Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Release!!

[David]

Make that 5 releases:
Battleship
Dictator
Chernobyl Diaries
What to Expect
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

DS is way ahead of them all.
That's got to be worth something in the eyes of the industry and WB.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Box Office Mojo has its estimates up for the weekend, and like collider.com, it has DS bringing in $1,360,000. (And boxoffice.com has also changed their estimate to agree with that.) But unlike collider.com (and boxoffice.com), Box Office Mojo has Moonrise Kingdom ranking 10th with $1,579,000, and that puts DS at 11th. And it's fascinating that seemingly only Box Office Mojo is putting Moonrise Kingdom ahead of DS - especially considering that boxoffice.com also did initially but doesn't any longer.

Weekend Box Office

30 days 14 hours 34 minutes 45 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[madscntst]

Box Office Mojo has updated its foreign numbers, and DS is now showing $130 million overseas.  More importantly, this means that DS has now passed $200 million worldwide!     The estimate is currently $203,736,000, but of course that may change slightly when the domestic actuals for this weekend come in tomorrow afternoon.

I did my part, seeing DS for my 3rd time today.  Bad news was, the theater was quite empty, compared to last week.  But on the bright side, the showing was before noon, and I just don't think that many folks go to the movies that early in the day (this was the only showing of the day at this particular theater).

[Gerard]

I don't even remember the last time I saw a double feature, Gerard. I'm glad you had fun. 

Thanks, MB!  And not stir up a hornet's nest (although it has already been stirred up here, including by me), why is it that I was able to see two movies that cost only 99 cents (or five bucks for the package, which I talked about earlier) and the studios and the theater were still able to make hefty profits, while both businesses try to justify gouging us to see a movie now to the point where many can no longer afford it, thus having those businesses charge even more which causes even less of us...well, you get the business model point.  I just don't get what's going on with the movie industry.  It wails about struggling while it makes huge profits (including from tax-write-offs) and insists that it must keep raising prices which drives more people away.  When I saw DS two previous times, the theater had no more than 5% occupancy, when everyone had to pay full price (including for a matinee, and that didn't include popcorn, drink [the size of which would've put Mayor Bloomberg in apoplexy] and a candy bar).  When I went for my third time, I could've paid just 99 cents for two movies, or spent (which I did) five bucks that included that buttered popcorn, the Bloomberg-inciting massive drink and a candy bar, and the theater was over 3/4 filled.  Is the movie and theater industry being stupid?  Are we being gouged?  Is that causing the movie and theater industry to suffer?  We lost one mega-plex theater here because not enough people were spending money to go to it.  The cheapy theater is thriving. 

Hello?

Hollywood, fire your marketers and hire me.  I'll do the job for 10% of what you've paying your marketers now.  I'll live comfortably and you'll make lots more money, like in "da good ol' days."

Gerard

[jimbo]

Thanks madscntst for the positive news. 200 million is a nice threshold to reach and nothing to be laughed at. I mean no movie is guaranteed to make over 200 million no matter its big star actors.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Yes, thanks for posting the news, madscntst    And one thing to keep in mind is that's not even with Latin and South America in the mix because the film hasn't even opened there yet.

And, Gerard, actually there is an explanation beyond lower ticket prices for why discount theaters can thrive but the first run theaters may struggle, and it has to do with the way profits are shared between the studios and the theaters. Something that everyone may not realize is that when a film first opens the studio takes the lion's share of what the film makes at the box office. However, over the course of the weeks that a film is in release, the studio's percentage begins to decrease while a theater's percentage increases. By the time in a film's release when it opens in discount theaters, the box office sharing is to a point where even in their first week of play in the discount theaters, the theaters are getting a much bigger percentage of what they take in than the theaters that played the same film did when it first opened. The policy of percentage sharing is how the first run theaters justify charging what they do because they say they need to charge what they do in order to make enough of a profit to stay in business. That and the fact that first run theaters can't always hold onto films long enough for them to become more profitable for them because the studios want their screens to open the next new film. And there's also the real possibility that even if it's further into a film's run and thus they're able to get a larger percentage, the film itself may cease to be profitable for first run theaters because the prices they're charging aren't bringing in enough people that far into the film's run to justify keeping it. High ticket prices cut a lot ways for the first run theaters, and all of that is the reasoning behind those high prices. And though I've never managed a first run theater, and I'm not necessarily defending them, I can see why the reasoning can make some sense. But the bottom line in all this may be that if you want to run a theater, your best bet might be to run a discount one rather than a first run. 

30 days 20 hours 30 minutes 48 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[LOOKE300]

did depp promote this film at all with his other films i saw him on late night tv the tonight show letterman but not this movie.

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Depp was all over the place. But as far as talk shows go, he wasn't on Letterman - he did Jimmy Kimmel for the first time ever, as well as Ellen Degeneres for the first time ever. Michelle Pfeiffer did Leno and Chloe Moretz did Letterman.

30 days 20 hours 44 minutes 44 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[LOOKE300]

thanks i must have missed most of that. do you have any idea what the final worldwide total will be any chance for 250?

[jimbo]

Conceptual artwork for Carolyn's werewolf. It seems some people are offended because the artwork  reveals breasts inappropriate for the actor's young age. http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/nailbiter111/news/?a=61421

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Very interesting. Thanks for the link, jimbo. 

The one that may be most like what they actually went with for Carolyn would be the second drawing - though in the film she's wearing clothes. And in the end they didn't go in either direction with Angelique.

And as for the comments, well, it's hard to take much seriously when one of the people complaining has the username Chloefornication.      In light of what the complaints relate to, that username comes across as much more offensive than anything in the drawings might be.

31 days 10 hours 32 minutes 50 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I just realized today that I somehow didn't make the Caption This! board for the film accessible to anyone other than Midnite and myself. Oops!    But it's fixed now. 

... I've created the "Caption This! - Dark Shadows 2012" board and to get started I've posted some of the screen caps that I've already made from the various trailers/TV Spots. ...

The new board can be accessed here by first reading a gentle reminder of one of the rules:

Dark Shadows 2012 Rules

And I hope those who decide to participate have fun. I know I'm looking forward to seeing what you'll come up with because if any DS version is ripe for having fun with, it's this one. 

31 days 10 hours 59 minutes 33 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[jimbo]

EW's website used the bomb word in the second paragraph. I guess we will have to get used to it.  http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/11/showbiz/movies/madagascar-3-box-office-ew/index.html

Regarding that previous article I do agree with a user name of Chloefornication need we say more? Well said.

[michael c]

Conceptual artwork for Carolyn's werewolf. It seems some people are offended because the artwork  reveals breasts inappropriate for the actor's young age. http://www.comicbookmovie.com/fansites/nailbiter111/news/?a=61421

i can certainly see why one might find an artistic rendering of a 15 year old girl's breasts highly distasteful.


the entire carolyn/werewolf business was the film's most colossal misfire. "woof".

[madscntst]

DS did a bit better than expected this past weekend, bringing in $1.41 million (over the $1.36 million estimate), according to boxoffice.com.  The domestic total is now $73,785,840.  It has less than $100k to go to catch Hugo! 

http://www.boxoffice.com/statistics/bo_numbers/actual_estimate/2012-06-11