Friday Numbers Analysis

By Tim Briody

November 15, 2003

I still can't believe Jennifer Connelly chose you over me.

The weekend, Will Ferrell's comedy beats Russell Crowe's return for the top of the box office, Tupac surprises, the Looney Tunes gang disappoints and the rumor that the Matrix trilogy will be on DVD by Christmas becomes less and less shocking by the day.

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

The Russell Crowe vehicle earned an estimated $8.2 million Friday, a pretty good number this time of year, keeping things in perspective. Aided by positive reviews and certainly not aimed at kids, Master and Commander will go neck and neck with Elf for the weekend's top film, but will come up just a bit short. Give it a 3.1 internal multiplier and a $25.3 million weekend.

Tupac: Resurrection

The film about the slain rapper earned a quite-impressive-for-a-documentary $2.5 million Friday. Keep in mind the type of film and target audience, and the rest of the weekend doesn't look good for the film, however. A 2.6 multiplier gives Tupac $6.5 million for the weekend.

Looney Tunes: Back in Action

With generally lousy marketing and Elf taking in most of the family box office dollars, Back in Action only earned an estimated $2.2 million in over 2,900 theaters. With this and relatively disappointing numbers earned by Brother Bear, this could be yet another nail in the coffin of traditional animation. (Insert "That's All Folks!" gag here.) Bugs and Daffy will salvage what they can over the rest of the weekend, as a 3.4 weekend multiplier gives Looney Tunes: Back in Action a $7.4 million weekend. With such a low early Friday number, the overall weekend multiplier could even be inflated a bit higher.

Notable Holdovers

The Matrix Revolutions collapses an absolutely ridiculous 70% from last Friday, with a $4.7 million Friday. After earning $83.7 million in its first five days, the conclusion of The Matrix trilogy will not even come close to the $171 million of the original Matrix. It can also pretty much forget about $150 million. Anyone want to take bets on when this hits the dollar theaters (or, even better, DVD?) Anyway, even with a weekend recovery, The Matrix Revolutions is still looking at an overall decline of at least 60% from last weekend.

There is a bit of good news in the holdover department, though. Elf is exactly what The Matrix Revolutions isn't: a hit. Off just 18% from last Friday, the Will Ferrell film is well on its way to the $100 million mark, and will see a weekend decline of less than 15%, good enough to take the number one position in its second weekend.

Love Actually more than doubled its screen count and while that won't double its weekend earnings, it did improve on last Friday's take by 28.5%. This is good news for the romantic comedy that is going to need positive word-of-mouth to keep it going through the holiday season. It should actually be able to keep the 3.3 weekend multiplier it had last week, and that will give it an $8.8 million weekend.

Extrapolated Estimates for the Top Ten (Three-Day)
Projected
Rank
Film
Estimated Gross (M$)
1
Elf
25.5
2
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World
25.3
3
The Matrix Revolutions
16.5
4
Brother Bear
11.0
5
Love Actually
8.8
7
Looney Toons: Back in Action
7.4
7
Tupac: Resurrection
6.5
8
Scary Movie 3
6.4
9
Radio
5.0
10
Mystic River
3.2

View other columns by Tim Briody

     

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