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Jul
20
Written by:
Bill Bonfanti
7/20/2009 11:20 AM
BOX OFFICE RESULTS FOR THE WEEKEND OF JULY 17-19
It was a magical weekend at the box office as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth entry in the popular series, opened at #1 leaving all competition in the dust. After breaking the record for midnight showings on Tuesday and a fabulous opening day Wednesday, the boy wizard fell back down to Earth for the rest of the weekend and performed like the last film of the series, The Order of the Phoenix. Let’s take a look. As evidenced by Potter’s incredibly strong Wednesday bow ($58.2M), anticipation was extremely high for this chapter of the series due to the delayed release date of the film. Half-Blood Prince was originally supposed to open in November of last year but Warner Bros. pushed it back to July because they didn’t have a big film to release for the summer, reportedly an after affect of the writer’s strike. Whatever the reason, moving Potter to summer turned out to be a great move for the studio.
Starting with Tuesday’s midnight showings, Prince blew Phoenix’s opening out of the water, but by the time the weekend rolled around, Prince began to perform almost exactly like Phoenix. Here is a breakdown of both films 5 day openings.
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Harry Potter and
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TUES. 12:00 AM
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WED.
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THURS.
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FRI.
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SAT.
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SUN.
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WEEKEND
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5 DAY TOTAL
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the Half-Blood Prince
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$22.2M
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$36M
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$22M
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$26.8M
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$29.2M
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$23.4M
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$79.4M
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$159.7M
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the Order of the Phoenix
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$12M
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$32.2M
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$18.4M
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$25.8M
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$28.3M
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$23M
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$77.1M
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$139.7M
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As you can see the upfront demand was higher on opening day, but as the weekend approached the 2 films were in a virtual tie. Prince’s weekend take is a bit more impressive however, because it grossed this much without the benefit of IMAX showings, whereas Phoenix was shown on 91 IMAX screens during its opening. After Warner Bros. moved the movie to the summer, they couldn’t book IMAX for the opening because Transformers 2 had the screens locked up for 4 weeks. Prince will be available on IMAX in 2 weeks and that should give it a nice boost that weekend.
Among holdovers, audiences widely rejected Sacha Baron Cohen’s Bruno in its second weekend. The movie dropped a staggering 73% to gross a disappointing $8.4M for the frame. Bruno now stands at $49.6M and will probably finish its run in the neighborhood of $65M, a far cry from Borat’s $128.5M total.
Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs continued to hold up well in its third weekend, slipping just 36% to gross $17.7M and bringing its total to $152M. Dinosaurs has grossed nearly the exact amount of the prior Ice Age film, 2006’s The Meltdown did in the same number of days. Dawn of the Dinosaurs will probably out gross The Meltdown by a small margin when it is all said and done, due to the summer release date. To see how the rest of the top 10 performed this weekend and how accurate my predictions were, check out the chart below.
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RANK
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TITLE
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JULY 17-19
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JULY 10-12
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% CHANGE
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# OF THEATRES
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# OF WEEKS
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TOTAL
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BILL SAID
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1
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Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
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$79.5M
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N/A
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N/A
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4325
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1
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$159.7M
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$85M
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1
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Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
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$17.7M
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$27.6M
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-36%
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3817
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3
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$152M
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$17.9M -35%
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3
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Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
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$13.8M
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$24.2M
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-43%
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3857
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4
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$363.9M
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$13.3M -45%
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4
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Bruno
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$8.4M
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$30.6M
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-73%
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2759
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2
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$49.6M
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$9.2M -70%
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5
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The Hangover
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$8.31M
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$9.9M
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-16%
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2667
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7
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$235.8M
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$7M -30%
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6
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The Proposal
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$8.3M
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$10.6M
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-22%
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3043
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5
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$128.1M
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$7.4M -30%
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7
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Public Enemies
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$7.6M
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$13.8M
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-45%
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3121
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3
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$79.5M
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$7.6M -45%
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8
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Up
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$3.1M
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$4.7M
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-33%
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1708
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8
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$280M
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$2.8M -40%
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9
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My Sister’s Keeper
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$2.8M
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$4.3M
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-34%
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1967
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4
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$41.5M
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$2.6M -40%
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10
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I Love You, Beth Cooper
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$2.7M
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$4.9M
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-46%
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1872
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2
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$10.3M
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$2.2M -55%
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