Hollywood News Mission ImpossibleThis was a weekend where two films gave the strongest evidence yet that there may be some kind of ‘slump’ in domestic box office while a third stood as a firm ‘It’s the movie, stupid!’ rebuttal. The two main wide releases, heavily marketed sequels to exceptionally popular originals, opened at levels far below their predecessors. The top film of the weekend was Sherlock Homes: A Game of Shadows (review), which debuted with a seemingly solid $40 million. But the sequel opened 36% lower than the firstSherlock Holmes opened with over Christmas weekend two years ago ($62 million). That’s a pretty big drop, especially when it wasn’t exactly contending with the $75 million-grossing second weekend of Avatar this time around. I’ve long been of the opinion that the pre-Christmas weekend is among the strongest to open a film, as you can parlay your opening weekend into two full weeks of ‘school vacation’ time and get some occasionally incredible legs (essay). The film cost $125 million, which is a touch more than the $90 million original, but still not a case of overspending on a sequel. It remains to see whether this frankly shockinglydepressed opening is a case of moviegoers not having an interest in the continuing adventures of this variation on Sherlock Holmes or whether it’s merely a case of it not being appointment viewing. Also not helping matters was the blogosphere obsessing about a seven-minute Dark Knight Rises prologue (which actually kinda stunk) that was playing in 40 IMAX theaters showing Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol while ignoring the actual Dark Knight Rises trailer (which is officially offline until I presume Monday morning) that was attached to all prints of Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.
See More News Go At www HollywoodNews .com
No comments:
Post a Comment