The Past Week: Total Box Office Volume
All films in wide release playing between September 10 and September 16 grossed a piss-poor $93 million, down 19% from the four-year average for the week and down 21% from the same week last year. We have to go back to the same week in 2004 to find a worse performance ($83 million for September 13-19, when Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow starring Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie topped the box office….yikes). The past six weeks are still down 4% from the four-year average box office average but down a more significant 7% from the same six-week period last year. Year to date box office (now over $7.3 billion for wide-release films) continues to cling to a 5% gain from the average for the past four years but is now only 4% ahead of last year.
| Domestic Box Office Volume: All Wide-Release Films through September 16, 2012 | ($ millions) | 2012 vs 2011 | 2012 vs 4yr Avg | |||
| 2011 | 4-year Average | 2012 | ||||
| Week #37 | $118 | $115 | $93 | -21% | -19% | |
| Past Six Weeks | $938 | $900 | $869 | -7% | -4% | |
| Year to Date | $7,037 | $6,997 | $7,344 | +4% | +5% | |
Weekend Actuals versus Studio Estimate
Resident Evil: Retribution came in officially at $21,052,227 today for its opening weekend, down an insignificant 0.2% from the Sony estimate for the weekend Sunday morning.
Finding Nemo 3D came in at $16,687,773 in its opening weekend, down 4.7% from the Disney estimate — a pretty bad forecast.
The Master, playing at only five theaters in NY and LA, ended up with $736,311 for the weekend — a stunning and record-breaking $147,262 per theater, about one thousand times the theater average for Oogieloves from Kenn Viselman Presents. The last time we mention either that film or that distributor.
Updated Estimates of Final Grosses
The ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Grosses (the estimated North American gross when the film ends its run) are summarized below for films released the last six weeks. Pay attention to the final domestic grosses, which are much more important than individual weekend grosses and especially weekend rankings.
| Updated ShowbuzzDaily Domestic Final Estimates | Domestic Final Gross ($ millions) | percentile | |
| Bourne Legacy | 116 | 83 | |
| The Campaign | 90 | 74 | |
| Expendables 2 | 88 | 73 | |
| Finding Nemo 3D | 68 | 64 | |
| Hope Springs | 66 | 63 | |
| ParaNorman | 56 | 56 | |
| Resident Evil: Retribution | 52 | 53 | |
| The Possession | 52 | 52 | |
| Odd Life of Timothy Green | 51 | 51 | |
| Lawless | 41 | 45 | |
| 2016 Obama’s America | 35 | 36 | |
| Sparkle | 23 | 20 | |
| Premium Rush | 22 | 19 | |
| Hit and Run | 15 | 11 | |
| The Words | 12 | 7 |
Weekend Predictions September 21-23 should be posted Wednesday. This weekend features the openings of Trouble with the Curve (oooh, watch Clint Eastwood be, well, himself), End of Watch (oooh, watch Jake Gyllenhaal pretend to be a convincing cop), House at the End of the Street (oooh, watch Jennifer Lawrence take a step backward in her career path) and Dredd (oooh, watch a remake of a comic that should have been left alone).
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