By Sarah Sluis
With the weekend's two new releases, Cadillac Records and Punisher: War Zone, failing to make an impact with their $3.5 and $4 million grosses, the post-Thanksgiving weekend saw a 50% drop in the box 
office as a whole.
Four Christmases remained at number one, earning $18.1 million and dropping a below-average 41%. Twilight gave me a pleasant surprise by rising to number two, leveling out after last week's heavy drop and earning $13.1 million. Director Catherine Hardwicke, who now holds the title of "highest opening weekend ever for a female director," will not return to direct the second project due to "timing" issues. Unfortunate, given that this opening offers a woman a foothold into the male-dominated profession of film director, but, gender issues aside, the quality of the franchise could definitely be improved, and a change in leadership will be the most effective way to bolster the feeling and execution of the vampire romance.
Frost/Nixon opened on three screens, earning $60,000 per-screen. The astounding number puts Milk's $50k and Slumdog's $30k per-screen to shame. The excellent per-screen performance of the movie begs the question--why release on only three screens to begin with? Given the volume of media and press for Frost/Nixon, the fact-based drama certainly could have opened on more screens while still selling out theatres. Impressive openings help a film once it gets to the DVD market, but I wonder if Frost/Nixon might have rolled out the bulk of its "buzz" too soon. Perhaps alluding to the $60k per-screen of Frost/Nixon, THR's Risky Business blog weighed in on the per-screen average metric, a "key indicator of a film's reception among early adopters [and] core audiences." According to the theory they're using, specialty releases that roll out and expand while dropping less than 50% from a per-screen perspective can safely be called successes. Slumdog Millionaire and Milk fall into that category (so far), will they be joined by Frost/Nixon?
Complete studio estimates available here.
