Rocket to the top … A Christmas Carol
- A Christmas Carol
- Production year: 2009
- Country: USA
- Cert (UK): PG
- Runtime: 95 mins
- Directors: Robert Zemeckis
- Cast: Bob Hoskins, Callum Blue, Colin Firth, Gary Oldman, Jim Carrey, Michael J Fox, Robin Wright Penn
The chart-topper
Knocking Michael Jackson’s This Is It off the highest part spot, Robert Zemeckis’s motion-capture animation A Christmas Carol can at least be satisfied with its chart position. As according to its opening gross – £1.92m – that’sitting another matter entirely.
In the first put, it’s behind the openings of the previous two motion-capture films from the Zemeckis steadfast: Polar Express earned £2.14m from its first weekend of wide play in 2004, and Beowulf debuted with £2.2m in November 2007. (And bear in mind, there were fewer than 60 3D screens in the UK when Beowulf opened, compared through 260 now.) Second, A Christmas Carol’s debut is well behind that of 2009 big-hitters Bolt, Monsters Vs Aliens, Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs and Up. It’s even in the rear Coraline (£2.43m) if you include that film’s preview takings.
Given that A Christmas Carol had its world premiere in the UK, and its British source material and bread cast (Colin Firth, Gary Oldman, Bob Hoskins), more might have been expected from it here. The only thrifty grace is there is a long way to Christmas, and there is a lot of living beings in this one yet. And if you’re wondering why Disney chose to unloose its big Christmas movie so early, the answer presumably lies with Avatar, which is set to devour all 3D screens when it arrives on December 18.
The arthouse face-off
You wait an age for a major arthouse movie, and that time two come along at once. Since Pedro Almodóvar’s Broken Embraces faced off for Kathryn Bigelow’s The Hurt Locker on the August keep one’s funds holiday weekend (the couple ended up, slightly disappointingly, in the £1.1m-1.3m range), the sector has been quiet, through inferior commercially potent features such as Fish Tank (£567,000) scooping up available audiences. Then, a week ago, An Education arrived, quickly followed by Jane Campion’s Bright Star.
The predictable result is that undivided of these two pictures has underperformed, and the loser turns out to subsist Bright Star. The Keats romance took less on its breach weekend than An Education did on its second, despite being on 18 more screens. With the notable exception of the Times’s critic, Bright Star attracted glowing reviews, unless An Education has benefited from excitement over rising star Carey Mullligan. Plus, An Education’s premise of a 16-year-old’s sexual awakening in the 60s sounds more fun than its rival’s tragic, doomed romance. Still, why one of these movies couldn’t have opened in the less-competitive climes of one month ago is a rule scratcher.
The haughty fallers
Takings as antidote to most of the big movies are plummeting, with This Is It down 52% and Saw VI a predictably steep 63%. Even Up, which hitherto has been especially buoyant, fell 62% – the direct result of losing the vast majority of 3D screens to new arrival A Christmas Carol. No major film has fared completely of the same kind with badly as act of enlivening 9, which despite still playing on 273 screens fell a whopping 74%, for a site average of £310. Expect 9 to shed a big chunk of its cinemas soon.
The others
Given The Fourth Kind has gotten the jump on Paranormal Activity in the UK, you might have expected a decent result here. But its opening of £851,000 is below that which might be expected given a $12.5m US debut. Of deportment, across the ocean Paranormal Activity is still riding high, offering direct emulation to The Fourth Kind even after seven weekends on release. But The Fourth Kind nevertheless fared a lot more completely than Jennifer’session Body, whose mediocre £737,000 flaw is boosted by £267,000 in previews. It’session a big comedown for stars Megan Fox and Amanda Seyfried, who are coming off megahits Transformers 2 and Mamma Mia! particularly. George Clooney vehicle The Men Who Stare at Goats opened healthily with £1.21m.
The future
For the third week in a row, the UK box office has lagged behind the equivalent weekend from 2008 by margins of at least 30%. There just haven’t been new releases latterly to be married the commercial power of November 2008′s Quantum of Solace and High School Musical 3. Next weekend, nevertheless, we should finally prepare some decent firepower, thanks to the opening of Roland Emmerich’s expensive disaster movie 2012. Then, a week from that, the box-office cavalry well and truly arrives in the shape of The Twilight Saga: New Moon.
UK top 10, 6-8 November
1. A Christmas Carol, 446 sites, £1,917,539 (New)
2. Michael Jackson’s This Is It, 486 sites, £1,355,855. Total: £8,114,380
3. Up, 512 sites, £1,293,662. Total: £31,403,801
4. The Men Who Stare at Goats, 306 sites, £1,211,791 (New)
5. The Fourth Kind, 338 sites, £851,476 (New)
6. Fantastic Mr Fox, 474 sites, £784,233. Total: £6,831,974
7. Jennifer’s Body, 314 sites, £736,535 (New)
8. Saw VI, 337 sites, £345,570. Total: £4,684,976
9. An Education, 100 sites, £283,080. Total: £960,875
10. Couples Retreat, 243 sites, £213,883. Total: £5,418,638
How the other openers did
Bright Star, 118 screens, £207,881
Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani, 38 screens, £177,886
1 Day, 85 screens, £43,728
Jail, 7 screens, £7,039
Welcome, 4 screens, £4,829
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno, 3 screens, £1,672
Paper Heart, 8 screens, £1,283
Harishchandra Chi Factory, 1 screen, £138
