CinemaNerdz

Box Office Weekend: Django May Get Bloody Revenge, But He Can’t Conquer Middle Earth

Seth Paul
Box Office

The Hobbit: An Unexpected JourneyAs 2012 draws to a close and a new year of movies dawns ahead, we still have one more weekend worth of movies to talk about, and with business up from last week, the old year is going out on a high note. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey did not lose much steam from last weekend to this one, earning an estimated $32.9 million. It had strong competition from newcomer Django Unchained, Quentin Tarantino’s new (and critically well-received) tale of revenge and over-the-top violence not quite able to push past The Hobbit, but a strong contender with an estimated $30.6 million (and with its Christmas opening, a solid $64 million against its $100 million budget). Christmas was also a boon to Les Misérables, the big screen adaptation of the musical (in turn based on Victor Hugo’s novel) doing good business on the three-day weekend with an estimated $28 million and an overall domestic take of $67.4 million. Surprisingly, the lavish musical cost $40 million less than Django Unchained (despite both films having big box office casts), and has since seen a domestic profit. So, too, has the fourth film on the list, Parental Guidance, with an estimated $14.8 million bringing its since-Christmas domestic take to $29.6 million (and a profit over its $25 million budget), though it is the only one of the top four films that has been soundly rejected by most critics.

Jack Reacher had to settle for fifth with an estimated $14 million, but its worldwide gross pushed it over the top of its $60 million budget. However, it is one of only two films on the list to actually lose income from the week before; This is 40, Lincoln, The Guilt Trip, and Monsters, Inc. 3D all saw an uptick, with estimates of $13.2 million, $7.5 million, $6.7 million, and $6.4 million respectively. So far, only The Guilt Trip has a ways to go before it makes back its production costs (with Monsters, Inc. having proven a winner in its previous, non-3D incarnation in 2001). The only film still to be struggling domestically, Rise of the Guardians, took a slight hit as it fell to tenth with an estimated $4.9 million, but its worldwide success is less obvious, with a grand total of $255 million making it one of the higher earning films of the year with all markets taken into consideration.

Weekend Box-Office (December 28th – December 30th)

  1. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey…$32.9 million
  2. Django Unchained…$30.6 million
  3. Les Misérables…$28 million
  4. Parental Guidance…$14.8 million
  5. Jack Reacher…$14 million
  6. This is 40…$13.2 million
  7. Lincoln…$7.5 million
  8. The Guilt Trip…$6.7 million
  9. Monsters, Inc. 3D…$6.4 million
  10. Rise of the Guardians…$4.9 million

Seth Paul

When not failing to write novels and screenplays, box-office guru Seth writes humorous comedy tracks for films under the name "The One Man Band" that can be found at Rifftrax.com. Although, he has recently succeeded in writing the novella "Jack Alan and the Case of the Not-Exactly Rocket Scientists," available as an eBook on Amazon. He is also the English voice of Zak in "Zak McKracken: Between Time and Space."
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