December
16
Dubious honors: The worst opening weekends of 2008
Last week's release of downmarket animated film "Delgo" achieved the, er, distinction of becoming the worst opening weekend of 2008. Writes Jonathan Crow at Yahoo Movies:
"Delgo" earned a measly $511,920 this weekend on 2,160 screens, not even breaking the top ten. That's an average of $237 per screen for the three days. If you figure there were five screenings a day, and assume ticket prices are about $8, that comes out to two people in the theater per showing.
Ouch. However, before anyone accuses me of putting the boot in on a helpless little indie (it was released by rent-a-system Freestyle), I'd like to point out that "Delgo" is not alone. Virtually every distributor with the capacity to open a film in more than 2,000 theaters found itself on the wrong end of a per-screen average this year.
Sifting through the 2008 releases contained within the Box Office Mojo charts that rank the top-50 worst openings of all time, Fox is unparalleled with six placements: "Deception," "City of Ember," "Meet Dave," "Babylon A.D.," "The X Files: I Want To Believe" and "Nim's Island."
The Hugh Jackman-Ewan McGregor thriller "Deception" ranks as both the lowest-earning total box office ($4.6 million, soon to be trounced by "Delgo") and the highest opening percentage; the film earned more than 50% of its take on that ignoble opening weekend. (Lionsgate's "Punisher: War Zone" currently ranks higher, at 61%, but it's still in theaters.)
For more details, see the chart after the jump. (All due thanks to Box Office Mojo, which made this exercise possible.) And one more thing: This lineup suggests an audience's enthusiasm for a film at Comic-Con may or may not have any bearing on what happens when it's actually time to pay for a movie.
- Worst opening weekends of 2008
Chart created by Dana Harris, using data from Box Office Mojo
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I was paid to read this script many years ago. I warned them of 10,000 clichés they were lugging about. If only they had listened to me, they'd all be rich & famous now ...
Posted by: Big Bomb | December 16, 2008 at 09:58 AM
Anybody else find it ironic that "Disaster Movie" is on the list?
Posted by: Tim | December 16, 2008 at 12:50 PM
Worst openings are more a result of lousy promotion than lousy film, tho they may go hand in hand.
Very badly reviewed films sometimes take the big opening honors, much to the dismay of other film makers. So, openings are not necessarily the standard for quality.
Posted by: macca | December 16, 2008 at 02:33 PM
Universal opened on 'The Express' on 100 screens in the UK last weekend and did a three day screen average of £53.55 (yes, that decimal place is in the right place).
£10 average ticket price means you are looking at roughly 5 people per screen all weekend. Let's be kind and assume three screenings a day per screen, that's 9 screenings. 5 people to every 9 screenings.
If that's not a world-record I'd be surprised.
This past weekend the film dropped 99 of its 100 screens and took £256. Considering the top screen did 5 times the average in the second week of release it doesn't take a genius to work out that some of those 100 screens sat totally empty for 9 screenings in the first weekend of opening.
A quick look at Nielsen's data reveals the exact number. 8 empty screens. 24 cinema screenings at which not a single person was present.
This past Monday the final screen that survived to live another week and scrape £256 out of the weekend took £0.
Yesterday it improved......and took £6 (one child ticket).
Makes 'Delgo' look like a blockbuster!
Posted by: UK Guy | December 16, 2008 at 03:36 PM
'Delgo' looks like Jar Jar Binks. I don't get it. I thought everyone loved Jar Jar?
Posted by: Snuff Man | December 16, 2008 at 03:54 PM