Holiday Roundup: Spending Christmas on 'Treasure' Island

By Katey Rich

Well, it's been a nice vacation, hasn't it? Even though I was still glued to my computer screen during the holidays, watching aghast as Alvin and the Chipmunks earned a ton of money, I assumed the rest of you weren't. But now it's time to get back to business, to distract ourselves from long, cold January.

So, let's talk box office. 2007 went out in style over the last week or so; Variety tells us that holiday box office was up 7% over this time last year, when Night at the Museum's T-Rex skeleton was stomping all over the competition. Somehow Nicolas Cage is once again the champion of the holidays, with National Treasure: Book of Secrets raking in $124 million since its December 21 opening. Alvin and the Chipmunks and I Am Legend both continued tearing it up as well, with Alvin actually passing the Will Smith movie in box office receipts over the New Year's weekend; the films have grossed $141 million and $194 million, respectively, at this point.

Oddly, despite the strong overall box office, the rest of the big movies at the moment haven't come close to the total grosses of the top three. In the #4 slot, for example, is Charlie Wilson's War, which has made $34 million in the time National Treasure has collected $124 million. Granted, it's an entirely different movie, but it seems that when Oscar fare competes with summer-like blockbusters, the big explosions will always win. The Afghan mujahideen have nothing on Mount Rushmore, I guess.

Juno has expanded to almost full release, at just under 1,000 theatres, and continues bringin' 'em in by the dozens; it had the highest per-theatre average over the last week, just beating National Treasure 2, and came in at #5 for the frame. This probably boosts its Oscar chances, as it shapes up to be a Little Miss Sunshine-sized hit that will be difficult to ignore. Fellow awards hopeful Sweeney Todd isn't doing quite as well, dropping from #5 to #9 in its second weekend and managing $26 million overall. Still, it only dropped about 11% from its first weekend, which indicates it might pick up some business from people who realize it's not too bloody for their sensitive tastes. Variety says the movie isn't bringing in the teenage girls it was hoping for, but my anecdotal evidence proves otherwise; when I saw it opening night in Manhattan, I swear every high school drama club in the borough showed up. Maybe once they're all back in school they'll make it a class trip? Tim Burton can only hope.

The Christmas Day and post-Christmas releases mostly did OK, with Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (somehow) and The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep both cracking the top ten. Why Water Horse didn't steal all of Alvin's business is a mystery, and same goes for Alien vs. Predator and National Treasure. Basically it seems there were a lot of people out there to see movies, and everyone had something to suit their taste. The Great Debaters fell just outside the top ten, despite a moderately wide release and Oprah's blessing. If it turns out that the Golden Globes aren't televised on January 13, Denzel Washington's movie might not benefit from the extra attention and slide away entirely. An entirely different Globe nominee, There Will Be Blood, erupted into two theatres like an oil geyser, or Daniel Plainview on a bender; it earned a whopping $95,500 per-theatre average, and armed with glowing critical reviews, will likely march through the specialty market like No Country for Old Men did a few months ago.

The biggest shocker for me amid all these numbers is the dismal performance of Walk Hard, one of the best-reviewed comedies since, well, Superbad. It made less money last weekend than The Golden Compass. It barely outperformed Atonement, which is playing on 2,300 fewer screens. Somehow the unstoppable Judd Apatow has totally flopped, despite a stellar marketing campaign and critical adulation. For the life of me I can't figure out what went wrong, except that the highbrow were too busy seeing Charlie Wilson's War and Juno and everyone else was taking in National Treasure 2. It breaks my heart, since I loved this movie and honestly expected it to do great business. I don't think anyone is calling for Judd Apatow to give back his King of Comedy crown, but the bloom is off the rose at least.

Overall this whole holiday period spells good news, with the exception of our endless support of sequels no matter what time of year. Charlie Wilson's success indicates that the phrase "Middle East" is not immediate box office poison, good news for Kimberly Peirce's upcoming Stop-Loss as well as anyone who wants to take a crack at talking about Iraq, but maybe without sounding quite so serious about it. I'm optimistic about the prospects of Sweeney Todd and There Will Be Blood, movies I loved, and even happy to see that Enchanted is hanging around in the top 10, having finally broken $100 million just before Christmas. Things will be a lot quieter around here for a little while-- according to my release calendar, there is actually only one new release slated for this weekend--until Cloverfield comes and either knocks off everyone's socks or fizzles under the load of massive hype. Only time can tell.

After the jump is Box Office Mojo's full top 20, which can use the sheer power of numbers to make sense of all of this. Welcome back!

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	1	National Treasure: Book of Secrets	BV	$35,619,000	-20.5%	3,832	-	$9,295	$124,022,000	-	2
2	3	Alvin and the Chipmunks	Fox	$29,100,000	+3.3%	3,484	-15	$8,352	$141,475,000	$60	3
3	2	I Am Legend	WB	$27,310,000	-18.5%	3,636	+16	$7,511	$194,385,000	-	3
4	4	Charlie Wilson's War	Uni.	$11,987,000	+24.1%	2,575	-	$4,655	$34,725,000	$75	2
5	10	Juno	FoxS	$10,600,000	+209.5%	998	+694	$10,621	$25,981,000	-	4
6	N	Alien Vs. Predator - Requiem	Fox	$10,000,000	-	2,611	-	$3,829	$26,830,000	-	1
7	6	P.S. I Love You	WB	$9,280,000	+43.2%	2,464	+10	$3,766	$23,578,000	-	2
8	N	The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep	SonR	$9,200,000	-	2,772	-	$3,318	$16,821,000	-	1
9	5	Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street	P/DW	$8,205,000	-11.8%	1,249	-	$6,569	$26,924,000	$50	2
10	7	Enchanted	BV	$6,510,000	+54.2%	2,262	-490	$2,877	$110,660,000	-	6
11	N	The Great Debaters	MGM/W	$6,005,180	-	1,171	-	$5,128	$13,256,188	-	1
12	9	The Golden Compass	NL	$4,360,000	+9.5%	1,935	-1,018	$2,253	$58,869,000	$180	4
13	8	Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story	Sony	$3,700,000	-11.4%	2,650	-	$1,396	$12,252,000	$35	2
14	11	Atonement	Focus	$3,123,028	+60.9%	310	+13	$10,074	$11,237,143	-	4
15	12	No Country for Old Men	Mira.	$2,223,000	+18.6%	960	-262	$2,315	$41,073,000	-	8
16	13	The Kite Runner	ParV	$1,877,000	+59.3%	377	-	$4,978	$5,428,000	-	3
17	23	The Savages	FoxS	$530,000	+143.2%	111	+51	$4,774	$1,698,000	-	5
18	15	This Christmas	SGem	$520,000	-43.7%	457	-422	$1,137	$48,952,000	$13	6
19	N	The Bucket List	WB	$336,000	-	16	-	$21,000	$631,000	$45	1
20	22	American Gangster	Uni.	$301,000	-12.0%	307	-152	$980	$129,025,000	$100	9