Box Office: Cloverfield is a Monster Hit

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on January 20, 2008

It was a monster of a weekend at the cinemas, folks. Cloverfield made $41 million at the box office this weekend and killed the competition, just as we all thought it would. It was a big, freaking hit. I actually nailed the prediction of the gross almost dead-on, so I was really happy about that. And 27 Dresses got $22 million, another rock-solid box office hit for Katherine Heigl. Mad Money, that other new release in the Top Ten from Overture Films, made $7.7 million.

I should tell you right now — it was a total fluke that I did so well with my Cloverfield prediction this week (I had predicted $40 mil, so I was only off by about $100,000). I was reading Jeffrey Wells’ Hollywood Elsewhere blog, and he was talking about this movie making something in the 20s. Then I actually went to see Cloverfield at the Cineplex Odeon in Winnipeg and stood in line for an hour waiting to get a good seat for this thing. Based on the lineups I thought my prediction would be WAY off. I thought the movie would make not $40 million for the weekend, but $80 million!!

Really, the joint was packed for Cloverfield and it was a pretty exciting place to be on a Friday night. After the movie was over, a few people even applauded. That never happens around here. (The moviegoers around where I am tend to be pretty miserable, in general.) I’ll submit my own review of the movie soon and tell you more about what I thought of Cloverfield, but I will say this: if you plan to see this movie, sit at the very back of the theater, and make sure the screen is not that big. If you sit near the front of a theater that shows this movie on a really big screen, you will get vertigo. They shot this movie on shakycams and believe me, watching a movie that was filmed by shakycams is a good way to get seasick.

By the way, for those of you wondering what that silly monster looks like — it looks pretty ugly. The marketing people who kept everyone guessing about the monster deserve a tip of the hat for their efforts; they did a good job.

On to records.

Cloverfield’s $41 million opening has set the January record. The previous record had been held for the last 11 years by Star Wars Special Edition. Their opening weekend was $35.9 million in 1997.

Business at theaters this weekend was good. The AP reported overall box office was $135.3 million for the top 12 movies of the weekend, up 39 per cent from last year.

The top ten, courtesy of Box Office Mojo:

1 Cloverfield – $41,000,000
2 27 Dresses – $22,427,000
3 The Bucket List – $15,150,000
4 Juno – $10,250,000
5 National Treasure: Book of Secrets – $8,148,000
6 First Sunday – $7,800,000
7 Mad Money – $7,700,000
8 Alvin and the Chipmunks – $7,000,000
9 I Am Legend – $5,105,000
10 Atonement – $4,759,000

That is all for this exciting weekend at the box office! See you later this week for more predictions here at the Reject Report!

Read more articles by John Cairns