New Year's Weekend Receipts: 2011 Ends with a Box Office Boost
It was a buoyant holiday frame for the last releases of 2011, with audiences turning out in droves (and likely family-loaded minivans) to boost just about every film in theaters. Biggest congrats are in order for Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, which is indeed set to make in 17 days what Mission: Impossible III made in its entire theatrical run. And, look! A bunch more people caught the timely holiday spirit and bought a Zoo this week, along with a War Horse and, uh, Garry Marshall's New Year's Eve. Enjoy it while it lasts, Garry. Auld lang syne, 2011. Your holiday weekend receipts after the jump!
1. Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol
Gross: $31,250,000 ($134,139,000 )
Screens: 3,455 (PSA $9,045)
Weeks: 3 (Change: +5.9%)
Tom Cruise's latest spy outing dominates yet again. Pop the champagne and commence the couch-jumping! (I know, I know. That joke is so 2005.)
2. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Gross: $22,095,000 ($132,100,000)
Screens: 3,703 (PSA $5,967)
Weeks: 3 (Change: +9.1%)
Sherlock 2 may not have the flashy buzz that MI:4 has enjoyed, and it's trailed behind Ghotocol all these weeks, but consider: its domestic tally is only $2 million behind that of the box office champ. Pat on the back, good sirs!
3. Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked
Gross: $18,250,000 ($94,609,000)
Screens: 3,724 (PSA $4,901)
Weeks: 3 (Change: +45%)
Chipwrecked is on track to cross $100 million this week. Look at what you've done, America.
4. War Horse
Gross: $16,940,000 ($42,969,000)
Screens: 2,547 (PSA $6,651)
Weeks: 2 (Change: +125.4%)
At least one of Spielberg's two new jams is picking up speed, and how: War Horse's whopping increase, up 125.4 percent from last week, only solidifies those designs on the Oscars. And what a no brainer, anyway -- what movie screams "Take the aunts and uncles and cousins and gramps to the movies since you're still stuck at home after Christmas" like a movie that combines Spielbergian sentiment, old-timey war, and a horse?
5. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Gross: $16,300,000 ($57,100,000)
Screens: 2,914 (PSA: $5,594)
Weeks: 2 (Change: +27.8%)
...unless Fincher + goth punk intrigue + the Yeah Yeah Yeahs + a little rape 'n' revenge in the icy climes of Sweden is more your family's style. In which case, can I come visit next Christmas?
6. We Bought a Zoo
Gross: $14,300,000 ($41,787,000)
Screens: 3,163 (PSA: $4,521)
Weeks: 2 (Change: +52.8)
Great! The new Cameron Crowe caught on better this week, probably thanks to those billboards featuring gift-wrapped exotic animals. Just another irresponsible message for audiences to eat up to add to the pile.
7. The Adventures of Tintin
Gross: $12,000,000 ($47,841,000)
Screens: 3,087 (PSA: $3,887)
Weeks: 2 (Change: +23.6%)
One out of two ain't bad, I suppose... especially when the foreign box office is carrying the Belgian boy detective adventure to the tune of $239 million and counting.
8. New Year's Eve
Gross: $6,741,000 ($46,372,000)
Screens: 2,225 (PSA: $3,030)
Weeks: 4 (Change: +103.7%)
Of course there were people who went to the multiplex this week, skimmed past the War Horses and Girls with the Dragon Tattoos, and the Mission: Impossibles, and thought "Y'know what? LET'S GO SEE THAT ONE ABOUT NEW YEAR'S EVE!" Of course. Just die already, movie.
9. The Darkest Hour
Gross: $4,300,000 ($13,200,000)
Screens: 2,327 (PSA: $1,848)
Weeks: 2 (Change: +43.3%)
Summit farted a new action-packed adventure into theaters this Christmas with nary a peep of marketing, so we can assume anyone who went to see The Darkest Hour -- a movie about killer aliens who look like lightbulbs or light or something -- were just playing movie roulette when they bought their tickets. It'll be out of the top 10 by next week, and out of our collective consciousness even sooner. I guess when you have all that Twilight money you can create your own pre-dumping ground frame before the January dumping grounds even begin?
10. The Descendants
Gross: $3,650,000 ($39,675,000)
Screens: 758 (PSA: $4,815)
Weeks: 7 (Change: +76%)
Good on the Alexander Payne drama that, in its seventh week, it managed to sneak into the top 10 with a totally decent per-screen average on less than 800 screens to boot. Let's see if The Descendants can prove its awards season mettle by sticking it out in the coming weeks.
[Figures via Box Office Mojo]
Comments
I thought for sure Shame would be no.1.
Only in Jen's heart.
You guys know me so well! XOXO
It's too bad the War Horse doesn't stutter or maybe dance ballet... then that movie would be a LOCK!
I heard something funny at work a couple of weeks ago. One of my co-workers told me he had seen Hugo during the weekend. "It won't win any awards or anything like that, but it was good," he said. "I enjoyed it."
I asked if he had seen anything else. "Yeah, New Year's Eve. Same as Hugo -- it's not going to win any awards, but it was a lot of fun."
I hope you responded with an uppercut to the jaw.
Not to be mean, but what EXACTLY is all the hoopla over Hugo? It's a perfectly decent movie, but all the Top Ten lists? What the hell? This website has bitched about how everybody falls all over themselves when a Clint Eastwood is about to be released, but at least his movies are forgotten when they aren't up to snuff. Scorsese could direct a fart and that'd end up on at least half of all Top Ten lists.
I'm totally with you. Hugo was nothing special (my comment was more in reference to the New Year's Eve remark). I really don't understand what it is with critics (and many moviegoers) about kids movies. They just fall over themselves praising stuff like Toy Story 3, Up and Wall-E (many compared it to KUBRICK!), while I get tricked into watching them every year, thinking I'm going to be impressed. Instead I just end up going "this is just like every other kids movie I've ever seen." And then you hear Time Magazine calling Hugo a "masterpiece" and I'm going "oh come on"! This is why it saddens me when I hear talk of David Fincher possibly spending a year of his life on 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, and I just can't help but think "you know, he could be making something really great but no, he has to make his kids movie." A waste of a year!
Nah, I laughed it off. Besides, I can't afford to punch out a co-worker and lose my job at the moment. Btw, Hugo was my favorite movie of 2011. I say that not to start an argument but to point out just how far apart it is from New Year's Eve.
[...] they’re all going to turn out for it at Christmas — not when they can see Tom Cruise hopping around the horizon in [...]
It is a nicely put together concept and shall be respected for that. Thank you for saying what needed to be said.