Proving that Sandra Bullock is having the best year of her career, the football drama The Blind Side rose to first place at the box office this weekend with $20.4 million, according to early estimates by Hollywood.com Box Office. After settling for second place behind The Twilight Saga: New Moon the past two weeks, Blind Side showed its legs by dropping only 49 percent and overtaking the vampire phenomenon. Blind Side, which received mediocre reviews but obtained a rare “A+” rating from CinemaScore moviegoers, has reached a cumulative gross of $129.3 million. It should have no trouble passing The Proposal‘s $164 million total to become Bullock’s biggest hit.
New Moon slid 63 percent in its third weekend, draining $15.7 million for second place. That puts the teenage romantic fantasy at $255.6 million, with an even scarier worldwide total of $570.1 million. In third place with $9.7 million was the new drama Brothers, starring Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Natalie Portman. Two family film holdovers occupied fourth and fifth place: A Christmas Carol (No. 4 with $7.5 million) and Old Dogs (No. 5 with $6.9 million). Carol, which debuted in early November to a somewhat disappointing $30.1 million, has since displayed admirable box-office stamina. Unfortunately for the Jim Carrey movie, James Cameron’s Avatar will be stealing most of Carol‘s high-priced IMAX and 3-D screens on Dec. 18.
With the exception of Brothers, the weekend’s other wide-release debuts were left in the dust. The heist movie Armored skidded into sixth place with $6.6 million, while the Robert De Niro holiday comedy Everybody’s Fine barely stuffed its stocking with $4 million — enough for tenth place. However, the weekend’s true lump of coal was the horror comedy Transylmania, which grossed a lifeless $274,000 from 1,007 theaters. Its per-screen average of $272 means that, at each theater, approximately 37 people attended Transylmania this weekend. If one figures that the movie played about five times per day, or 15 times the whole weekend, then each screening of Transylmania attracted an average of two or three moviegoers.
In limited release, the new George Clooney comedic drama Up in the Air showed no signs of turbulence, cashing in $1.2 million from just 15 theaters — an average of $79,000 per screen. The Oscar hopeful, which collected the National Board of Review’s best picture award last week, expands nationwide on Christmas Day.
new moon passing HP this week is almost as awesome as Michael Vick getting his first 2 td’s against his old team. Take that haters!
What are you talking about? I assume by HP you mean Harry Potter…HP made over 300 million domestically and over 900 million overall compared
Sorry didn’t get to finish… Compared with new moons domestic total of 255 million and overall total of 570 million.
the hp franchise has made over 5 BILLION so far and there are still two more movies to go. twilight saga still has a long way to go….
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban final domestic gross = $249,541,069. New Moon Currently? $255,639,000. Win for the twihards
Oh and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets = $261,988,482. New Moon will be there by friday, settin em up and knockin em down!
Anthony- You are an idiot. Domestic gross is not the only thing that matters. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban: $795 million worldwide. Chamber of Secrets: $878 million worldwide. New Moon isn’t yet at $500 million worldwide and it’s dropping like a stone. Percent chance from first week to second week: 70%. From second week to third week: 63.4%. Those are domestic, but worldwide is similar. New Moon is done and will not pass any of the HP movies. Oh, and critics and audience alike love the HP movies (I actually don’t- I’m a diehard book fan but not a fan of the movies) whereas only the hardcore Twilight fans like the movies. I have several friends who liked the books but absolutely loathed New Moon. They barely made it through without leaving or falling asleep. So, to sum up: You’re an idiot, and nothing Twilight will ever even begin to compare to anything Harry Potter.
christina, name calling is a nono! i’m telling ur parents! and in the famous words of many mid-90′s rappers…. don’t hate the playa, hate the game!
Are you REALLY trying to start that argument? Regardless of whether New Moon beats any one HP movie domestically, I doubt it even reaches Azkaban’s total globally. You also have to consider variables like inflation and ticket prices (how much did a ticket cost in 2002 versus today?).
If you’re going to compare any one HP film to any one Twilight film, look at HP6 and New Moon. New Moon isn’t going to get to HP6 internationally PERIOD, and will struggle to get to $301 million with 60+% drops every successive weekend.
Adjusted for inflation, HP1 would have made $401 million, HP2 about $333 million and HP3 about $280-$290 million. If New Moon had been released in November 2001, it’d only have about $202 million. Still want to brag?
You cannot seriously compare box office totals for films eight, seven and five and a half years apart. There are way too many variables.
Poor Anthony; he must think movie grosses work like golf scores.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince grossed 301 million domestically by the end of its run, and 930 million worldwide. With the significant drops New Moon has been taking, it won’t surpass Harry Potter’s total in the end, even if New Moon has made more money at this point in its run. All that matters is the final gross. And New Moon will lose. Just thought I’d point that out since you’re so eager on pitting the two against each other.
HP4- Cost 200 million and grossed 301 million.
NM cost 50 million and grossed 255 million. U do the math..
Actually it’s HP6 genius.
I’d rather have a $200 million dollar movie that actually looked good and had quality than a $50 million dollar movie that made back its budget 10 times over but looked cheap and poorly made.
TellyB, I wasn’t talking about profit. I was talking about box office gross.
But if you want to discuss profit, then by all means. Half-Blood Prince, with its 200 million budget, grossed 930 million worldwide. New Moon with its 50 million budget has grossed 570 worldwide. Do the math.
And just to note, I don’t really care much for comparing the two franchises, seeing as how they aren’t in any way similar (aside from being based on books). But when I see Twilight fans making ridiculous claims, I feel the need to bring logic and reason into the conversation.
As for New Moon’s small budget, it shows. The Twilight films look cheap. I’d rather look at a film that looks expertly crafted in which it’s evident that a lot of time and effort has been put in. Like someone else on this message board pointed out, District 9 had a 30 million budget, and it puts New Moon’s effects to shame.
Wow, TellyB just got shut down by Dave. LOL!
@TellyB
I am not comparing New Moon and Harry Potter. They are not one in the same..but I am glad both franchises have inspired new readers. I am not a fan of the Twilight saga but I appreciate my niece reading. She began with the Twilight books and reads other books in similar taste. Although I don’t appreciate the movies I appreciate that.
But with that being said. HP movies can cost more…and still profit much more. Why? Twilight is a very focused audience of tweens.
HP has younger, older, and formerly younger audiences. The movies spur higher level of franchising than can be generated from the movies than Twilight can. There is a HP theme park, and Harry Potter is a class at several IVY league school. Its diversity allows it to find different revenue sources that is not available to Twilight. But it does not make it any less significant to you and the Twilight fans and that is what matters.
I don’t think people can really compare Harry Potter and Twilight, besides the fact they’re both fiction based phenomenon’s. I don’t get the franchise vs. franchise thing. Also, as someone whose read and watched both franchises’, Harry Potter is way more intellectually stimulating than Twilight will ever be–so again, I can’t even compare the two.
Amen!
Amen. I love them both. I think people who fight over them are missing out.
HP got 301 million domestically. And?
New Moon cost 75% less than HBP to make and it’s going to make almost as much domestically so that’s the point.
New Moon cost 75% less than HBP to make, and IT LOOKED LIKE IT. What’s the point of skimping on the budget if what you release looks like cheap garbage?
The guys who made District 9 spent only $30 million dollars and put New Moon’s effects to utter embarrassing shame.
Exactly, Jen!
Emma, if the contest is based on who makes the most money after making a cheap movie, the winner is Paranormal Activity. Is it better or more impressive than New Moon, then? I’d say so!
Sorry, Emma, they gotcha there.
Paranormal Activity is a more profitable film than New Moon AND a better movie, period. (Mainly due to the lack of craptastically fake CGI werewolves.)
HP movies have become so boring. I haven’t liked any since PoA. Maybe GoF. Twilight and New Moon only cost $37m and $50m to make, respectively. Harry Potter on the other hand cost over $200m for the later instalments. I think Twilight can definitely count that in their net stakes when doing a comparison. Although New Moon was a disappointment because of the lack of Edward Cullen (I don’t expect the franchise to grow much after watching New Moon) it will grow with Eclipse and Breaking Dawn so it will only keep earning more money in my opinion.
Keep dreaming, dear. Eclipse is going to have a much harder time of it this summer with much bigger competition, and there are hardcore Twihards who hate Breaking Dawn.
Whatever New Moon makes is probably going to be the high-water mark in the series.
And I agree with Jen. What’s the point of making a movie on the cheap when it LOOKS CHEAP? You see frugality, I only see Summit wanting to hoard every last red cent because they know Twilight fans will pay money to see these films regardless of how cheap, cheesy and tacky they look.
HP movies are expensive to make because HP fans expect some level of technical and visual effects quality in their films, and a lot of the time, that costs money. They’re also shooting in a more expensive location, have more big-name actors to pay and more effects shots to include.
If Summmit cared to make a good quality Twilight movie, they would shell out more money to make it look decent. And they wouldn’t rush the filming. It’s obvious that it was rushed in New Moon. I can’t imagine Eclipse looking any better. As for Breaking Dawn, that will just look ridiculous on screen. It’s own plot makes it inane.
Wow, Summit really has you guys cowed.
“We can spend practically nothing on these movies to make them look halfway decent, and fans won’t care, they’ll see them anyway!” Way to play into their greedy hands!
HP may have been more expensive, but at least it looks like people with technical skill and respect for the material worked on it. It doesn’t look like some cynical, cheap product that was crapped out in a hurry to take advantage of a fad. And since Summit is rushing to get Eclipse out (can’t put it out next November, Deathly Hallows would destroy it), it’s probably going to look cheap, too!
Summit doesn’t care about this story. They care about the quick buck they can make on it. If they cared about it at all, they would have spent a little more to make it look professional. I can buy spending only $30 million on Twilight because they were unsure about how much it’d make, but to spend only $20 million more for New Moon was cheap and miserly to the extreme.
Guys, I agree with you to some extent. I am simply speaking dollars here. Nothing about quality. I thought New Moon sucked except not for the same reasons you do. There was just not enough Edward and most of the parts that did include Edward I didn’t like his clothing and makeup so that was distracting and took away some enjoyment of watching him and therefore lowered my repeat viewings of the movie. However, I don’t think even with spending $200m to look good the HP movies have been that enjoyable in comparison to the HP books so Twilight wins there for me. New Moon, HBP, OOTP were all dull and boring. DH probably will be as well since it’s the same director. At least New Moon only cost $50m to make. Also Eclipse and BD have a chance to get better because there’ll be new directors.
Emma, the HP books are always going to be more enjoyable than the movies to a lot of people. Heck, people say the same about the Twilight books. But every HP movie has been really well-received by critics, fans, and casual audience members alike. Count the money and read the reviews, if you need proof. Every HP movie, with the exception of PoA, has grossed over 800 million dollars worldwide, which is impressive, considering how long HP has been around. Sorry you find them boring in comparison to the books, but the general consensus among most is that they’re quite enjoyable. The same can’t be said for Twilight, which seems to only please existing fans.
I get what you’re saying, Emma, but it’s almost impossible to separate cost from quality here. The two are pretty much linked. The cheaper films looks like the cheaper film and suffers for it. The more expensive film was, yes, more costly, but comes out better for it. If money was the only thing that mattered, people would be pumping out $1 million films with no regard for production values.
And please don’t assume that you speak for most other people when you say you found the last two HP movies boring. Most people, including critics, fans and casual moviegoers, liked them just fine.
I wouldn’t hold my breath for much improvement in Eclipse (which Summit is rushing to get out) and Breaking Dawn (which is almost destined to be the Plan 9 of the 21st century).
You’re comparing New Moon to a dog-killer? Really?
So what? The Dark Knight still crushes with it’s, 533 million domestic gross and it’s 1 BILLION! world wide gross. yup, that’s billion with a “B”.
Anthony, if you can crow about New Moon topping two HP movies’ domestic grosses (not international, though), does that mean I can turn around and gloat about EVERY Harry Potter movie beating the snot out of Twilight?
I’m okay with Twilight. I’m not a huge fan. But please don’t compare it with HP. Forget about money for a sec. When critics see Twilight, they have to turn their brains off. When critics see HP, they expect only the best. Oh yeah, and how many oscars has Twilight been nominated for? How many will ever be nominated for?
Anthony-Are you gay? You’re a dude, and you like Gay Twilight! Go watch some MANLY movies like RoboCop or Star Trek 2009!
Wow, when did Star Trek become “manly”?
Shut up. No one cares. Go The Blind Side!!
Speaking of HP the new teaser trailer for DEATHLY HALLOWS is AMAZING!!!!!
big ups on the vick comment
I’m only writing this because I noticed a lot of debate over inflation and ticket sales and whatnot between Twilight and HP.
According to Box Office Mojo, adjusted for inflation, the first Harry Potter movie made $401 million in today’s dollars in the U.S. When you average out inflation over the period from 2001-09, this would put Chamber of Secrets at roughly $333 million today, and Azkaban at roughly $280-$290 million. This is pretty rough math and assume equal inflation increments (which isn’t the case, obviously), but the point stands that it’s not nearly as simple as saying, “New Moon will make more than Chamber of Secrets or Prisoner of Azkaban!”
Actually, it might not!
Dude, don’t burst a vein or anything, but nobody gives a frak about Twilight except for pre-teen girls, women who wish they had the youth of a pre-teen girl, and gay/emo guys. It’s a piece of garbage movie based off a piece of garbage book that has failure’s of humanity for its fanbase. I tried watching Twilight. I really did. I tried watching the Rifftrax of it, and I thought I was high out of my mind with all the retardation nonsense that happened. I couldn’t even watch 20 minutes of that stupidity. No wonder people hate Americans when the Americans go watch and read idiocy like Twilight and even write the garbage to begin with. You just got got.
The Blind Side has a 71% fresh rating on rottentomatoes.com. That isn’t mediocre.
Mediocre means average. Percentage wise, a 71% is a C-. Not great, but gets the job done. In other words: mediocre.
Aww, but 71% on rottentomatoes.com is above average, meaning it isn’t mediocre. I don’t need an English lesson, I know what the word means.
True, but since EW referenced metacritic.com, which currently has a 53 (of 100) rating for The Blind Side, they went for metacritic’s assessment instead.
take rottentomatoes & meta with a grain of salt….I don’t rely on critics to see a movie, if I did, I wouldn’t see half the movies released. If I had gone to RT to get a view of the Blind Side, I wouldn’t have gone to see it.
Twilight’s fall isn’t as catastrophic as last weekend, but it’ll still struggle to $300m if it gets there at all.
A 60+% drop is still nothing to feel good about. Since Twilight fans now love to compare it to HP, HP6 only dropped about 39% its third weekend.
New Moon is NOT going to hit $300 million in the U.S. if it keeps up these weekend-over-weekend drops. I think next weekend is only going to be worse, since a lot more holiday films are opening.
Well here my point again about George Clooney…dude cant open any movies LOL
‘Watch online music videos and other stuff free on defSpot com’
$79,000 per theater??!?!
Yeah he can’t open anything at all. Or get fantastic reviews. Or Oscar nominations. Maybe he needs shiny skin and a CGI werewolf.
Up in the Air was only playing in like 10 theaters! No duh it didn’t make that much money. You have to look at the per theater numbers, which were stellar.
Expand the number of theaters for “Up in the Air”! I want to see it, but I don’t want to drive 2 hours each way to do so.
matt, new moon will reach 300 million before all is said and done. look at the total is has grossed worldwide. the blind side wont be number one come this weekend, disney’s frog princess comes out. good luck beating that.
New Moon can’t keep dropping that much each weekend (it needs to keep up a 40-50% drop each weekend, not a 60-70% drop) and expect to reach $300 million, especially with all the major holiday films coming up. This was its last weekend to bank serious money before Avatar, Princess and Sherlock Holmes, and it kind of blew it.
I love how you call this mediocre but never mention it in all of the New Moon coverage. This got 71% on RottenTomatos and New Moon got 29%. Just wonderful, way to not be biased.
Uh, EW based the overall assessment from metacritic, not rottontomatoes. If you check metacritic, the overall rating is 53 of 100 (the user score is 76.
Harry Potter 6 has well out performed every movie this year except Transformers 2. Twilight is at about 4th or 5th place. But even if Twilight somehow surpasses Harry Potter that’s just the $$$$, in terms of overall better books/movies HP will win everytime over Twilight nonsense. No hate here, just the FACTS!
Even if New Moon beats HP’s domestic total, it still won’t touch Transformers 2′s domestic total or HP’s global total. Transformers 2 is going to be #1 in the U.S. and HP is going to be #1 worldwide, unless Avatar completely explodes.
The Twihards are projecting their inferiority complexes something fierce by jumping on the HP comparison (I thought they HATED HP comparisons?).
Avatar won’t explode. I’m sure people will go see it, but it kind of seems like it might bomb and become some kind of cult film or something. I wouldn’t be sad if it passed Transformers 2 total though. That movie is horrible and should not be number one.
And it’s actually the HP fans that Loathe comparisons to that horrible, trashy, mediocre schlock that is twilight.
Celia, people thought Titanic would bomb, too, and we all know what happened there. Underestimate Cameron at your own peril.
And I’ve seen plenty of Twihards complaining about HP comparisons, too (because HP beats Twilight in every measure).
HP fans hate the comparisons because Twilight is unworthy of such comparison.s Twihards hate the comparisons because they know HP beats Twilight on just about every level.
Hannah, I must say I agree with everything you just said. It actually just occurred to me a few days ago that I should give Avatar the benefit of a doubt. James Cameron has brought us big money-making films like Titanic, The Terminator, Aliens, and Terminator 2. So obviously he knows how to make films that people want to see.
Lets not forget that the quality of the film (and books) also matters. Even if New Moon broke records and made so much money, it still doesn’t make it a good quality movie. It looks like they spend $4 making. And those damn wolves look as tall as horses in some scenes, and in others like regular sized dogs.
Im really getting tired of these Vampire movies already, a good thing tranyvania tanked..
The Blind Side received a 94% from Rotten Tomatoes users. Not since Up has a movie been rated so high. Plus, Up and The Blind Side have received A+ scores from Cinemascore–the only two movies of the year to achieve such a high rating. The Blind Side is also the top rated movie on Yahoo! I suspect that the writer of this article is very biased in his opinions and close-minded to a rare, great movie.
New Moon will not pass the newest Harry Potter movie’s worldwide gross. Check Boxofficemojo.com for stats. Harry Potter’s worldwide gross is $929,330,206 while New Moon is currently $570,000,000. It is mathematically impossible that New Moon even reach near the vicinity of HP’s worldwide gross with it’s dismal reviews and 70% weekly declines.
Do any of you closely read EW.com’s statements before you post a reply? The article writer DID bring up the A+ CinemaScore from moviegoers, despite the MEDIOCRE metacritic scores. Most EW box office reports never use rottontomatoes.com as a source, so they’re pretty consistent in that regard.
I know a lot of you just can’t wait to rip EW a new one for being Twilight centric, but they haven’t committed foul play here.
WHY ARE PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT HARRY POTTER?! This has nothing to do with Harry Potter?!!?! Confuse me?!
Anthony brought HP into this debate when he stupidly decided to gloat above. You have an issue, take it up with him. And plenty of Twihards have been crowing about how their pedo-wolf movie was “going to beat HP and Transformers 2.” We’re just giving them a nice dose of reality.
True! I hate twilight as much as the next person, but the twi-tards say that stuff because they want to get a rise out of people with some kind of intelligence. They KNOW HP is better, they just say that dumb stuff out of jealously. That idiot felt the need to mention HP in article that has nothing to do with it. It just proves how immature they are.
Twilight(both movies=average 39%.
Harry Potter(all movies=average
81%.
In 20 years HP will still be discussed and loved, but I think that the Twilight vampires/werewolves will have lost their “sparkle” quicker than a preteen getting over her first crush. Time will tell.
Both groups of fans are very passionate. In 20 years, neither series will be discussed as much as they are now, but the fans will always love the series.
Harry Potter will last. Twilight will fade out over time. Ironic because Harry Potter is about love and Twilight is about infatuation. Twilight does not have the artistic merit to stand the test of time.
Just to put things into perspective, the latest HP film made $930 million worldwide, 12 years after the series launched. Does anyone seriously think that a Twilight film released in 2017 would bank that much money?
Twilight is popular NOW, definitely. There’s nothing about it that suggests it’s anything more than a fad though, at this point. It’s literary quality and the quality of the story that determine what books become classics, not which male character is the hottest.
Yep, you’re right! I remember when Backstreet Boys were popular among girls 10 years ago, and look at where they are now. Girls thought they were hot and claimed it was good music. Would these grown up girls still have the same opinion of BSB now?
lol I was one of those 10 year old girls.I totally thought they were quality music and would last. I laugh when I think about how wrong and stupid I was.I think the same thing will happen with twilight.
I admit that, as a stupid 11-year-old, I told my parents that I thought the Spice Girls were the female Beatles. My dad threw a FIT and now I know why! Haha.
But yes, I think Twilight will be kind of the same thing. Huge today, a guilty pleasure, if not an embarrassment, tomorrow.
Mediocre reviews? It’s at 73% on Rotten Tomatoes and Bullock is probably going to get an Oscar nomination. Just cause you didn’t like it doesn’t mean everyone else didn’t.
Sigh…EW used METACRITIC, not rottontomatoes. And they brought up the A+ rating from CinemaScore users, for those of you who just don’t give a crap about what critics said.
For next week’s box office report, please show better reading comprehension instead of knee jerk reactions, no matter how tempting or deserving they may be.
Go Sandra! Bullock could nab two Best Actress Golden Globes this week (comedy and drama), joining possible double nominee Meryl Streep. Both are mature, extremely likable and having a bang-up year at the movies (anyone think “It’s Complicated” won’t bust past $100 easily?). Congratulations!!!
make that $100 million. oops
I wouldn’t walk across the street for a free screening of Potter or new moon. I do planning on seeing Blind Side. My 15yr old son said that it is “the best movie he has ever seen.”
well that makes me want to go see it. A 15 year old kid says it’s the best movie he’s ever seen. So he’s seen maybe just over a thousand or so movies…and his judgement makes me really want to see it. ha ha ha. no
BlindSide was by far one of the best movies I’ve seen in years! It reminded me of the reason why I used to go to the movies all the time. It’s a must see. Outstanding performances by all and a great story!