Hollywood taking huge holiday hit at box office

(AP) 

LOS ANGELES — Hollywood's holidays are off to a dreadful start: Fewer people went to the movies the last two weekends than during the box-office hush that followed the Sept. 11 attacks 10 years ago.

Domestic revenues tumbled to a 2011 low of about $77 million this weekend, when the star-filled, holiday-themed romance "New Year's Eve" debuted at No. 1 with a weak $13.7 million, according to studio estimates Sunday.

It's the worst weekend in more than three years, since the weekend after the Labor Day holiday in 2008, when revenues amounted to $67.6 million, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com. And it comes after an $81 million total a week earlier that had been this year's previous low.

Photos: 2011 Holiday season films

"It's unbelievable how bad it is," said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian.

Jonah Hill's comedy "The Sitter" opened at No. 2 with just $10 million.

Divided by this year's average ticket price of $7.96, the combined $158 million haul means only an estimated 19.8 million people went to the movies the last two weekends. Based on the average ticket price, this year's top-grossing film, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2," drew more people all by itself over opening weekend.

The two lowest-grossing back-to-back weekends of the last decade came amid the nation's shock after the 2001 terrorist attacks, when one of the last things on people's minds was catching a film. Revenues those two weekends totaled just $126 million; divided by 2001's average ticket price of $5.65, that means 22.3 million people went to the movies those weekends right after Sept. 11 — 2.5 million more than over the last two weekends.

A couple of bad weekends don't make a trend, yet domestic revenues have been lagging throughout 2011, a year in which many studio executives expected to do record business. Revenues this year are at $9.57 billion, about 4 percent below last year's, according to Hollywood.com.

Revenues this past weekend are down 17 percent compared to the same period last year, when business totaled $91.8 million, led by a $24 million debut for "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader."

The slowdown the last two weeks followed a quiet Thanksgiving holiday weekend, when new movies failed to pack in the projected droves.

"The audience certainly is available. Unfortunately, they have not come out in the numbers they have in the past," said Dan Fellman, head of distribution at Warner Bros., which released "New Year's Eve," whose cast includes Sarah Jessica Parker, Halle Berry, Robert De Niro, Ashton Kutcher, Hilary Swank and Jessica Biel. "I'm hoping this is just a glitch, and starting next weekend, the box-office will expand."

Next weekend begins Hollywood's end-of-year blockbuster frenzy, with the debuts of Robert Downey Jr.'s "Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows" and the family sequel "Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked."

Charlize Theron's comic drama "Young Adult" goes wide after starting in limited release this past weekend, while Tom Cruise's "Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol" launches in huge-screen IMAX theaters before expanding to general release the following week.

Studio bosses generally blame bad weekends on bad movies. Yet while critics trashed "New Year's Eve" and "The Sitter," a lineup of well-reviewed, seemingly must-see family films that include "The Muppets," "Arthur Christmas" and "Hugo" so far have done modest business at best.

Hollywood always has insisted it offers inexpensive entertainment compared to concerts, sports events and other costlier options. But many moviegoers complain about high ticket prices, particularly the extra few dollars it costs to see 3-D films, and they now have more entertainment alternatives than ever with their portable devices and big-screen home theaters.

"I still want to think that our business is product driven, but we're about to find out, because we've got some major films coming," said Chris Aronson, head of distribution at 20th Century Fox, the studio behind "The Sitter" and "Alvin and the Chipmunks." "There's a lot of good stuff coming, and I think audiences are going to be primed."

It might be a different story now if one of the upcoming action movies had opened around Thanksgiving, offering Hollywood's main audience — young males — something to see.

At No. 1 the last three weekends was "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1," whose audience is mainly women. "Breaking Dawn" fell to No. 3 this weekend with $7.9 million, raising its domestic total to $259.5 million.

Behind "Breaking Dawn" has been that rush of family flicks, with nothing fresh out there on the action front in more than a month.

"That has created a major vacuum in the marketplace, not serving that bread-and-butter audience of Hollywood," Dergarabedian said.

Released by Paramount, Theron's "Young Adult" opened in eight theaters and took in $320,000, averaging a strong $40,000 a cinema. That compares to a $3,910 average in 3,505 theaters for "New Year's Eve."

Theron plays a writer going to unnerving extremes to pry an old boyfriend away from his wife.

Focus Features' Cold War thriller "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," based on John le Carre's novel, also had a big opening in limited release with $300,737 in four theaters, for a $75,184 average.

The film stars Gary Oldman as le Carre's spymaster George Smiley as he hunts down a Russian mole at the top of British intelligence. The acclaimed film expands to more theaters as Hollywood moves into Academy Awards season.

Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at U.S. and Canadian theaters, according to Hollywood.com. Where available, latest international numbers are also included. Final domestic figures will be released Monday.

1. "New Year's Eve," $13.7 million ($12.9 million international).

2. "The Sitter," $10 million.

3. "The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1," $7.9 million ($19.8 million international).

4. "The Muppets," $7.1 million ($1.2 million international).

5. "Arthur Christmas," $6.6 million ($14.3 million international).

6. "Hugo," $6.1 million.

7. "The Descendants," $4.4 million.

8. "Happy Feet Two," $3.8 million ($10.1 million international).

9. "Jack and Jill," $3.2 million.

10. "Immortals," $2.4 million.

[vielmann]

I was going to take the kids and see Hugo this weekend, but at $12 for adults, and $10 for kids, I decided the money needed to go to something more worthwhile. Hell, I don't even know if I'm even going to like the movie. So we went bowling and had a great time. A lot cheaper too.

[Calls4Justice]

Acute toxic greed explains it. The arrogant greed rampant in the entire Entertainment Industry, from distributors like Netflix, cable and satellite companies and Hulu - to theater ticket prices - to the huge insane salaries paid to actors and movie makers - and including advertisers who totally trash the movies cusumers are trying to enjoy. It's an industry-wide self-destructive level of toxic greed. The cable companies never saw a price increase they didn't like - often several per year, while reducing the channel selections and the programming quality available. The entire entertainment industry can go straight to hell as far as I'm concerned. This level of insatiable appetites of virulent Wall-Street-mentality greed has only one message - "Movie-goers are die-hard chumps.". The greed has spiraled out of control even though Entertainment is a very expendable commodity in our lives.

In a bitterly desolate economy like we're in now, people look to see what is 'expendable' and what is not, when belt-tightening is absolutely mandatory. And entertainment is pure 'fluff' -- an excessive extravagance that can easily be axed without impairing one's quality of life or living standard one scintilla. And since it's become so outrageously, exorbitantly expensive, cutting that single piece of fluff out of our lives can drastically improve our financial picture and quality of life. A life without this gaudy, pretentious, greedy, empty, useless "entertainment" delusion actually improves one's quality of life -- because then people can 'live' their own lives instead of sitting around on their backsides watching someone else 'pretend' to be living a life.

Properly understood in this way, entertainment should be dirt cheap, because if it isn't, it simply cannot justify its existence in our lives. In reality, it's totally and utterly frivolous, useless and meaningless.

[tommyboy194]

No respect for Hollywood anymore, it's just another factory...we' re not getting the best talent anymore, Hollywood keeps their money in their own family, no outsiders allowed in, tv and the movies are terrible now days, don't spend your dollar on those phone calls to vote, American idol, dancing with the stars, etc..your just making them more rich...they already know whose going to win , it's fixed and most likely one of their relatives, survivor,big brother, etc.u

[1notrub11]

So let's see.....
Economy on the ropes
Movies = discretionary spending

Either the product isn't worth it, or it costs too much, or there are more important things to spend one's money on at this time. Hollywood can exert some control over the first two at least. Maybe lower prices (less margin) and less greed (the industry as a whole) would help?

[1notrub11]

PS: Welcome to everyone else's world Hollywood

[daffy64]

Hollywood releases an endless parade of "formula" cr*p, then gets upset that it's not making zillions to pay it's millionaire actors "what they deserve".

[countrycuz1]

What do you expect with all the libtard trash they produce?