With a wave of his magic wand Harry Potter has broken the curse of the slumpy box office, at least for one weekend. While it's expected for a popular literature phenomenon like Potter to do exceptionally well, no one anticipated the kind of results it garnered. Goblet of Fire, the fourth in the Harry Potter film franchise, made a bigger splash than its predecessors, bringing in over $100 million making it the fourth best opening weekend right behind Spiderman, Revenge of the Sith, and Shrek II. Sure, that's great news for this weekend and Potter fans around the world, but what does this spell for the rest of the holiday season?
Goblet's success sets the bar pretty high for a holiday season that is just getting underway in a year that is $600 million dollars behind last year. It's hard to believe the rest of this holiday's entries, except perhaps Narnia stand a chance of even coming close. Some people continue to suggest the slump is due to a decrease in the quality of this year's films. If that's the case, movies like Harry Potter aren't the best argument since franchise fandom and a massive effects budget guarantee great results regardless of quality. On the other hand, Pride and Prejudice may be a better test subject to consider. In its second weekend out and with little more than 200 screens it continues to make a great showing, holding a top ten spot and making more per theater than everything except Harry. It's a high quality movie with a great cast, decent marketing and the potential to do very well. If it manages to break the box office barrier in wide release I might buy into the "quality of movie" theory.
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Walk the Line, the Johnny Cash biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon fared reasonably well in the shadow of the wizarding world. $22 million isn't bad at all to begin with, much less on the same weekend as a record breaker. However, the true test of its staying power will come next week when Thanksgiving holiday releases rain down like a ring of fire.
The holidays at the movies are all about comedys and warm fuzzy feelings and this year is no exception. Five - count them, five - wide releases make their debut next Wednesday (everyone's getting a jump on the Thanksgiving crowd this year) and almost all of them are all about the funny. Like a cinematic feast of hilarity there's crime comedy (Ice Harvest), romantic comedy (Just Friends), family comedy (Yours, Mine and Ours) and musician-turned-wannabe-actor comedy (In the Mix) with a very dramatic musical (Rent) thrown in for good measure. The competition is going to be fierce. Expect to see Harry back on top, but the rest is up for grabs.
