NobelSon Tagged Articles at Cinematical

There's a story making the rounds -- originating, as best I can tell, with this post over at Yahoo! Movies -- making the case that this past weekend's minor computer-animated effort Delgo is, to paraphrase, the biggest wide-release bomb of all time.

Is that right? As usual, it depends on how you look at it. If you limit your scope to films released in over 2000 theaters -- Delgo occupied 2,160 -- then the raw numbers back up this claim: Delgo's $237 weekend per-screen average and $511,920 gross easily top the chart of all-time worst openings in that category. On the other hand, just this September a quasi-documentary called Proud American opened on 750 screens and managed an even more impressive $128 per-screen average. And Delgo even has competition this December: just the week before, the Alan Rickman action comedy Nobel Son opened on 893 screens to a comparable $374 per-screen average.

Both Delgo and Nobel Son were distributed by Freestyle Releasing, an independent distributor-for-hire. Freestyle fared slightly better with The Haunting of Molly Hartley over Halloween and much better with this summer's limited-release Bottle Shock. The lesson here, I think, is that unless you've got something that's easy to market (e.g. the PG-13 horror of Molly Hartley) and the budget to market it, an independently-arranged wide (or semi-wide) release is a very dicey proposition. Trying to shove a low-profile animated family film into the marketplace during the holidays is even dicier.

Delgo may be the biggest wide-release flop of all time, but no one will remember its failure like they remember Cutthroat Island and Last Action Hero: not because Delgo was low-budget (it reportedly cost $40 million), but because it was, for all intents and purposes, set up to fail.

Holdovers ruled the box office as no one much cared about any of the movies that opened in wide release this weekend. Lexi Alexander's Punisher reboot turned out to be a huge mistake, opening to a fraction of what the original Jonathan Hensleigh/Thomas Jane version did four and a half years ago. $4 million is painful, though not terribly surprising -- the film was marketed as a totally generic action movie, with no stars and no draw except the Punisher trademark. (The most recognizable name in the cast is probably Wayne Knight.)

Even worse off was the Alan Rickman-starring caper comedy Nobel Son. Tossed into 900 screens by indie Freestyle Releasing, the movie grossed all of $371,000, or $415 per screen -- a foregone conclusion. I'm not sure why Freestyle shelled out the money for such a relatively wide release, or what they were hoping for. Maybe a pre-Christmas miracle.

The "winner" among the weekend's new wide releases would have to be Cadillac Records, which managed a respectable $3.5 million on under 700 screens. That was enough for 9th place, just behind Punisher (on 2500 screens).

Leading the holdovers was Four Christmases, which took first place for a second straight weekend; it will have a tough time breaking $100 million, but should squeak to around $95. Twilight bummed around second place, and should be at $150 million by next week. Bolt finally took a hit after its excellent second weekend over Thanksgiving, and should top out around $95 million as well.

The full chart after the jump.

They say that the music makes the man.

Actually, no, They don't, but I do, and by "man," I mean "movie". And it isn't so much that the work of composer Paul Oakenfold single-handedly undoes Nobel Son but rather unwittingly serves an accomplice to creating one aggressively atonal crime caper. His thumping techno beats are more fitting for the likes of Swordfish -- indeed, they were at the time -- and maybe more so when accompanying a night of relentless thrusting and occasional pill-popping in Ye Local Nightclub, an activity of more potential enjoyment than sitting through this movie instead. Either way, you'd end up lots of noise, plenty of flash, and little to show for it other than a lasting headache and a lingering sense of regret.

Holiday humor proved to be what the public was looking for over Thanksgiving weekend as Four Christmases led the pack. Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman's historical epic Australia took fifth, while last week's third newbie Transporter 3 finished way down in seventh place. Here's the top five:

1. Four Christmases: $31 million
2. Bolt: $26.5 million
3. Twilight: $26.3 million
4. Quantum of Solace: $18.8 million
5. Australia: $14.8 million

We've got three new releases this week:

Cadillac Records
What's It All About: Set in the 1950s, Cadillac Records follows the lives of several music legends including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter and Howlin' Wolf and Elvis Presley.
Why It Might Do Well: A 60% fresh rating at Rottentomatoes.com.
Why It Might Not Do Well: The relatively small release will keep it out of the top five.
Number of Theaters: 600
Prediction: $5 million


Punisher: War Zone
What's It All About: Ray Stevenson takes over the title role of the skull-wearing, gun-toting anti-hero and this time he's taking on a mobster called Jigsaw.
Why It Might Do Well: Who doesn't like to watch things blow up?
Why It Might Not Do Well: The Punisher is kind of the ugly stepchild of Marvel Superheroes. Despite two previous films he's not particularly well known outside of comic book circles and this film lacks the star power of Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk.
Number of Theaters: 2,400
Prediction: $9 million