Saturday Box Office: The Wrestler Is Headed For 2008’s Second-Best Per Theater Average
By Steve Mason/Dec. 20, 2008 10:47 pm EST
My major analysis piece I published Friday night still stands with the headlines being that Warner Bros now seems destined to cinch the all-time best one year domestic sales figure in studio history and Will Smith’s streak of consecutive $100M grossing movies will almost certainly end at 8 with his Gabriele Muccino-directed drama.
EXCLUSIVE STEVE MASON REVISED EARLY 3-DAY ESTIMATES
NEW – Yes Man (Warner Bros) – $19.5M, $5,684 PTA, $19.5M cume
NEW – Seven Pounds (Sony) – $16M, $5,806 PTA, $16M cume
NEW – Tale of Despereaux (Universal) – $14.09M, $4,540 PTA, $14.09M cume
The Day the Earth Stood Still (Fox) – $8.97M, $2,522 PTA, $47.54M cume
Four Christmases (Warner Bros) – $7.3M, $2,080 PTA, $99.72M cume
Twilight (Summit) – $5.1M, $1,706 PTA, $158.3M cume
Bolt (Disney) -$4.45M, $1,501 PTA, $95.2M cume
Australia (Fox) – $2.15M, $975 PTA, $41.77M cume
Quantum of Solace (Sony) – $1.6M, $798 PTA, $172.4M cume
Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (Dreamworks/Paramount) – $1.6M, $798 PTA, $172.42M cume
Milk (Focus) – $1.57M, $4,417 PTA, $10.25M cume
Nothing Like the Holidays (Overture) – $1.15M, $689 PTA, $5.77M cume
The Wrestler opened on Wednesday at 4 locations managing an outstanding $11,732 PTA. The extraordinarily well-reviewed movie is headed for a 3-day of $210,900, which will translate to an estimated $53,438 per location. That marks the second-best PTA of the year, trailing only the $60,236 debut of Frost/Nixon (Universal) two weeks ago.
At #2 on the weekend PTA scoreboard is Clint Eastwood’s Gran Torino (Warner Bros), which is a bit of a disappointment registering an average of approximately $23,400 at each of its 19 playdates. As Eastwood has admitted, this may be his final on-screen performance, but when the Hollywood Foreign Press ignored him in its annual Golden Globe nominations and then the SAG Awards bypassed the screen legend as well in the Best Male Actor category, it likely damaged the movie’s ability to compete on a limited basis with other pictures with stronger awards resumes.
In my Friday Night Estimates story, I wrote that Gran Torino may be able to bank $5.4M by the end of the year. Even with an expansion to 70 locations on Christmas Day, the softer-than-expected Friday probably means that Clint’s “swan song” is more likely to be at $3.1M or so at the end of business of December 31. Regardless, I am still projecting that Warner Bros will likely break the all-time one-year record for domestic sales for a studio.
John Patrick Shanley’s Doubt, a film adaptation of his Tony and Pulitzer Prize winning play, will bank about $703,000 or so this weekend at 39 locations for a PTA of just over $18,000. That compares favorably to recent movies like Rachel Getting Married (Sony Classics), which managed $16,500 per screen in its first expansion (27 playdates) and Frost/Nixon, which generated just over $16,000 per screen in week #2 (39 playdates). With Golden Globe and SAG Awards nominations for Meryl Streep, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams and Viola Davis, Doubt should continue to play well through the awards season.
Weinstein has elected to hold expansion for The Reader until Christmas Day, so the picture remains on 4 screens and appears headed for about $114,000 by Monday, down about 35% from its opening weekend at the same locations. That would give Stephen Daldry’s Oscar contender the fourth-best weekend PTA at a possible $14,240.
Ron Howard’s amazing Frost/Nixon picked up just 2 new locations this weekend as Universal prepares for a major Christmas Day expansion. Powered by SAG Awards nominations this week for Best Ensemble and Best Male Actor: Frank Langella, the film will add about $361,000 this weekend, down about 42%. That equates to an $8,805 PTA, #5 for the frame.
STEVE MASON’S EXCLUSIVE EARLY 3-DAY PTA ESTIMATES
Gran Torino (Warner Bros) – 19 locations – $23,400 PTA
Doubt (Miramax) – 39 locations – $18,026 PTA
The Reader (Weinstein) – 8 locations – $14,240 PTA
Frost/Nixon (Universal) – 41 locations – $8,805 PTA
NEW – Seven Pounds – 2,785 locations – $5,806 PTA
NEW – Yes Man (Warner Bros) – 3,434 locations – $5,498 PTA
NEW – Tale of Despereaux (Universal) – 3,104 locations – $4,540 PTA
Milk (Focus) – 356 locations – $4,417 PTA
