Jake Gittes

ZDT has the best PTA ever for a Wednesday releaseAmour had as good a PTA as The Lives of Others and better than A Separation, A Prophet and The White RibbonThis is 40 has a chance of doubling its budget domestically

Gitesh Pandya ‏@giteshpandya Towering $91M intl wknd for #Hobbit, $433.9M worldwide. Huge Russian launch.

Turns out the budget for This is 40 is only $35m, which means it could actually double that domestically. Definitely a success.

BOM is up.

Gitesh Pandya ‏@giteshpandya WKND: Hobbit $36.7M/$149.9M, JackReacher 15.6, ThisIs40 12, Rise 5.9/79.7, Lincoln 5.6/116.8, Guilt 5.4, MonstersInc 5

JR should fall in the Knight & Day / Valkyrie ballpark as far as total gross goes.

Exhibitor Relations ‏@ERCboxoffice Paramount's JACK REACHER hit $15.6M in its debut.

Gitesh Pandya ‏@giteshpandya Skyfall climbs to $974.1M worldwide & shd break $1B before end of yr joining Avengers & TDKR in 2012 Billion $ Club.

Gitesh Pandya ‏@giteshpandya Sensational start for ZeroDarkThirty. $410k from 5 NY/LA thtrs for huge $82k avg. $639k in 5days. JAN11 nationwide.

Exhibitor Relations ‏@ERCboxoffice TWILIGHT BDp2 update: Domestic - $281.6M, Int'l - $513.2M, Worldwide - $794.8M So a $2.6m wknd.

Exhibitor Relations ‏@ERCboxoffice Monstrosity! Disney's MONSTERS, INC. 3D scared up just $5M in its debut, finishing in 7th place.

A Sweeney Todd run would give it $65-70m, and I can't imagine it holding worse over the holidays.

Exhibitor Relations ‏@ERCboxoffice Universal's THIS IS 40 checked in with $12M this weekend--debuting w/ less than half of KNOCKED UP.

Yeah, very good jump. $300m still alive, although the movie keeps kinda dancing on the brink.

No idea. Both have room to grow and marketing campaigns will determine a lot (I'm not even talking about quality). TASM 2 will open summer, will introduce MJ and I imagine Foxx will have a bit of a comeback with Django so if they don't screw up his villain people will be more excited to see him than usual. Desolation of Smaug will have exactly that - Smaug, plus increased stakes and more varied action (AUJ mostly just had the dwarves bumping into trolls/orcs/goblins/wargs, DOS will have Bilbo vs giant spiders and Smaug attacking a city now being in full sight). Both could go under 300, both could approach or even cross 350. I think they'll end up fairly close.

First of all, it won't have a problem with crossing 250, second of all, no film with $250m dom and $850m WW gross is ever a flop until we are dealing with like $400m production budgets and $300m promo budgets. The Hobbit disappointed, underwhelmed, whatever, but it didn't flop.

Just because they were worse doesn't mean they were more disappointing. I mean, who was disappointed by what Battleship or Dark Shadows made?Personally for me, the saddest BO story of the year was Cloud Atlas (I loved it, unlike TH, and while it was never going to be a huge hit, WB had no idea what to do with it and so they just dumped it, without any attempt to make a connection with audiences), followed probably by Perks of Being a Wallflower, but The Hobbit is definitely up there, and it's right on top if you only consider large scale releases. I mean, even fucking TASM performed on a high end of its expectations.

Adapt a book into how many parts it actually needs.

It was following I Am Legend almost to a T during the week, which was perfectly fine (it might have followed Alvin and the Chipmunks and then we'd have gotten a $101m first week... how about that?) The Friday increase is bad because it's only 53% instead of IAL's 80%. That other films also increased little only goes to show that the friday Dec 21 in 2012 is worse for BO in general than the same Friday in 2007. Not only did the expected number of people not show up for TH, they didn't for most of the other movies as well.

285-310. Next weekend's hold will be what ultimately makes or breaks $300m.

There shouldn't have been any bridge films. There's just enough in the story for two films, 120-150 minutes each, the first one ending somewhere during the giant-spiders section, the second one being primarily about Smaug, that town that he attacks, and the battle of the five armies. Oh, and no Necromant stuff as well as Holm/Wood/Blanchett/Lee fan service. All directed by Guillermo Del Toro... I absolutely love and admire LOTR to its very last bits, but when Jackson tried to recreate that magic while dealing with a story that demanded a much different approach, that's where he made the most serious mistake he could have made.

If it had been two movies, I think it would have been less stretched out and more focused, in which case people would have liked it more, in which case it would have had better legs and WOM.

Its average rating is still 8.8/10, compared to Argo's 8.4/10. Definitely the best for a Hollywood studio film since TSN (9/10).

Takes its time during the first hour, but embraces its play origins in the final 30 minutes which are perfectly staged and performed. Darkly hilarious yet still dramatic, since the characters are always kept from being lowered to the level of simple trailer trash dumbasses (with the exception of Thomas Haden Church, who embraces the stereotype and is absolutely hysterical, yet still kinda disturbing at times - such as in the "I got him, Joe!" moment). Pretty fucked up and insane, yet never exploitative. I've always liked Emile Hirsch and he does a strong job again; Juno Temple is a bit of a revelation, especially after her forgettable part in TDKR; it's great to have Gina Gershon back and so committed. McConaughey's amazing here - if he should be nominated for awards for any movie this year, this should be the movie. But I doubt most people from the industry would even touch this movie, and I'm sure some consider Friedkin to be a totally lost lunatic. But personally, I love the fact that he's pretty much found his second little career after all his 1990's flops, and now gets to do something so deranged, uncompromising and fully controlled and put it out to some faithful fans and even critical appreciation. With Killer Joe, he is a 78-year-old director who could give anyone younger than him a run for his money.

And just a year and a half ago the record was POTC4's 1715. I wonder if Avatar 2 will be the first to go over 3000.