Depp/Burton DARK SHADOWS Is In Release!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Thanks for the numbers, madscntst. 

I'm still happy with $13,439 because it does fall in between the two benchmarks I'd decided upon as comparisons for this week: Wrath of the Titans brought in $15,495 on its Wednesday when it was in 150 theaters and The Lucky One brought in $12,181 when it was in 115. And DS' figure is actually more impressive than both when one consider it's in its 13th week in release while the other two pulled in their figures in their 11th weeks in release. It's also impressive that DS is still ahead of Wrath of the Titans for the Monday-Wednesday period with $47,415 vs. $45,652, particularly despite the fact that DS is playing in 18 fewer theaters.    And also, even though DS brought in $2,056 less on Wednesday, both films' Wednesday per screens are virtually identical with Wrath of the Titans' being $103 and DS' being $102. 

90 days 15 hours 40 minutes 51 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

ack, that's quite a huge drop, even though it often drops on Wed. 

I just saw Box Office Mojo's chart, and percentagewise DS' drop is actually on a par with or even less than several other films' Tuesday-to-Wednesday drops yesterday:

THE DARK KNIGHT RISES -21.1%
TOTAL RECALL (2012) -28.9%
DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: DOG DAYS -24.9%
THE WATCH -25.3%
STEP UP REVOLUTION -28.9%
TED -21.4%
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN -23.8%
MAGIC MIKE -30.3%
SAVAGES (2012) -32.9%
MADAGASCAR 3: EUROPE'S MOST WANTED -20.2%
TYLER PERRY'S MADEA'S WITNESS PROTECTION -25%
RUBY SPARKS -25.4%
KATY PERRY: PART OF ME -34.5%
DARK SHADOWS -22.8%

Wednesday's Box Office

90 days 16 hours 14 minutes 57 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[David]

 

DS' drop was a lot lower than major recent releases.
Of course the film will fizzle out as all films do--but I'd like to see it hit $80 million first. It's so close!

[The Doctor and K9]

It seems doubtful to me that it will hit 80 mil though.   in the Rio Grande Valley area, 3 theaters are showing DS this week.  2 will drop it today.  The remaining venue has it playing only twice daily, as opposed to 4 times for this past 7days.  I suspect this is it's last week in theaters.  Even if it plays 2 more weeks, it would have to bring in something like $24,000 a day.  I figured that on a napkin from a rough me memory of the domestic gross (+- 79,675,000?).

[loril54]

Well, if that article and the back cover shots of the DVD and Blu-ray/DVD Combo releases are correct, it definitely looks like the only extra on the DVD is "The Collinses: Every Family Has Its Demons" featurette and all the other extras only appear on the Blu-ray/DVD Combo release. If that is the case, in plain English I think it's shitty. But there's not much we can do because situations like that seem to be the norm rather than the exception lately. 

It doesn't seem like they are that interested in the fact that there are some people that are not doing well when it comes to the economy. It gives people the idea that big business doesn't care. IMO. I think that they would create better PR by taking this into consideration. Not everyone can afford a Blue Ray Player.

PS I don't mind companies making money but be fair. 

[jimbo]

Cousin loril54 well said.

SGS and TB speak briefly about DS' performance. http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/08/09/seth-grahame-smith-wants-to-resurrect-beetlejuice-it/#/0

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Very interesting article, jimbo - thanks for the link. 

What's truly sad is that people would actually tweet such trash to Grahame-Smith (and Damon Lindelof) - but I have to give him (them) credit for appearing at a Comic Con panel entitled "The Art of Being Despised." It certainly shows he has wit - though I do wonder what if any effect it could have on salvaging his career. We would certainly quibble with the writer's opinion that DS flopped, and we could back it up with quite a bit of evidence - but there's no doubt that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which Grahame-Smith is far more responsible for given the film is based on his own book, flopped. Even though before the film ever opened people predicted that it wouldn't even make $40 million, I'll admit that I thought that perhaps they were being way too pessimistic. After all, these predictions are often wrong (and on both sides of the equation, meaning films predicted to not make money often do and vice versa) - but apparently those predictions were right on the money with AL:VH. I mean, I can't ever remember seeing a wide released film so quickly reduced to playing in only 655 theaters and only playing two showing a day in so many of those theaters - not to mention then being reduced to only 266 theaters the next week. Even this year's mega-duds like John Carter and Battleship have had more successful theater lives. And then there's the fact that the film has already been limping along with daily grosses the likes of which most films don't normally see until their final weeks of release (which AL:VH may easily be in) - along with the fact that so far it has indeed only grossed $37,070,709 and it really doesn't look like $40 million is likely.

90 days 20 hours 29 minutes 8 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[Gerard]

what one can expect, and tolerate, from a daily, shot live, on the cheap soap opera from 45 years ago and what's acceptable in a 100+ million dollar movie five years in development are two totally different things.

if the deleted scenes and extras on the blue-ray help make sense of it than good. but otherwise it's just sloppy writing.


and as to whether or not there were "clues" in retrospect as to carolyn's being a werewolf is somewhat beside the point. it meant nothing to the plot of the movie. it was just plain stupid.

I agree that things should've been more, shall we say, "practical" or "logical" after all that, but again, every version of DS has been smitten with the impractical and illogical bug.  As I said before, we've had three television and three cinematic versions of it and all have been filled with impracticalities and "illogicalities."  Dan Curtis, in making his '91 version, more than two decades after the original, should've also figured that out (and he was given an open check), but he didn't.  I've simply accepted the impracticle and illogical things are part and parcel of DS.  Who knows?  Maybe Depp and Burton did it deliberately as an homage to the original and all its other manifestations.  Cameron, in his blockbuster Titanic deliberately allowed a historical faux pas just for us Titanic oficiandoes, despite wanting it to be completely and historically accurate (he showed smoke coming out of the fourth funnel which was a dummy that stored deck chairs).  He wanted to see if us Titanic fanatics would catch it.  So, if the Maggie-changing-her-name-to-Vicki-after-she-applied-and-accepted-the-position was accidental or deliberate, or had some reasonable explanation, so what?

As for Carolyn-as-a-werewolf, I'll be the first to admit, as one who loved the movie, it was an example of tossing in everything including the kitchen sink.  To me, it was another tribute to the original.  We got lots and lots, even if bits and pieces, of much that was offered in the original that never appeared in any of the other four different versions.  We got a werewolf.  We also got Laura.  None of it was fleshed out, but we got it.  Thankfully, we didn't get John Yaeger's Lucy-meets-Bill-Holden-paper-mache-nose, or boring Adam, or that terrible Daphne/Gerard plotless plot-line.  We should count our blessings.

Was the movie far from perfect?  Heavens, no.  Did it succeed in bringing back the atmosphere of the original?  Heavens, yes.  I think that some of what it did, from Carolyn as a werewolf to Julia resurrecting as a vampire was also done in the hope of a sequel.  Studios do that.  I don't care if any version of DS is imperfect.  I just want more.

Gerard

[madscntst]

Been busy most of the evening, and when I checked in here to see this evening's conversation I realized that we didn't yet know the theater count for next week.  So I popped over to BOM.

Wow, well, I don't know where (I wish I did!) but they have actually ADDED 3 theaters for the coming week!  It will be in 135 theaters:

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/counts/chart/?yr=2012&wk=32&p=.htm

No help in my neck of the woods, as it's still not playing anywhere nearby.  But SOMEONE still has it playing.  What's funny is that I went straight to the "declining" part of the list, and when I didn't see DS listed there I thought maybe they were no longer even bothering to list it, but that didn't make sense because they usually list even theaters that are in 1 or 2 theaters in LA.  Then I thought maybe the list wasn't complete yet.  Luckily my eye eventually traveled up the list to "expanding" films 

[The Doctor and K9]

Maybe, just maybe, my prediction about DS not reaching 80 million was wrong. I was operating under the assumption that the theater count for next week would be greatly reduced. I never dreamed it would actually be playing in 3 more theaters!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

Well, WB/DS did buck the theaters pattern - but not in the way I feared might happen because instead of being pulled from theaters DS has expanded - and for a third time yet, which may actually be unprecedented this year (I'll have to check when I get the chance). And actually DS is probably opening in more than just 3 theaters because we really have no way of knowing how many new theaters might be being added because we have no way of knowing how many theaters DS may close in today (though The Doctor and K9 told us about at least 2 closures in Texas). So, this upcoming weekend's box office numbers could actually prove to be interesting if it turns out that DS could be opening in many new theaters. 

And speaking of theaters, I checked to see how many films have played in more than 135 in their 14th week this year - and it turns out to be only 8:

The Hunger Games (414)
Dr. Seuss' The Lorax (315)
Marvel's The Avengers (300)
Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (260)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (230)
21 Jump Street (220)
Mirror Mirror (166)
Safe House (136)

And I also checked to see how many films in total have even reached a 14th week this year - and counting DS that turns out to be only 18. As I've mentioned before, Wrath of the Titans and The Lucky One each closed at the end of its 13th week - and we can add Cabin in the Woods and The Woman in Black to that list.

90 days 23 hours 3 minutes 23 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I was operating under the assumption that the theater count for next week would be greatly reduced.

It's always dangerous to assume. 

90 days 23 hours 9 minutes 2 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

And then there's the fact that the film has already been limping along with daily grosses the likes of which most films don't normally see until their final weeks of release (which AL:VH may easily be in)

I just noticed that Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter isn't listed anywhere on Box Office Mojo's theater count chart for next week. That's usually a sign that a film is closing. And if that is the case, then that will mean that AL:VH spent only 7 weeks in release, and that's pretty pathetic for a wide released major studio film.    But then...

90 days 23 hours 19 minutes 56 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[Mysterious Benefactor]

I finally got around to checking out how DS' 88th day gross fared against all of this year's other films on their 88th day, and once again it's still performing very well. This time it came in 6th overall and once again its gross came in 2nd in its theaters range. Surprisingly though, this time it was bested in its theaters range by Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, which was apparently in its last gasps at the box office because it seems to have closed at the end of the week. However, AL:VH bested DS by only $2,416 despite the fact that it was playing in 33 more theaters than DS, which is why DS bested it when it comes to per screen with $126 vs. AL:VH's $115.    And when it comes to overall, DS' per screen placed it 4th.

And when it comes to a comparison to Wrath of the Titans, well, again, what can we say because that film brought in $6,724 on its 88th day - $9,851 less than DS did. 

91 days 11 hours 44 minutes 11 seconds since the Depp/Burton Dark Shadows has been in release(ET)!!

[David]

I've never seen a ''bomb'' hang around in theaters this long before!