Sinfully Good

April 4, 2005

April started off well but not great. A strong number one film and impressive holdovers helped the market climb 7% over last weekend. But for the sixth straight weekend 2005 was behind the same weekend in 2004, this time by 17.0%. Year-to-date, 2005's box office is now at $2.02 billion, 2% behind 2004, but will hopefully do some catching up next weekend.

As expected, Sin City was able to easily take top spot with $29.1 million, just shy of Friday's predictions. On the down side, the internal multiplier was low at just 2.45 but that has more to do with the Fanboy Effect than bad word-of-mouth as the reviews were excellent, (best wide release of the year so far.) Even with sharp drop-offs from now on, the film should cover its production budget before long and since international audiences are less likely to be scared off by the R-Rating, the film should make a tidy profit before it hits the home market.

Long time readers of this site have probably figured out that I have a tendency to overestimate midweek openings, this was clearly the case with Beauty Shop. While the film was only able to earn half of the expected box office during Wednesday and Thursday, the film nearly matched original expectations with $12.8 million over the weekend. Weak reviews will likely result in poor legs and a final box office well below the average for the franchise.

Just missing third place was Guess Who with $12.7 million. This remake is showing better than expected legs and is becoming a midlevel success. And depending on how well the movie does internationally, it could show a sizable profit before it hits the home market.

Robots reached $100 million over the weekend with a better than expected $9.8 million and now sits at $104.4 million. But compared to the average computer animated film, this result will still be looked at as a disappointment.

Rounding out the top five was Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, which at $8.1 million is doing about as well as Sandra Bullock's previous sequel Speed II: Cruise Control. Ok, maybe that's a bit of a low blow, but the film certainly won't have the long legs Sandra Bullock's films usually have.

Lastly, The Upside of Anger expansion nearly lived up to expectations with an estimated $4.0 million, eighth place finish (exact figures are still unavailable.) The film did nearly double its box office over the weekend, and it should easily cover its $12 million production budget and a good chunk of its P&A budget as well.


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Filed under: Robots, Sin City, Guess Who, Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous, Beauty Shop, The Upside of Anger