Friday Box Office Analysis
by Tim Briody
January 5, 2013
Texas Chainsaw 3D
The latest remake in the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series comes out of nowhere with a whopping $10.1 million on Friday. You'd think this would be a high point for the series box office wise, but the 2003 Michael Bay produced remake that starred Jessica Biel started with $10.9 million on its way to a $28 million weekend. The previous Texas Chainsaw entry, 2006 prequel The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning opened with $7.4 million and an $18.5 million weekend.
Audiences love a good January post-holiday scare, as witnessed by last year's one-weekend wonder The Devil Inside, which opened with $16.7 million and landed a $33.7 million weekend. And yes, that's a 2.01 weekend multiplier, for those keeping score at home. Previous Texas Chainsaw entries have come in with weekends of around 2.5 and since it's not as universally reviled as The Devil Inside, that seems about right. Texas Chainsaw 3D starts the year off right with a weekend of $25.2 million.
Promised Land
Expanding into 1,675 theaters, Promised Land earned a disappointing $1.3 million. Also a controversial mining technique, "fracking" is also now something the producers are probably saying after this performance. It might do a little better over the rest of the weekend but a weekend of about $3.9 million is probably the best it can hope for.
Holiday Holdovers
After ostensibly winning the Twelve Days of Box Office, The Hobbit drops to third on Friday with $5.1 million, a 52% decline from last Friday. It's probably got just enough oomph left in it to get to $300 million, but that's about it. Give it a weekend of $16.2 million.
Second goes to Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained, down 37% with $6.2 million. It will cross $100 million over the rest of the weekend and will likely pass Inglourious Basterds' $120 million next weekend. For now, it's solidly in second with $19.2 million.
Christmas Day's other big opener, Les Miserables, drops 47% to $5 million on Friday. It now stands at $92.4 million (the same amount Django Unchained has earned to this point, by the way), meaning the two become the 27th and 28th $100 million films of 2012 by the end of the weekend. The musical should add another $15.5 million for the weekend.
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