Box Office Remains Lifeless

Weekend Recap: 9/14-16/2012

Whoever shot down the box office a couple of weeks ago must have remembered Zombieland Rule #2: The Double Tap, because even the new Resident Evil movie couldn't bring it back from the dead.

Resident Evil Retribution (review here) found itself in first place with $21 million, a lower opening than all of its predecessors, aside from the original (look for a more in-depth comparison next week). However, the international movie market continues to display its surprising growth, handing another $49.6 million to RE Retribution from 50 markets and pretty much guaranteeing a decent worldwide gross and the subsequent announcement of another sequel.

Finding Nemo 3D grossed $16.7 million for second place, again, a lower opening than similar films like Beauty & the Beast 3D ($17.8 million) and far behind The Lion King 3D ($30.2 million).

The Possession (review here) took third place with $5.8 million and Lawless (review here) took fourth with $4.3 million, while The Expendables 2 (review here) and ParaNorman each earned over $3 million for fifth and sixth place, respectively. The Expendables 2 has also been a shining example of the emerging international market, having brought in $186 million in foreign markets, compared to its $80.7 million U.S. gross.

The Words (review here), The Bourne Legacy (review here), The Odd Life of Timothy Green, and The Campaign rounded out the Top Ten with over $2 million each for seventh, eighth, ninth, and tenth place, respectively. The Bourne Legacy has displayed amazing legs, having grossed close to $200 million worldwide.

Meanwhile, the faith-based Christmas film, Last Ounce of Courage, utterly bombed with $1.59 million from 1,407 locations for a per-theater average of $1,130. The new Nicolas Cage movie also failed; Stolen (yes, its a lot like Taken) took in just $183,125 from 141 theaters, a sad per-site average of $1,298. What happened to you, Nic?

In limited release, Arbitrage did enormously better, opening in 197 theaters to the tune of $2.1 million for a per-location average of $10,659. But surpassing even Arbitrage was the highly anticipated film from P.T. Anderson, The Master which earned a per-venue average of $147,262 after grossing $736,311 from only 5 theaters in New York and L.A. In doing so, The Master broke the per-screen record, which was held by a film from earlier this year, Moonrise Kingdom (review here), which had set the bar at $130,749 per site.

Arbitrage and, obviously, The Master had better per-theater averages than any of the Top Ten films.

Here's a snapshot of the Top Ten Weekend Films domestically:

#	Title	Weekend Gross	Theater Avg	Total Gross
1	Resident Evil 5	$21.1 million	$7,005	$21.1 million
2	Finding Nemo 3D	$16.7 million	$5,750	$16.7 million
3	The Possession	$5.8 million	$2,027	$41.1 million
4	Lawless	$4.3 million	$1,403	$30.3 million
5	The Expendables 2	$3.14 million	$1,084	$80.4 million
6	ParaNorman	$3.09 million	$1,328	$49.4 million
7	The Words	$2.9 million	$1,035	$9.1 million
8	The Bourne Legacy	$2.8 million	$1,290	$107.8 million
9	The Odd Life of Timothy Green	$2.6 million	$1,076	$46.4 million
10	The Campaign	$2.4 million	$1,198	$82.9 million