Friday Box Office Analysis
By Tim Briody
November 17, 2012
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2
The fifth and final Twilight movie (until the inevitable reboot, and boy I hope I didn't just give somebody an idea) starts with a mammoth $71.2 million, with $30.4 million coming from midnight showings.
It was this time a year ago we saw Breaking Dawn Part 1 start with $72 million, and $30.3 from midnight showings. No, folks, that's not a typo. I've stated before that the one problem with the Twilight series, for the billion dollars the franchise has made, is it has failed to expand its audience. Not even the finale for the series was able to bring out additional viewers. It's a shade off of Breaking Dawn Part 1's Friday and neither episode of Breaking Dawn will top the opening day ($72.2 million) or weekend ($142.8 million) of New Moon.
That's not calling this performance bad. We've never said that about any of the Twilight movies (we only bash their quality). They've all been remarkable box office performers, and this performance is in fact the sixth highest single day of box office of all time. But after Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 became the highest earner in that franchise, many expected the second half of Breaking Dawn to do the same. Instead, that title will stay with Eclipse, the only entry in the series to crack $300 million domestically.
Anyway, looking at Breaking Dawn Part 2's Friday, if we take out the reported midnight showings, that gives us actual Friday earnings of $40.8 million. Breaking Dawn Part 1 had a midnight showings-removed multiplier of 2.58 (and 1.92 when you count the midnight showings in the entire weekend). Being the finale, it should be even slightly more frontloaded, but not excessively so. Breaking Dawn Part 2 looks to come in with a weekend of $130.3 million.
Lincoln
After an impressive performance in 11 theaters last weekend, Steven Spielberg's Lincoln moves to 1,775 theaters and opens to $6.5 million. This is fine for something sure to land Daniel Day-Lewis another Best Actor nomination and a likely Best Picture nomination. It should find room for growth among the hordes of females going to Breaking Dawn Part 2 and remains something to watch over the holiday weekend. Lincoln should have a weekend of $20.1 million.
Skyfall
After a franchise record $88 million opening weekend, Skyfall drops 59.3% from last Friday to $12.4 million. This was to be expected given the size of the opening, but it's still doing fine and after next weekend we'll be talking about the highest earner in the 50 year history of the James Bond franchise. A second weekend of $39.1 million seems right on the money(penny).
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