November 6th marked the beginning of the holiday movie season with the release of Disney’s: “A Christmas Carol” followed by Sony’s
epic disaster saga: “2012″ on November 13th. Both films had nice opening weekends. “CAROL” did $32M+ [U.S-3 days] & dropped less than 50% in wkend #2 [very respectable holding power]. “2012″ had a very strong [and necessary] U.S. 3-day opening, printing a $19k+ per theatre avg @ 3400+ locations for $65M+. Since sony correctly launched a large scale day & date international release the WORLD-WIDE 3- day opening gross is north of $220M. This is very important considering the huge [well north os $200M] INVESTMENT Sony needs to recoup. The holding power [& international performannce] of both of these titles will determine their ultimate success in the next few weeks.

Adding to the holiday kick off we have three new entries on Nov 20TH plus the continuation/expansion of the stellar performing limited release Lionsgate entry: “PRECIOUS”. I’m mot sure if stellar is the best description of the box office performance of “PRECIOUS”, because in it’s second weekend at [a very limited] 174 locations, the pictures per theatre avg was an eye-popping $33k+ for a wkend total of $5.8M. “PRECIOUS” expands to over 600 locations this wkend. Also unspooling with huge anticipation is the “TWILIGHT’ sequel: “NEW MOON“…expectations & tracking portend a massive 3 – day opening easily eclipsing the originals $69M 3-day take about a yr a go. Next Warner Bros. has the SANDRA BULLOCK [feel good/true story] “The Blind Side” going wide in over 3100 locations…This looks like good counter programming. Also opening Nov 20TH is Sony’s animated family entry:
“PLANET 51″ in over 3,000 locations.

Continuing the holiday release program we have a few more Thanksgiving openings on WED the 25th & then some nore Holiday fare will arrive in Mid to late DECEMBER….stay tuned for more info…shortly.

The majority of this weekend’s openings[and holdovers] including the opening next Wednesday [10/28] encompass the subject
matter described in the title of this post.

The GOOD is “ASTROBOY”…We’ll assume “AB” is a huge “MIGHTY MOUSE” fan & will battle evil wherever it lurks.
The BAD is “ANTICHRIST”…A well received horror film from IFC FILMS in limited release this weekend [plenty of bad/evil spirits
to deal with here.
The DEAD is the much anticipated Wednesday release of MICHAEL JACKSON’S final film performance: “This is IT”
The UNDEAD is represented well by the NEW opening of UNIVERSAL’S: “THE VAMPIRES ASSISTANT” and MASSIVE holdover/
expansion GROSSES for “PARANORMAL ACTIVITY” and a solid 4th wekend holdover performance for “ZOMBIELAND”
The DYING is the sixth installment of the MEGA $SUCCESSFUL$ LIONSGATE franchise: “SAW VI”

Look for very stong numbers for both “SAW” & “PARANORMAL” both should be close to $30M for the weekend.