Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Release!!

[madscntst]

DS's Wed. box office was $628,309, down from Tues. as expected, but not as much of a decrease as most other movies, and it did better than Chernobyl Diaries (which had only $612K).  That should put it in 7th place for the day, but not all the numbers are in yet.  The total is now $66,311,625.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Yup, DS came in 7th for Wednesday - Box Office Mojo just posted their chart:

Wednesday Box Office

And both compared to the other films as well as for a Wednesday, DS' percentage drop was excellent. It's also very interesting that there's only $239,280 separating the films at 3rd and 8th place.


Also, boxoffice.com has posted their predictions for the upcoming weekend:

Weekend Predictions

And to me, anyway, their forecast of $3.8 million seems more likely for DS than the $4 million comingsoon.net predicted. Though DS surprised me by bringing in more for this past 3 day weekend than I was expecting, so who knows?

20 days 16 hours 30 minutes 36 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[Uncle Roger]

It certainly seems that the film found its audience.

[retzev]

DS is showing in at least 7 theaters in Dallas, TX this weekend, and around 30 including all of the Dallas/Ft. Worth metroplex area.

[madscntst]

According to Box Office Mojo, DS lost 402 theaters but is still playing in 3002 theaters.  That is still pretty good!  I am hoping to get to see it for my 3rd time this weekend.  I'll possibly make the trek to the IMAX since I think it'll be leaving after the 7th, but I have to say that the film looked really good in non-IMAX, as well (so far I've seen it once each way).

[Mysterious Benefactor]

To still have 3002 theaters is very good.    And according to boxoffice.com (which brings up the list up automatically whenever one goes to DS' page there) DS is still playing in all 5 of the theaters that it was playing in within a 20 mile radius of me. And in all likelihood the film's run still has several more weeks to play out - but it's only natural that it will continue to lose theaters each week as its run winds down.

21 days 11 hours 7 minutes 47 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[madscntst]

Yeah, I hope that if there continues to be at least a modest number of folks filling seats, that it will only gradually lose theaters.  This week, the only big release is Snow White and the Huntsman, and to be honest I don't really feel that there is a huge clamoring for this film (while I love Charlize Theron, this one just doesn't look all that interesting to me).  But next week, both Prometheus and Madagascar 3 are going to be much more serious competition for theaters, I'm afraid.  I still hope that at least the larger theaters will keep a few showings of DS (either on one screen or even sharing a screen with another film) as far into the summer as possible, so that it can take advantage of the older kids and college kids being out of school.

Interestingly, we just heard yesterday that Johnny's next film, The Lone Ranger, was moved from May to July of 2013.  Even though it's Disney and not Warner Bros., I wonder if any of that decision had anything to do with DS having to follow Avengers so closely, and maybe a different strategy would be to wait until the May blockbusters have died down a little bit so that they're a little less of a competition.  The article mentioned other films coming out next spring/summer but I didn't really pay attention, as I have trouble thinking that far ahead   But with DS this year, I don't know how much a July release would have helped since Spiderman and Dark Knight Rises are also going to be huge films.  (Yeah, I've said it before and so have a lot of you- maybe they should've just done a fall release  )

[MagnusTrask]

My local friend (as opposed to those I know online) and his family went to see the film and his 12 year old daughter in particular loved it.   All they knew about DS was from me, and what they'd heard over the years about its being "camp", and I showed my friend one ep once from 1897, a couple years ago, and he had called it "hokey" or something.   Anyway, I was surprised to hear they'd gone to the film.   Maybe the daughter will want to see some old DS tapes of mine someday...

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Back when I suggested a September release, I was thinking of the film as being a more serious take than it is. Not that I'm faulting the amount of humor in the film because I thoroughly enjoyed all of it. And not that there haven't been films with humor that have done well in the fall - but that time of year tends to be a time when more serious films do really well. So, given that DS had humor running through much of it, I suppose I can see Warner Brothers thinking that coming out as a summer film might be a good idea. Though some things that I read several weeks back have me wondering why in hell Warner Brothers picked the week they did to release DS? The first is that it's apparently very well known throughout the film industry that the second weekend in May is always (the article itself actually put the bold emphasis on that word - it's not just me) a tough weekend to launch a new film because the first weekend of May typically launches the first blockbuster of the summer (and boy did it ever this year with The Avengers) and any film coming out the following week suffers because audiences continue to be occupied with going to see that first blockbuster (which is exactly the situation DS found itself in). Plus, I read in a different article that Warner Brothers has had bad experiences in the past trying to launch a film the second weekend of May because apparently they tried in '06 with Poseidon (which was overshadowed by Mission: Impossible III) and in '08 with Speed Racer (which was overshadowed by Iron Man) - and both became disappointments. So, given all that, one has to wonder what Warner Brothers was thinking? Why gamble releasing one of your tent pole films on a weekend that has burned you not once but twice in the past?! Or maybe they were hoping third time's the charm. Who knows?! Though in a way it is the charm because the good thing is that both domestically and internationally, and in only its first 20 days of release, DS is already doing better than either of those films did for Warner Brothers in their entire runs. But still...

[usffan]

With the Thursday box office results now in, Dark Shadows stands at $66,973,841 heading into the weekend, which places it at #13 for the year to date in terms of domestic box office.  If the weekend projections of $3.8MM are right, Dark Shadows would pass Act of Valor and be within $2MM of John Carter.  I think there's a reasonable chance that it will eventually get there before its run in theaters ends. 

[jimbo]

The numbers for DS are horrendous. I am all for putting a positive spin on its box office results but it is what it is. The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel took in $97,301 more than the DS movie at 2,171 less locations. That is very telling. Apparently that movie is receiving good word of mouth unlike the DS movie. I would have to assume that the word of mouth was extremely poor among the Twilight audience because 90% or more never saw the DS movie. I was hoping the DS movie would develop legs but that doesn't seem to be the case. I have read several articles recently and the movie is described as having flopped or tanked. That is the stench right or wrong we are going to have to live with as we did with the WB pilot fiasco (not saying the DS movie is a fiasco). I wish WB promoted the movie this week at least a little bit.

[Cousin_Barnabas]

I think WB did a disservice to Dark Shadows by having a trailer which cast out the Twilight fans.  Sure, if there was a straight trailer, the comparisons to Twilight would have been inevitable, but I don't know what harmed it more.  In all honesty, that is what I kept hearing from all sorts of people...  "The Twilight Parody with Johnny Depp..."  Some people were happy about that and some weren't.  But no one really seemed to think of it as any sort of new franchise.  I think they kind of took it along the lines of "Vampires Suck," but classier. 

[Uncle Roger]

The current issue of Make-up Artist has a short but quite interesting article on the DS movie. They describe the different prosthetics used on Johnny Depp's face and fingers. Apparently they toyed with the idea of giving Barnabas rattlesnake-like fangs before they settled on the "very traditional" fangs that were used.

Chloe Moretz did some tests with werewolf makeup but they ended up using digital effects. Because Chloe is a minor, there was a strict limit on the amount of time that she could be in makeup preparation and removal.

The Angelique transformation could have been quite different. They toyed with the idea of her cracking like an eggshell to reveal much older woman underneath. Alternately, she could have been "this withered bird creature underneath, with malformed wings and weird talons."

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I would disagree with the Web sites who are of the opinion that DS has flopped because so many of them are only too eager to proclaim something a flop or a bomb and to hold onto that belief whether it's actually true or not - and more significantly, even if the story hasn't even completely played out yet. And I hate to keep harping on The Tourist as an example of how wrong they can be, but not only does it remain a perfect example of a film that was extremely prematurely declared a flop, but it's also a film featuring Depp. And when the film in question stars someone like Depp and is made by someone like Burton, well, they're all the more eager to scream flop. 

Has DS done as well as it might have? Well, no - there's certainly no arguing with that. But as I've been saying and as I've demonstrated with the 18th day head-to-head comparison chart, relative to the other films released this year, DS IS performing well. Not as well as some pundits may have predicted. But keep in mind that those were merely predictions of how they thought DS might do. Apparently none of them took into complete consideration what a huge juggernaut The Avengers would become and/or the effect it would have on so many other films during May. I mean, with the economy being the way it is, and because of that, with the way so many people are being quite discretionary about going to theaters, The Avengers sucked up a massive amount of discretionary spending that might have otherwise been spread around to other films. And if DS is a flop or a bomb, then those sites are going to have to come up with much worse terms for, say, a film like Battleship because, unless its fortunes somehow change drastically, that film isn't likely to bring in anywhere near as much at the domestic box office as DS will. And as far as The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel goes, that film is only in its first week of wide release (after having been in very limited release), so it's not a fair comparison, regardless of the amount of theaters, to weigh its current numbers against the current numbers for DS, which is in its third week of wide release.

Now, with all that being said, I actually thought it was great that by bringing in $662,216 on Thursday, DS had one of the highest percentages of increase of any of the films making less than $1 million but more than $500,000.

Thursday's Box Office

And I also thought it was great that not only did DS pass Contraband, but it realistically has its sights set not only on passing both Act of Valor and John Carter, but passing them by what could quite possibly be a significant amount of money. 

[madscntst]

Fact is, as we've all seen and discussed, the entertainment media need to spin a story to make headlines.  A film is either a record-breaking success (Avengers) or it's a flop.  If they kept saying this or that film did just okay, then nobody would read their stories because folks aren't interested in reading about things doing average.

I would call DS a box office disappointment, but far from a flop.  And, it's still in theaters so the story isn't over yet, and the foreign box office results are going to take a while to catch up.  I'm pretty satisfied that it's doing decently enough that when all is said and done (with DVD sales, etc.) it will probably make its money back, which is what I wanted in the first place.  And other than that, as long as I enjoyed the movie for the most part, then selfishly, that's the most important thing to me