Sunday 1/3/10

My plan is to write Sunday mornings on topics which may not rate their own post, or something that interests me, and I will call it Sunday Scribblings.

BOX OFFICE

The story of the last month without a doubt has been the monster start by Avatar. The opening was very good, but the story is ridiculous holds since the opening, something not seen on this scale since Titanic. It has already grossed $300 million, and should easily pass Transformers 2 to become the biggest grossing movie of the year.

The next question is how well the film will do in the all-time rankings. I currently think that Titanic is safe, but The Dark Knight might be within reach. Both Titanic and Dark Knight beneifted from high repeat business. Will Avatar get repeaters. With word of mouth this high, I think so.

But it has less time to achieve the numbers. Titanic remained the number one film until March, and still earned $100 million after that. In Avatar's case, I think the bottom drops out on March 5, when Alice in Wonderland opens and takes most of Avatar's 3D screens. I can see the film over $500 million by then, but $600 million will be tough. This should be fun to watch, though.

Anyone who doubted James Cameron would deliver now officially looks foolish. Speaking of which...

BOX OFFICE NOT-SO-PROPHETIC

I love Box Office Prophets. It is one of my favorite sites to read. However, this is embarrassing. The site's preview of December is one they would probably like to forget. This was the predicted ten biggest releases and the predicted final grosses.

1. Avatar $177 million
2. The Squeakquel $176 million
3. The Lovely Bones $144 million
4. It's Complicated $133 million
5. Did You Hear About The Morgan's $110 million
6. Nine $100 million
7. The Princess and the Frog $89 million
8. Sherlock Holmes $73 million
9. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus $65 million
10. Up In the Air $60 million

Let's take these one by one, shall we?

1. Avatar will be at about $346 million at the end of this weekend with no signs of slowing down. Whoops.

2. The Chipmunks will clear $150 million today. The predicted final finish of second looks to be correct, but the prediction will be low be a sizable amount. The first Chipmunks movie made about $210 million, and the second should end up near that figure.

3. The Lovely Bones' initial reviews are so mediocre the original widening of its release was scrapped. While it is too soon to say what the final figure will be, I don't see $144 million as a realistic goal. On the other hand, the buzz is reportedly that teen girls are now the target audience, and I can vouch for that: my 17-year-old daughter wants to see it badly.

4. It's Complicated's current gross stands at $57 million. While it has good word of mouth, this prediction now looks a little high, but reasonably in the ballpark.

5. Whoops. The Morgans should be at about $25 million after this weekend, and with three wide releases next week, should shed around half its screens.

6. Whoops. Nine has bombed. It has $13.5 million banked, and is not drawing in small markets and probably never will. Thirty million would be a pleasant surprise at this point.

7. Not bad. Tiana and friends will be around $85 million at the end of this weekend. They should end up around $100 million, so this prediction is reasonably close.

8. With a $65 million opening weekend, obviously this prediction for Sherlock Holmes is well low.

9. The prediction was based on the cast. The writer did not look at the wierdness of the film. When it opens in Dayton's arthouse next weekend, I am so there, but I don't expect this film ever to gain a wide release and make near this amount.

10. Too soon to tell, but I think this might be close. Up In the Air has about $25 million in the bank, but as a major Oscar contender should continue to do well over the next few months. Will it be a modest hit or a Slumdog Millionaire performer?

OSCAR ANALYSIS

Two pieces of analysis of note that I read this week. One good, one no so good.

Owen Gleiberman has an excellent piece of analysis on his EW blog in which he states this is the most symbolic race since 1994. That year, it was Pulp Fiction vs. Forrest Gump, which was a brash independent film against traditional Hollywood filmmaking. This year, he writes it is Avatar vs. Up in the Air, which is new style visual filmmaking vs old style dialogue driven filmmaking. It's worth a read.

Tom O'Neil, on the other hand, is going to look foolish with his insisting that Inglourious Basterds is going to win. My main complaint with this piece is that he misses the most important point: the film is not good enough. The title characters are indistinct, and there is no weight to the film.
Also, the number of nominations a film receives has little to do with weather or not it wins the big prize. We are just a couple of years away from when Dreamgirls led the nominations and did not even get a picture nomination. I think Gleiberman has it right, it is Avatar vs Up in the Air.

THE LAST WEEK AND THE NEXT MONTH

I've had the week between Christmas and New Year's off for the first time since 1994. If you reread my very first post, you know my employer is short on funding. So the agency has been closed since Christmas, and reopens tomorrow. Since no one was there to do last week's work, it should be a bit chaotic tomorrow.

I've seen a lot of movies this week, and still have several to write about. Many have been family oriented, as most films watched have been with some combination of my kids. I can't remember watching this many movies in a week since I worked at the video store.

My plan is to post a top ten list for 2009, and for the decade just completed as well. I still have about five films to watch before posting the 2009 list, most importantly Avatar, which I should see today. Then I have about 5 more films from the decade I want to watch before completing that list. My current goal is to post the 2009 list by the 15th and the decade list by the end of January. We shall see...

FITNESS REPORT

I am setting no goals for weight loss this year, but simply to stay focused on losing some. My weigh-in this morning was 245 pounds. My Wii Fit is complaining I need to do more. And there is some dust on my exercise bike. My goal is simply to do something on this front, which in 2009? Not so much,