The Reject Report
Box Office: Another Week of ‘Treasures’
Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on December 30, 2007
Well, it’s no secret to anyone now that National Treasure: Book of Secrets is a big hit for the whole holiday season. It made $35 million on the weekend, almost as much as it made the week before. And what’s with Alvin and the Chipmunks? They made $30 million. That is right — they made MORE money this weekend compared to the previous one!
What happened was a stampede to the theaters by the holiday moviegoing crowd, so a lot of existing movies ended up doing very well, increasing their attendance counts. Charlie Wilson’s War was UP to $11 million, a 21.9 per cent increase from last week! P.S. I Love You was WAY up to $9.1 million, a 40 per cent increase. Juno was up some 200 percent with a $10.3 million performance, bringing its overall take to $26 million. I also notice that a lot of movies brought in a fair bit of moola this week. It took a $6.5 million performance (from Enchanted) just to make it into the Top Ten.
And it was a DISMAL week for new movies. $10 million for Aliens vs. Predator- Requiem. 9.2 mil for The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep. No Number One performances here. Avs.P 2only made $26,880,000 since being released Christmas Day, and Water Horse made only $16,821,000. Ouch.
The Great Debaters got $6.3 million but it wasn’t even a Top Ten movie with those numbers. This was a big, big holiday week and weekend for the established movies — though I did notice that The Bucket List, that Jack Nicholson-Morgan Freeman death movie, made $323,000 in SIXTEEN THEATERS!! Not a bad showing for a movie about two dying guys.
Here’s the box office numbers, courtesy Box Office Mojo:
| Release | Estimated Gross |
| National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets | $35,632,000 |
| Alvin and the Chipmunks | $30,000,000 |
| I Am Legend | $27,500,000 |
| Charlie Wilson’s War | $11,768,000 |
| Juno | $10,300,000 |
| Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem | $10,050,000 |
| The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep | $9,200,000 |
| P.S. I Love You | $9,100,000 |
| Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street | $8,000,000 |
| Enchanted | $6,500,000 |
Overall, Book of Secrets has made $124,035,000, Alvin $142,375,000, and I Am Legend $194,575,000. And Enchanted is now up to $110,650,000.
So that about does it for a big weekend at the box office. And I hope you enjoyed the holiday movie season because THROWAWAY SEASON is right around the corner. January and February at the box office are going to get UGLY.
See you later on this week as we usher in 2008 with another Reject Report.
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