U.S Box Office Report - 2nd - 4th January 2009

1. Marley & Me - $24M - $106.5M
2. Bedtime Stories - $20.3M - $85.3M
3. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - $18.4M - $79M
4. Valkyrie - $14M - $60.6M
5. Yes Man - $13.8M - $79.4M
6. Seven Pounds - $10M - $60.3M
7. The Tale of Despereaux - $7M - $43.7M
8. Doubt - $5M - $18.7M
9. The Day the Earth Stood Still - $4.8M - $74.2M
10. Slumdog Millionaire - $4.7M - $28.7M

Welcome to 2009!

Just a quick report this weekend, the End of Year 2008 Review took up a fair bit of box office time this week and usually replaces the final Sunday report. With no major releases until next weekend, the top seven remains the same as the last frame. Marley & Me was still the choice of the week and is down just 33% from its take last weekend. It's now cleared $100M in 10 ten days, the time frame normally reserved for summer fare to reach that figure. Bedtime Stories was actually down just 26% as families chose that movie over Marley & Me (which one presumes they all saw last weekend). The Adam Sandler film should hit $100M by next Friday and may become his biggest hit since Click's $137M.

In terms of drops, Benjamin Button sits somewhere in the middle, down 31% from last weekend. The Brad Pitt movie will probably need a week and a half before reaching $100M but this potentially risky title seems to be paying off for Paramount. It's only in a couple of foreign locations so should have no real problem recouping its $150M production budget. Valkyrie, which was expected to tank after all the bad publicity surrounding it, is off a respectable 33% as it pushes toward its production budget of $75M. The Tom Cruise film surprised everyone last weekend when it opened well against Benjamin Button and the two family movies.

For those looking for a more adult orientated comedy, Yes Man is pretty much their only port of call. After a lacklustre start, but better christmas weekend, Yes Man is down just 16% in its third weekend of release. It should see $100M before leaving the top ten but with three wide openers next weekend (one of which is the expanding Gran Torino) it'll find viewers a littler harder to come by. Will Smith's Seven Pounds is also struggling against Valkyrie and Benjamin Button but still manages a double figure total for the weekend. Just. The good thing for Seven Pounds is its relatively low production budget, $55M, which it recouped over this weekend. The film should see $100M+ on the international market and still end up being a sizeable hit for Smith.

Despereaux had a rough Christmas period but did recover later into the weekend. Sadly, it's on its last legs and may only see one more weekend in the top ten - and leave still being way short of its low (for the type of film) budget of $60M. Bring on the international market.

Doubt manages to climb up a couple of spots, which means word of mouth is pushing this one onwards, having expanded last weekend into 1200+ locations. A shame Fox don't feel the same about Slumdog Millionaire which is still at only 600+ locations and lost a further two this weekend. It may be too late for Fox to expand this one now and capitalise on the near flawless word of mouth the film is receiving. Sitting in between is The Day The Earth Stood Still, for no other reason than nothing new turned up to push it out of the top ten. That said, the film currently sits on a global total of $175M.