Saturday, November 21, 2009

Caroling in Foreign Lands

Christmas Carol took more of a hit at the start of its third domestic weekend, but overseas it hangs in there:

Robert Zemeckis' 3D holiday title "Disney's A Christmas Carol" came in No. 2 in its second frame, grossing $16.2 million from 3,339 playdates in 21 territories, a solid showing. Cume is $33 million. Despite a lackluster opening -- both internationally and domestically -- the film is showing signs of having legs.

International grosses for "Christmas Carol" are running 47% ahead of Zemeckis' worldwide hit "The Polar Express," which scored a foreign cume of $124 million.

In Japan, November 14-19, Christmas Carol cmaein at #1, collecting $3.1 million.

I ran across two veteran Disney artists the other night, who asked what I thought of the feature. As I've said here, I told them I liked it, got swept up in the Three Deeness of the thing, but thought one hindrance was the familiarity of the story. Good as Dickens's tale is (and it is), you walk into your neighborhood multiplex knowing all the twists and turns ... and how it comes out.

That takes a little of the edge off, no?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

After next weekend, the film is as dead as the characters look in this film (which is very). Rumour on the lot has it Bob Iger can't stand the film.

Steve Hulett said...

It will do well over the four-day weekend, then trail off.

My guesstimate is, it goes into the black with DVD and second seasonal release. (Don't forget that Conventional Wisdom and the Media declared Polar Express to be a disaster, yet it made fine profits.)

Anonymous said...

I'm sure the haters are so happy. Good, now we can move on and not have to listen to your dribble any more. Oh wait there is Avatar to hate next. Darn it...

Anonymous said...

Avatar, as weird as it looks in some shots, still is hand-over-fist better-looking than Christmas Carol...

Site Meter