Monday box-office update:
Final box-office numbers revealed Monday that "Michael Jackson's This Is It" actually took in $23.2 million over the three-day weekend period, a 9 percent increase over Sunday estimates, according to studio figures.
Boding well for the Sony-distributed concert film was the fact that Sunday produced the biggest domestic turnout of its five-day opening, yielding $8.3 million, an 11 percent uptick over its Wednesday premiere.
With the revised tally, the movie opened to $34.4 million over its first five days, slightly less than the low side of studio projections ($35 million-$40 million).
For Sony, the improvement in the domestic data comes amid huge international play for the movie, with "This Is It" taking in $68.5 million abroad over its first five days.
Sunday box-office update:
Turns out, that wasn't entirely "It," after all.
Sony has extended the initial two-week theatrical engagement for "This Is It" through Thanksgiving, despite a less-than-thrilling domestic box office return over the last five days. The longer run applies worldwide, and given that Jackson's global appeal seems to remain strong, that's a good thing for the studio.
Since its global opening Tuesday night, "This Is It" took in an estimated $68.5 million internationally, the fifth biggest worldwide opening of the year. Meanwhile, the box-office take in North America has been just $32.5 million domestically, falling short of even the low end of studio projections, which had it at about $35 million.
Global returns will put the studio in the black on a project it paid $60 million to concert promoter AEG Live to get off the ground. Sony also invested minimally to market the picture globally, and yet is calling it the highest-grossing concert film of all time worldwide.
“By the time they’re done, they’ll be profitable,” noted one rival studio distribution executive. “Although it won’t be the kind of windfall profits they were hoping for.”
Indeed, returns won’t come close to the publicly stated $250 million opening prediction of at least one AEG official, but Sony officials said they’re more than pleased with the outcome, which occurred over a weekend that had its overall profitability disrupted by Halloween falling on Saturday.
Sony officials have said the DVD and Blu-ray release of the film will occur in the first quarter of next year.
In terms of the Halloween-dampened three-day box office, “This Is It” – which scored solid critical reviews and an “A” Cinemascore ranking among moviegoers now took in an estimated $21.3 million to lead all domestic entries.
Paramount's “Paranormal Activity” finished second, bringing in another $16.5 million at 2,404 locations, its first drop (21 percent) since embarking on its landmark run more than a month ago.
Now boasting a cumulative domestic total of $84.8 million, “Paranormal” can safely be called one of the most profitable films of all time, if not the most profitable, when its still-growing profits are compared to the minimal investment it took to get the project into theaters.
"Paranormal" was shot for $11,000-$15,000, according to various reports, with Paramount spending a relatively tiny amount of money to prepare the movie for theatrical release ($300,000, according to the studio) and to promote it (less than $15 million, also according to the studio, way below the average for a wide release).
