60th Portuguese Box-Office Analysis

Yet another week, in this “island” of sand, instead of water. With a decent internet connection this is, now, much more bearable, because just that makes us near to the world. And I realized I couldn’t be disconnected from the world. I have a need to feed on the news that pour from all earth and especially from my home country. And to not be by here let’s say, especially, about what’s happening in Portugal in terms of Box-Office.
And yes, we have some news, to show you.

Let’s move on to the real business.
First I will start by saying, we have a new champion, and yet again, for many weeks this year, it’s an animation movie. No big news in the number one spot. We just love the little animated critters. And since they are in 3D we love them even more.
Four new openings in the top 20 spots and 3 in the top 10. Our second position is also no big news. He is big in Portugal, and still manages to put all his movies above the 150000 spectators. And that in here is no small task.
In the four top movies, we have three new ones. And that also explains the fact that spectators raised 34% to 275353. Big openers, almost, always mean better business in the week. And this week we have 3 above 28000 spectators. Big.

About the older movies we have a good holder at –3% but basically the drops, for all movies, are around 30%.

Let’s go to the numbers.

This report concerns the week between 5 to 11 of October.

Legend

Position/Movie
Number of Theaters
Number of Spectators/Week
Average per Theater/Week
Comparison with Last Week’s Number of Spectators
Number of Spectators/Total Run
Week of Release

1. Barnyard

45
72567
1613
-
72567
1st Week

2. Click
40
59237
1481
-
59237
1st Week

3. World Trade Center
53
39555
746
-41%
223544
3rd Week

4. The Black Dahlia
25
29239
1170
-
29506
1st Week

5. Lady in the Water
16
16979
1061
-34%
42706
2nd Week

6. You, Me and Dupree
39
16616
426
-38%
267016
6th Week

7. Snakes on a Plane
24
12794
533
-33%
31809
2nd Week

8. Volver
16
11165
698
-25%
94390
5th Week

9. An Inconvenient Truth
11
9578
871
-3%
38362
4th Week

10. Little Man
16
7623
476
-32%
61114
5th Week

The Champion:

And the animation (3D ofcourse) make it again. The top spot is theirs for the taking. With a bow of 72567 spectators for the week and with an average of 1613 (Not bad, although not excellent either, considering it’s an animation movie). It's "Barnyard".
This time it’s with cows. They have never been there. An animal’s animation movie, is something we definitely seen before. But still, it gets number one. Just 3D, for me, is getting kind of boring now. Give me stories, not just 3D. Ahh, “Ghibli” we miss you so much (if you didn’t understand this, you are not an animation fan. Just a trend fan). Comeback soon…

The New Players:

The other new opener is right around the corner, in the second place. They say that second place is the first looser, but this is not the case. A Second place with 59237 spectators and an average above 1400 is nothing to ignore. An amazing result for a household name, here in Portugal. He always gets the film above 100000. He’s like the Tom Hanks of box-office here. All his last movies have put more than 150000 spectators in the theaters. So they continue to bet on him. It’s a pity that his best role in PT Anderson’s “Punch Drunk Love” is the only film that didn’t made the cut. That’s the movie business for you. It's "Click" time

Still, in the top ten, we find, at number 4, “The Black Dahlia”. De Palma’s latest take on “noir” is a nice film, but needed a fresher take on the subject. But De Palma is still one of the masters and he sure knows how to direct. Maybe the problem, is choosing the right people for each part. Still one to consider, as 29239 spectators, that thought the same as myself. An Average above 1000 and we have a good opening for a Brian De Palma movie. And he was missing those in here. He’s back.

A big disappointment is at number 20. The latest Teresa Villaverde’s film “Transe” was very well received in the late Cannes festival. Willem Dafoe told Ana Moreira her perfomance was remarkable and it truly his. She’s the center, she’s everything on the film. A great actress and a good director but unfortunately, it just continues trough the art way. There is no work to make the person watching to enter the story. It’s full of long boring stills, very beautiful indeed and made in a arty way. And what does it get to? 1065 spectators and an average of 355. The directors want to make arty films for themselves. But they also have to understand that people go see the movies. I went to see it. And I liked some parts of it. I’m not the average film guy. I see a lot of movies (1 time per week). So if somebody doesn’t go too often and sees this film, he doesn’t want to see any more a Portuguese movie. It’s boring, too still and it doesn’t captivate you to the caracters. And cinema only makes sense if somebody sees it. It’s not just for the director, no matter what they say. They say cinema is dead. I don’t think so. There are arty films that entertain. The two can be together in the same film. And don’t tell me you don’t have movies that are liked by the arty and entertainment style.
Please make movies for all of us. Not just for you.

The Winner of the Week:

“An Inconvenient Truth”, in it’s third week only had the biggest drop at –3%. So we can only say. It’s amazing. We are talking about a documentary feature about the environment, with Al Gore. And in here Al Gore is just an unknown. A regular Joe. So that leaves the environment and the great title of the movie. It really called to the Portuguese heart. And this means 9578 spectators on its 4th week.

The Looser of the Week:

For a second straight week it’s “World Trade Center”. Again a –41% drop to 39555 spectators. A very good result, indeed but the average drop at a peak (almost in half) and after that amazing opening week, it’s loosing all its gas. And fast. Next week, expect the same thing, almost for sure.

So that’s it for this week.
See you in some days.

Good Night and Good Films.