U.S Box Office Report - 21st - 23rd November 2008

1. Twilight - $70.6M - $70.6M
2. Quantum of Solace - $27.4M - $109.5M
3. Bolt - $27M - $27M
4. Madagascar: Back 2 Africa - $16M - $137.4M
5. Role Models - $7.2M - $48M
6. Changeling - $2.6M - $31.6M
7. High School Musical 3: Senior Year - $2M - $86.8M
8. Zack and Miri Make a Porno - $1.7M - $29.4M
9. The Boy In the Striped Pajamas - $1.6M - $2.7M
10. The Secret Life of Bees - $1.2M - $35.6M

Twilight was expected to open huge and it hasn't disappointed on that front at least. Based on a series of successful books, Twilight is the first of the series and introduces us to the main protagonists, Bella and Edward, the former being the new girl in town and the later being a vampire. The film played massively to the teenage girl crowd (along with their mums), who helped the film score $7M just from Thursday midnight showings. Friday saw the film up to $35M and it's spent the rest of the weekend building on that. The issue now is of front-loading - the film has recouped its production budget of $37M but where will it go from here?


Repeat business should help in the second frame but there'll be no avoiding how heavily front loaded this film is, made worse by it's relatively limited audience (who'll have already seen the film at least twice by next weekend) meaning breakout success/word of mouth won't be too evident. Where Harry Potter appealed to both boys and girls over ten years old, Twilight appeals directly to the 12-16 female market. But, will producers Summit Entertainment be too concerned? The answer appears to be a resounding no - they greenlit the next in the Twilight series 'New Moon' on Saturday morning. The film should break $100M without too much of a problem and I'd imagine most, if not all, of the the cast will already have been signed up further sequels. Twilight is our number one film with $70M.

A week into its domestic release and Quantum of Solace has already crossed the $100M mark (and over a quarter of a billion on the international market) and finished second place on Friday, ahead of Disney's Bolt. The film ended up last weekend a little lower than estimated pegged it, at $67M, but all the records of the Bond series it had broken still stood regardless. In its second frame, Quantum was down 68% on a Friday to Friday basis but this was to be expected with such a large opening take. Unfortunately the film didn't manage to recover much over the rest of the weekend for an overall percentage drop of 60%. But with Thanksgiving coming up next week Quantum should see a decent return as it moves forward to becoming the biggest ever James Bond film. Casino Royale finished its second weekend of release with around $94M in the bank, helped by Thanksgiving falling in that frame. Transporter 3 will be direct competition but shouldn't cause it too many problems. Quantum should go on to become the biggest film of the series but will it be the first Bond film to see $200M on the domestic market?

Bolt is the new CGI movie from the Disney (not Pixar) division that brought us Chicken Little and Meet The Robinsons. It struggled against Quantum of Solace and Twilight on Friday, finishing up third, but managed to recover somewhat over the rest of the weekend, but Disney can't not be disappointed with that take. Bolt is the tale of a dog who gets into all sorts of scrapes with his mistress Penny. What Bolt doesn't realise is that he's just part of a TV show, and Penny is his co-star, but when he escapes from the studio to 'rescue' her, all kinds of trouble is set to occur. The film reviewed exceptionally well (84% Fresh at Rotten Tomatoes) but as mentioned, struggled to find a bigger audience. Bolt's chance should come over Thanksgiving, where it will get free reign of the family market as Australia, Transporter 3 or Four Christmases will almost certainly not appeal to the young family market like Bolt will, and Madagascar 2 will be old hat by that point.

Madagascar 2 is already feeling a little of Bolt's bite as it drops down to fourth place. The Dreamworks sequel has a global total (including its US tally) of over $180M from just three weekends on general release. With such a big budget the film had needed to get off to a good start and should recoup the $150M costs before leaving the top ten even with its slight slow down. The film still has a number of foreign locales awaiting release so a final global total of $250-275M is not out of the question. Meanwhile Role Models is down less than 45% in its third weekend on release. The R-rated comedy is still enjoying some good word of mouth and while it won't be a hit of Superbad proportions, it should still clear $60M and enjoy decent DVD sales.

Universal chose to not expand Changeling any further and may well have missed the boat at bigger box office, but perhaps award season is more on their mind. Changeling was made for $55M, a total it should see with its US grosses but perhaps not while in the top ten. The film didn't review as well as expected but Angelina Jolie has been singled out for praise, along with, to a lesser degree, director Clint Eastwood. HSM 3 meanwhile has pretty much collapsed thanks to its heavy front loading upon release, and the release of Twilight which is bound to have a large percentage of crossover audience, has signalled the death knell for the film. It should just about see another couple of weeks in the top ten. Zack & Miri sees its location count cut this week, and will be lucky to survive Thanksgiving in the charts, though should see itself become Smith's biggest grossing movie by next Sunday.

The Boy In the Striped Pyjamas expanded into 430 locations this weekend and manages a top ten spot thanks to the strong word of mouth the film has built up while in limited release. The drama has already seen over $20M on the global market and The Weinsteins may have chosen now to release/expand the film in hope of picking up some awards next month when critics begin announcing their film's of the year. The Secret Life of Bees managed to become something of an Autumn sleeper. Expected to vanish from the charts within the first week of release, the film dugs its heals in and made $35M.