'New Year's Eve' leads a lackluster box office

By Sarah Sluis

The period from Thanksgiving to New Year's is usually filled with good movies, but early December tends to be sluggish at the box office as people focus on holiday gift shopping. This weekend, which totaled just $78 million, posted the lowest numbers since September 5-7, 2008. That's not good news. The leader of the pack was New Year's Eve, a romantic comedy releasing well in advance of its holiday. With just $13.5 million, the star-filled ensemble picture performed short of expectations that had the film inching closer to $20 million.

In second place, the R-rated babysitting comedy The Sitter grabbed $10 million. So-so viewer feedback, as evidenced by the movie's C+ CinemaScore, could have this movie hurting in coming weeks. However, a small budget and healthy returns from younger moviegoers could make the Jonah Hill starrer profitable for Fox.

With no new family films, existing fare posted strong holds. Arthur Christmas dropped just 10% to $6.6 million as the titular holiday approaches. One spot below, Hugo fell 19% to $6.1 million. The Martin Scorsese-directed picture reportedly cost over $100 million, so its U.S. total of $33 million to date is far behind where such movies usually are after three weeks. The Muppets continued its trend of bigger week-to-week drops with a 36% dive to $7 million. Happy Feet Two held on in the top ten, sliding to eighth place with $3.7 million and a 36% decrease in receipts.

New specialty pictures fared much better than wide ones. In eight locations, Young Adult nabbed $40,000 per theatre. The espionage thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy averaged $75,000 per screen in half the locations. Both movies' debuts put them in a good position for expansion and awards season. Finally, We Need to Talk about Kevin, which seemed to inspire a "love it or hate it" critical reaction, had a softer $24,000 debut playing on one screen. The indie The Descendants added 300 theatres to go up .9% from last week and add another $4.8 million to its $23 million total. The push for The Artist is still heating up. Its 38% improvement from last week, as well as its $18,000 per-screen average, show this black-and-white silent feature has a lot of momentum.

This Friday, another family picture, Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked, will add to the already-saturated kid market. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows will provide some action fun, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol will have a limited, IMAX-only release.

'New Year's Eve' and 'The Sitter' offer alternative to glut of family films

By Sarah Sluis

There's only three more weekends until Christmas, so it's fitting that New Year's Eve (3,505 theatres) is jumping the gun. The romantic comedy may not be getting the best reviews (only 6% of critics gave it a "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes), but it's the only offering in this genre to come out in the next month, so it will have a captive audience. Unlike the $56 million opening weekend of Valentine's Day, New Year's Eve is expected to come in around the teen millions, and then hit close to that number until we ring in 2012.

The Sitter (2,479 theatres) isn't faring much better in the critics department (only 20% positive) but the young males the movie is targeting tend not to pay much attention to reviews. Our critic Marsha McCreadie is one of the comedy's defenders, calling it "sincere and heartwarming," with star Jonah Hill "[delivering] some complicated and tender moments." Plenty of bawdy and law-breaking episodes temper the emotional punch of the movie, which is essentially an R-rated Adventures in Babysitting.

The adaptation of John le Carr's novel Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (4 theatres) also makes its debut. Viewers unfamiliar with the book "should pay attention," critic Rex Roberts warns. Even James Bond spy movies have viewers scratching their heads at times, but Tinker, Tailor takes confusion to a whole other level. I found individual parts of the movie more fulfilling than the whole. Roberts points out that director Tomas Alfredson (Let the Right One In) "has a knack for finding the telling detail�a drop of sweat from a waiter's brow�that evokes the essence of a scene." Indeed, it's moments like these that make the thriller most satisfying.

Charlize Theron stars as Mavis, a more seasoned variation on the evil prom queen, in Young Adult (8 theatres). She goes back to her hometown of Mercury, Minnesota, to steal back her high school boyfriend, now married and father to a newborn. The comedy-drama "walks a tricky line between cynicism and compassion, laughter and tragedy," critic Kevin Lally notes, "letting us both revel in and gasp at Mavis' wildly inappropriate behavior but ultimately generating a modicum of sympathy." I particularly enjoyed the characterization of Mavis as a junk-food eating, Kardashian-obsessed, toy dog owner, Juicy sweats-wearing adult. Screenwriter Diablo Cody makes sure that Mavis' brand of pathetic is both dark and laugh-out-loud funny.

Ever wonder how a truly evil person comes to be? We Need to Talk About Kevin (2 theatres) stars Tilda Swinton and John C. Reilly as the parents of a demonic child who later carries out a school shooting. Although many critics have praised the drama, David Noh resented director Lynne Ramsay's "promiscuous auteur-ism." Many have already mentioned Swinton's name as a possible nominee for Best Actress during the Academy Awards.

On Monday, we'll see if New Year's Eve and The Sitter were able to lift the mid-December box office blues. With half of the top ten films targeting family audiences, these movies should help bring in younger and unattached audiences.