The marketing campaign for JJ Abrams' new horror film "Cloverfield" paid off strongly for them, as it vaulted to the No. 1 spot in the weekend box office, taking in a solid $41 million for its opener.
With those numbers, its reported $25 million budget should be covered on its second weekend, making the rest of the film gravy for Paramount (VIA-B) and producer JJ Abrams.
It'll very interesting to see how much it drops the second time around, as the great marketing campaign brought out the huge numbers. Being a unique film, it's hard to tell if it'll plunge like those films in the horror genre usually do.
It was definitely a smart move to keep this film below the "R" rating, as it was a big factor in achieving the big numbers.
On the opposite side of the coin, and coming in second for the weekend was 27 Dresses with Katherine Heigl. It was able to gross $22.4 million, higher than a lot of people thought it would, averaging $7,336 at 3,057 venues.
Last weekend's leader "The Bucket List" dropped to third place, although still able to garner another $15.2 million. That was only a drop of 22 percent over last weekend; a strong hold.
The box office needed a strong weekend like this, as so far its performance recently has been underwhelming, to say the least.
Fox (NWS-A) had to be especially happy, as it had three films in the top ten for the weekend, with Juno being through its Fox Searchlight.
Top ten weekend box office:
| 1 | Cloverfield | $41,000,000 |
| 2 | 27 Dresses | $22,427,000 |
| 3 | The Bucket List | $15,150,000 |
| 4 | Juno | $10,250,000 |
| 5 | National Treasure: Book of Secrets | $8,148,000 |
| 6 | First Sunday | $7,800,000 |
| 7 | Mad Money | $7,700,000 |
| 8 | Alvin and the Chipmunks | $7,000,000 |
| 9 | I Am Legend | $5,105,000 |
| 10 | Atonement | $4,759,000 |
Other Box Office Sites:
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cloverfeild made my month...the marks on the statue of liberty are just brilliant..looks like a flesh wound on metal..HUD's character is the best ..TJ miller is the best stand up comic ive seen in a long time check out his act
http://effinfunny.com/tjmiller
Posted by: kaoticchick | January 23, 2008 9:17 AM | Permalink to Comment