizen, 46.2m. Total: $60.9m
9. Where the Wild Things Are, $4.2m. Total: $69.3m
10. Astro Boy, $2.6m. Total: $15.1m
