Weekend Preview: 'The Rite' and 'The Mechanic' can't fix this box office rut, but could 'The King's Speech'?

Guess what, everyone? It probably won't come as much of a surprise at this point, but the box office ain't gonna be all that impressive this weekend—it certainly won't top last year's final weekend in January when Avatar topped the chart in its seventh weekend. This frame, two new flicks are hitting theaters—The Rite and The Mechanic (Does 2011 have the worst titles ever, or what?!)—and each might achieve some modest box office success, but nothing spectacular. Can February get here already? The biggest help at the box office will come from Oscar darling The King's Speech, which should provide a nice bump on the chart. Check out box office predictions for those films and the whole top ten after the jump.

The Rite will easily top the box office this weekend. The exorcism picture starring Anthony Hopkins has got a solid trailer, solid promotion, and solid tracking working in its favor—plus, horror is a rather reliable genre, and people's fascination with demonic possession remains strong. I'll give The Rite $20M in its opening weekend, and sure, with poor reviews and a young target audience, it will drop off quickly from there, but these films are cheap to produce, and Warner Brothers doesn't need astronomical numbers. Very typical January release.

The week's other newcomer is Jason Statham's latest actionfest, The Mechanic, and alas, it will perform just like all the rest of them. With kinetic action and over the top dialogue to boot, The Mechanic won't appeal to many outside the hardcore action niche, and fledgling studio CBS Films probably isn't looking at its first smash. Blowing up in 2,703 theater, the film may earn a standard-for-Statham $11.5M this weekend and finish around $30M overall.

Last weekend's number one picture, No Strings Attached, may fall by about 35% to $12.5M in its second frame, giving the romantic comedy about $39M overall. Meanwhile, The King's Speech, on the heels of 12 regal Oscar nominations, is adding 873 theaters to its run, and it may finish with a similar $12.5M—which would be a truly phenomenal figure. It could be a close battle between Mechanic, Speech, and Strings for the second place spot, but if there's one film that may overperform this weekend, it's The King's Speech. Heck, if The Rite flops, we could be looking at a surprise number one!

The Oscar nominations should also provide some nice box office boosts for films like True Grit, Black Swan, 127 Hours (which is adding 847 theaters onto its run and may crack the top ten). The Green Hornet won't enjoy the same benefits, but it may fall by about 40% to $11M.

What do you think will blow up at the box office this weekend?

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International Box Office: 'The Green Hornet' takes first place, crosses $100M worldwide; 'Hereafter' surprisingly solid

The Green Hornet successfully kicked Tangled out of the top spot at the international box office this week, with the superhero film grossing $18.5M for a $37.5M international total and $102.9M worldwide—not exactly bee-utiful results for the expensive production.  The film still has a long way to go on the road to profitability, but if it can make it to $200M worldwide, which seems attainable, it should be poised for a profitable home market run.

Hereafter, the supernatural Clint Eastwood drama starring Matt Damon, spooked up a surprising second place finish on the international scene. Though the $50M movie only earned $32.8M stateside, it is now kicking its international run into high gear and reaping some nice results. It earned $5.6M in France, $3.8M in Spain, and it debuts in Germany and the U.K. this week. The film has now earned $29M overseas and $61.7M worldwide.

In third place was Black Swan, which began its foreign run with a strong $11.4M. With all its drama  and dancing and artistic cinematography, the film has a rather European sensibility about it, and perhaps unsurprisingly, it has played very well in Europe, grossing $4.4M from the U.K. and $2.7M from Germany. I'm guessing that Black Swan will be very popular in France.

In other news, The Tourist continues to save face internationally as it nears the $150M mark, and The King's Speech has started to really pick up steam, crossing $100M worldwide. Check out the full chart below:

Weekly International Box Office (in millions)

	Film	Weekly Gross	Int'l Total	Worldwide
1	The Green Hornet	$18.5	$37.5	$102.9
2	Hereafter	$13.1	$29	$61.7
3	Black Swan	$11.4	$11.4	$95.8
4	The Tourist	$11.1	$139	$205.1
5	The King's Speech	$9.8	$49.8	$108.8
6	Tangled	$9.5	$231.8	$418.5
7	Gulliver's Travels	$7.7	$112.4	$152.5
8	Little Fockers	$7.5	$146.4	$288.1
9	Qualunquemente	$7.2	$7.2	$7.2
10	TRON: Legacy	$6.9	$181	$344.7

[Read more at BoxOfficeMojo]

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DVD/Blu-Ray Sales: 'The Social Network' makes a ton of new friends, 'Alpha and Omega', 'Piranha 3D' don't have much bite

The Social Network is having quite the week! Not only did the well-reviewed film nab a whopping eight Oscar nominations, it also sold pretty darn well on the home market, moving about 1.96M copies between DVD and Blu-Ray in its first week—a terrific result for a straight-up drama. Also debuting on the chart were kiddie flick Alpha and Omega and gory B-movie Piranha 3D, but neither managed to break out. After the jump, check out a lot more sales info, The-Numbers' full DVD sales chart, and TBOJ's exclusive Blu-Ray sales chart. Lots of impressive/interesting Blu-Ray results this week. If you aren't a believer that the format is growing/taking over, you are simply incorrect.

On DVD, The Social Network moved about 1.1 million copies for an easy first place finish and $14.1M in revenue. The Facebook film earned $95.4M in theaters and generated endless discussion, so that figure might seem low, but we must remember that this is just a normal drama—no crazy special effects sequences or explosions. No talking animals and zingy humor. For most consumers, The Social Network is not a visual feast like Avatar, and its plot and dialogue aren't all that accessible. So the 1.1M figure is actually quite good, especially when you consider the 880,000 Blu-Ray copies it sold.

Alpha and Omega was way back in second with 337,139 copies and $5.8M. The animated film only managed $25.1M in theaters, and its home market run looks like it will be equally unremarkable. Despicable Me, on the other hand, is performing on another level completely. The runaway hit passed 6.5M copies-sold over the frame, and it has joined the ranks of How to Train Your Dragon (5.5M) and Toy Story 3 (9.7M) as major animated smashes. Shrek Forever After, meanwhile, has sold just under 3 million copies. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

Rounding out the top five, Machete and Dinner for Schmucks plummeted by 59.7% and 62.7%, respectively. Piranha 3D finished in sixth with first week sales of 204,556 copies and $3.5M. Check out the full chart below.

DVD Sales for the Week Ending January 16, 2010

Rank	Title	Units this Week	% Change	Total Units	Sales this Week	Total Sales	Weeks in Release
1	The Social Network	1,082,307	-.-%	1,082,307	$14,059,168	$14,059,168	1
2	Alpha and Omega	337,139	-.-%	337,139	$5,849,362	$5,849,362	1
3	Despicable Me	314,302	-32.3%	6,502,128	$6,372,724	$112,283,548	5
4	Machete	267,438	-59.7%	930,422	$4,276,334	$14,877,448	2
5	Dinner for Schmucks	208,452	-62.7%	767,812	$3,541,599	$13,045,126	2
6	Piranha	204,556	-.-%	204,556	$3,475,406	$3,475,406	1
7	Inception	182,802	-24.6%	3,891,192	$2,528,188	$66,696,549	6
8	The Twilight Saga: Eclipse	174,035	-11.8%	7,777,154	$3,478,960	$141,353,825	6
9	The Other Guys	159,207	-9.3%	1,623,839	$2,614,179	$30,327,435	5
10	Salt	156,718	-41.9%	1,478,957	$2,801,742	$24,125,413	4
11	Toy Story 3	151,090	-24.0%	9,693,197	$2,421,278	$170,779,778	11
12	The Town	140,916	-32.3%	1,594,076	$1,910,821	$24,324,335	5
13	Resident Evil: Afterlife	129,227	-56.3%	991,505	$2,389,407	$17,118,842	3
14	The Expendables	118,080	19.7%	2,522,814	$1,548,702	$41,153,952	8
15	The Last Exorcism	111,911	-50.6%	338,320	$1,877,867	$5,692,858	2
16	Easy A	110,179	-33.0%	843,130	$1,982,120	$14,551,743	4
17	Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps	109,421	-11.2%	790,133	$1,749,642	$12,634,227	4
18	Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole	108,904	12.5%	653,271	$2,196,910	$10,587,227	5
19	Shrek Forever After	105,200	-27.3%	2,996,666	$1,731,697	$52,657,170	6
20	The A-Team	97,408	-28.1%	1,490,851	$1,668,599	$23,239,538	5
21	Eat Pray Love	91,003	-33.1%	1,812,944	$1,578,902	$29,928,324	8
22	Fringe: The Complete Second Season	90,158	-.-%	516,529	$1,995,197	$17,633,257	18
23	Family Guy: It's a Trap!	87,775	-37.7%	850,644	$1,152,486	$11,183,371	4
24	Knight and Day	79,152	-50.3%	1,472,507	$1,254,559	$20,020,609	7
25	Beauty and the Beast	73,597	-3.0%	-	$1,078,064	-	432
26	The American	68,943	-51.6%	416,754	$1,161,690	$6,375,376	3
27	24: Season Eight	57,520	-18.3%	504,870	$2,300,225	$19,291,547	5
28	Step Up 3	56,388	-40.0%	446,283	$1,011,105	$9,354,341	4
29	Nanny McPhee Returns	54,593	-.-%	422,116	$1,001,782	$7,738,505	5
30	How to Train Your Dragon	49,769	-20.2%	5,508,031	$747,929	$107,995,802	14

---

On the Blu-Ray front, The Social Network's results were perhaps even more impressive than its DVD sales, as the film sold 880,000 copies, which represents a massive 45% of its total sales. The film naturally appeals to the techie crowd, so those numbers make sense, and they continue to illustrate the growth of the format. Inception moved another 245,000 Blu-Rays outdoing its DVD performance by about 63,000 units and pushing its Blu-Ray total to about 4.75M. Wow.

As usual, a bunch of male-appealing/action/sci-fi movies made up the top rungs of the chart, natching some impressive figures. Piranha 3D attacked about 184,000 homes and almost matched its DVD performance. The Other Guys, The Expendables, The Town, and The A-Team all sold more Blu-Rays than DVDs. Check out the Blu-Ray sales estimates below:

Blu-Ray Sales Estimates for Week Ending Jan 16, 2010

Rank	Title	Units this Week
1	The Social Network	880,000
2	Inception	245,344
3	The Other Guys	193,072
4	Piranha 3D	184,536
5	The Expendables	165,968
6	The Town	163,416
7	The A-Team	159,192
8	Machete	148,104
9	Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition	143,704
10	Despicable Me	139,832
11	Toy Story 3	133,672
12	The Twilight Saga: Eclipse	114,664
13	Alpha and Omega	108,768
14	Resident Evil: Afterlife	99,880
15	Salt	95,920
16	Dances with Wolves: 20th Anniversary Extended Cut	85,096
17	The Sorcerer's Apprentice	84,216
18	Avatar	59,224
19	Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps	52,624
20	Dinner for Schmucks	51,568

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Are studios trying to get men to see romantic comedies this Winter?

Remember when the trailer for Tangled came out, and everyone was wondering if Disney was trying to target boys in the marketing? Well, I'm wondering the same thing about this winter's romantic comedy offerings. Are studios trying to get men into the theater? I think so.

Rom-coms seem to be a little bit edgier lately. Typically, these light affairs are filled with fluffy dialouge, gooey sentimentalism, and kissing to boot, but in recent months, that hasn't really been the case. Movies like Love and Other Drugs and No Strings Attached tell sexed up, drugged-up stories that don't necessarily cater to the typically female romantic comedy audience. Upcoming release Just Go With It seems geared more toward men as well. Though it lists Jennifer Aniston as one of the two stars of the film, the trailer would lead you to believe that the only two stars are Brooklyn Decker's breasts. Well, and Adam Sandler. It's definitely aiming for male appeal. (That's not to say that women don't care about sex or drugs or raunchy humor, but those themes are definitely used to target male audiences more frequently.)

I'm not trying to make any sort of statement about gender and Hollywood—just pointing out a trend I've been noticing lately. Do you think studios are making an effort to get men to watch romantic comedies? Do you think it's working?

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MTC Tracking: 'The Rite' and 'The Mechanic'

Tracking reports have come out for this weekend's new releases, The Rite, an exorcism-themed thriller starring Anthony Hopkins, and The Mechanic, Jason Statham's latest actionfest. These typical-for-January releases appear to be headed for some typical-for-January results. That is to say, alright numbers. Check out these early weekend box office predictions:

The Rite – $18 million
This seems about right. The Rite's stylish, creepy trailer has built buzz effectively, and as proved by The Last Exorcism ($41M), The Haunting in Connecticut ($55.4M), and The Unborn ($42.7M), demonic plots have shown surprising resilience in recent years.

The Mechanic – $12 million
One day, Jason Statham. One day you will have a leading role that tons of people will want to go see. Of course, I say that every time you come out with a new movie, and you continue to post Crank-like results, but still...

[via HSX]
MTC Tracking stands for "Major Theater Chain" tracking. These numbers are taken from box office tracking reports that are sent out to theater owners and posted anonymously on HSX.

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'The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader' sails past $100M: Any hope for a sequel?

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader passed the $100 million mark at the domestic box office on Saturday, the film's 44th day of release. This third edition of the Narnia franchise cost $150M to produce, and it has weathered stormy seas in its maiden voyage under Fox's distribution. Voyage earned a paltry $24M in its first weekend in November, majorly undercutting the openings of both The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe ($65.6M) and Prince Caspian ($55M). Still, the family-friendly holiday season provided some much needed wind in the Dawn Treader's sails, and though its total still stands far below its predecessors, reaching the century mark after such a poor debut is an impressive feat, and a three-digit number sounds a whole lot better for Fox.

Worldwide, the film has grossed $358.2M, and it should finish right around the $400M mark. Prince Caspian, which cost Disney $225M to make, earned $419M worldwide, a figure that prompted the studio to drop the franchise. Surprisingly, it looks like Dawn Treader will end up the more profitable venture, thanks to its lower production costs, and if Fox could find a way to trim the budget a little bit more, a fourth Narnia film actually seems like a possibility to me.

What do you think? Are you surprised The Voyage of the Dawn Treader earned $100M? Happy? Sad? Hopeful for a sequel? Share your thoughts in the comments!

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Weekend Fix: 'No Strings Attached' ropes in viewers, tops 'The Green Hornet'

Would this finally be the weeked that the box office ticked up over last year? Alas, it would not. Despite a solid debut from romantic comedy No Strings Attached, the Top 12 films could only muster $98.1 million frame, a big 23% drop from the same weekend last year. That's the eleventh weekend in a row that this has occurred. Yikes. The silver lining here is that every film playing had a rather slight drop—the average decline was just 29%, which led to some surprisingly strong numbers for films like The Green Hornet and The King's Speech. But I don't want to string you along any longer—here's how the weekend played out.

Natalie Portman can breathe a sigh of relief—her Oscar chances are still in tact. No Strings Attached not only managed to earn some better-than-awful reviews, but it also earned a strong $20.3 million in its first three days. With Black Swan winning awards left and right and a headline-grabbing pregnancy, Portman's star has never burned brighter, and her heightened profile boosted No Strings Attached at the box office. Credit should be given to Ashton Kutcher, as well, though. The film media doesn't respect Kutcher—his goofy comedies are universally panned by critics—but how many more times must this man prove himself as a box office draw for people to take notice? Sure, he's got a few flops like My Boss' Daughter ($15M) and A Lot Like Love ($21M) on his resumé, but he's also opened Valentine's Day ($110M), What Happens in Vegas ($80M), Guess Who ($69M), Just Married ($56M), Killers ($47M—not great, but respectable), and now No Strings Attached to strong figures. Give the man some respect! He chooses cheaply-produced comedy vehicles that post solid box office results!

Paramount's marketing push also propelled No Strings Attached to success. With a sexed-up premise and an R-rating, the film ran the risk of scaring away tamer audiences, and if we learned anything from Fox's promotional push for Love and Other Drugs, it's that selling in-your-face sex isn't always a good idea. Paramount stuck to cutesy romance in their ads for No Strings Attached, and they earned strong numbers as a result. The film earned a solid $6,726 per theater average, and if it performs anything like 2009's Bride Wars ($58M), it should finish in the $55M range.

The Green Hornet buzzed down to second place with a 46% drop to $18.1 million. The (super)hero film has now earned $63.4 million in ten days, a number that Sony execs are probably pretty happy with, considering how low expectations were for the Seth Rogen vehicle. At this point, it's looking like the film will finish somewhere in the $90M range, but it might break $100M if it can continue to post slight declines. (Vote in the sidebar poll about whether Hornet will break $100M.) Unfortunately, massive reshoots leave The Green Hornet with a $120M pricetag, and it will need more than a mediocre international run to turn a profit.

In third place was The Dilemma, the Ron Howard-directed Vince Vaughn/Kevin James comedy that underwhelmed at the box office last week. In its second frame, the comedy dropped by a fairly soft 45% to $9.7 million, a somewhat promising sign of life for Universal's latest misfire. All told, the comedy has pulled in a mediocre $33.4M in ten days, but it may reach $60M overall if it can keep up the small declines.

The next three spots on the chart are filled by films that have stuck beside each other for weeks now. The King's Speech, True Grit, and Black Swan. As the films each garner major awards attention, their respective box office runs continue impressively. On the heels of a Best Actor win at the Golden Globes, The King's Speech saw no change from last week, pulling in another amazing $9.2M for a stunning $58.6M total. Who'd have thunk that a movie about a stutter could go the distance at the box office?! True Grit, meanwhile, has been pulling even more impressive numbers. The Coen Brothers' Western fell by just 27% in its fifth weekend to $8M, and its total now sits at genre-revitalizing $138.6M. It should hit $150 million within two weeks. Black Swan dropped 26% to $6.2M, pushing its total to $83.6M. The ballet film is dropping a bit faster than expected, but Fox Searchlight will make sure it breaks $100M. Of course, a Best Actress Oscar will make that job easier...

The Fighter has sort of fallen under the radar of the super-buzzy Oscar machine, but it's still done well at the box office. Following Melissa Leo's Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress, the film fell just 11% to $4.5M and $73M total.

Moving out of awards territory and into the land of cinematic dreck, Little Fockers and Yogi Bear came in eighth and ninth place, respectively. Fockers stole another $4.4M from moviegoers, while Yogi Bear somehow found another $4M. The 3D flick will pass $90M this week. Ugh.

TRON: Legacy rounded out the top ten with $3.7M, giving it a $163.3M total, and further down the chart, Peter Weir's The Way Back fizzled in its debut with just $1.5M out of 678 theaters, which is a shame—the film tells a pretty incredible survival story, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Top 12 Box Office for January 21-23, 2010

Rank	Movie	Studio	Theaters	Weekend Gross	Chg	AVG.	Total
1	No Strings Attached	Paramount	3018	$20,300,000	—	$6,726	$20,300,000
2	The Green Hornet	Sony	3584	$18,100,000	-46%	$5,050	$63,441,000
3	The Dilemma	Universal	2943	$9,726,615	-47%	$3,305	$33,363,950
4	The King's Speech	Weinstein	1680	$9,164,299	0%	$5,455	$58,622,299
5	True Grit	Paramount	3464	$8,000,000	-27%	$2,309	$138,633,000
6	Black Swan	Fox Search	2407	$6,200,000	-26%	$2,576	$83,580,631
7	The Fighter	Paramount	2275	$4,515,000	-11%	$1,985	$73,031,000
8	Little Fockers	Universal	2979	$4,394,025	-39%	$1,475	$141,185,640
9	Yogi Bear	Warner Bros	2510	$4,060,000	-24%	$1,618	$88,890,000
10	TRON: Legacy	Disney	2018	$3,708,000	-35%	$1,837	$163,268,000
11	Tangled	Disney	1860	$3,006,000	-25%	$1,616	$186,281,000
12	Country Strong	Sony	1441	$2,200,000	-40%	$1,527	$16,962,000

All Numbers Provided By Exhibitor Relations Co.

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Friday Estimates: 'No Strings Attached' overcomes R-rating, should break $20M

Friday box office estimates are in, and as predicted, No Strings Attached is headed for a weekend win. The Natalie Portman-led romantic comedy earned a solid $7.3 million on Friday, and it shouldn't have any trouble passing $20M by Sunday. It looks like this is yet another hit from America's least-respected box office draw, Ashton Kutcher! (Of course, Portman's current star power helped quite a bit, but still.) With production costs of just $25M, Paramount should be very happy with a $20M weekend, especially considering how fellow R-rated rom-com Love and Other Drugs underwhelmed last month with just $9.7M in its debut weekend. Definitely a good start. Check out the rest of the top ten after the jump:

The Green Hornet and The Dilemma both fell by about 50% from last Friday to grosses of $5.2M and $3M, respectively, but over the rest of the weekend, those drops should soften a touch. The Green Hornet may pull in $17M, while The Dilemma could be looking at a solid $10M weekend in third place.

The trio of inseparable Oscar-bait films filled up the next three rungs on the chart. The King's Speech and Black Swan both earned a strong $2M on their way to $7M weekends, while True Grit (which I saw last night and LOVED) shot up $1.7M on its way to a $6 million frame. The rest of the chart is filled with unexciting grosses that don't need their own paragraphs, so just check out the top ten:

1. No Strings Attached: $7.3M
2. The Green Hornet: $5.2M
3. The Dilemma: $3M
4. The King's Speech: $2M
5. Black Swan: $2M
6. True Grit: $1.7M
7. Little Fockers: $1.2M
8. The Fighter: $1.2M
9. TRON: Legacy: $975K
10. Yogi Bear: $750K

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Weekend Preview: 'No Strings Attached' should tie up an easy weekend win

Following a slew of Best Actress awards for her peroformance in Black Swan, current it-girl Natalie Portman brings her very first romantic comedy to theaters this weekend. No Strings Attached, a friends-with-benefits comedy co-starring Ashton Kutcher, shouldn't have much trouble dethroning last weekend's victor The Green Hornet from the top spot at the box office.

Portman has been on a good PR blitz for the past two months. She's been doted upon by every critic for her Black Swan role (leading to a Golden Globe win last week) and fawned over by every tabloid for her recent pregnancy announcement. All the publicity has raised her profile substantially, which consequently helps No Strings Attached. But she's not the only draw here. Ashton Kutcher has proven his box office viability in rom-coms like Valentine's Day, Killers, What Happens in Vegas, and Just Married, and those had WAY worse reviews than No Strings Attached. In fact, with an okay 47% fresh rating on RottenTomatoes, this is the best-reviewed movie of Kutcher's career! The sexed-up premise and R rating would normally be a bit too edgy to attract mainstream female audiences, but Paramount's strong promotional push has showcased Portman primarily and made this look like a cutesy episode of Grey's Anatomy. All told, the film should perform in line with 2009's January release Bride Wars, which earned $21 million in its first weekend. I'm expecting an identical $21 million figure from No Strings Attached.

Among holdovers, The Green Hornet will fall by about 50% to $16.5M, though there is a small chance that it could majorly exceed expectations and end up in first place. That would be a fun story, but it's not likely. The Dilemma should see a more comedy-friendly 45% drop to $9.1M and third place.

True Grit, The King's Speech, and Black Swan should continue their soft declines as attention shifts to the Oscars, and they should all finish in the $7-9M range. Check out the full chart below.

Box Office Predictions for January 21-23, 2011

Rank	Movie	Theaters	Predicted Gross
1	No Strings Attached	3,018	$20 million
2	The Green Hornet	3,584	$16.5 million
3	The Dilemma	2,944	$9 million
4	True Grit	3,464	$8.3 million
5	The King's Speech	1,680	$7.7 million
6	Black Swan	2,407	$7.3 million
7	Yogi Bear	2,510	$4 million
8	Little Fockers	2,984	$3.8 million
9	The Fighter	2,275	$3.6 million
10	TRON: Legacy	2,018	$2.9 million

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Hot Trailer: 'Red Riding Hood'

Warner Brothers has released a brand new trailer for Red Riding Hood, which opens on March 11th. Catherine Hardwicke's latest directorial effort looks every bit like the next Twilight franchise—a lusty fantasy about about a young woman's forbidden desire—and I'm expecting a huge box office performance from the flick. Plus, it actually looks pretty gorgeous, and it doesn't seem to exploit every male on the screen (or at least not in the trailer). Check it out below.

Related: The Twilight Effect: Three sexed-up, supernatural stories hitting theaters in 2011

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International Box Office: Rapunzel stays atop her tower as 'Tangled' pushes $400M worldwide, 'The Green Hornet' starts in 2nd

Tangled stayed atop the international box office this week, brushing up another $15.6 million and crossing the $200M mark internationally. With $395.4M in the worldwide kitty, Tangled should blaze by $400M in the next days, and with big openings in Japan and the UK still on schedule, Rapunzel will likely have lots more gold to match her hair very soon.

In second place, The Green Hornet began its international run with an alright $15.1M. The superhero flick nabbed a $4.1M weekend in Germany, as well as $3M in the UK, and $2.4M in France. Hornet doesn't really have the razzle-dazzle or character-recognizability to break out at the same level as other superhero flicks, so I'm not sure that it will go far, or even break $100M overseas. We'll have to see.

TRON: Legacy came in third place and snagged another $14.6M. The Disney special-effects film has now grossed $170.3M internationally and $329.2M worldwide. Little Fockers and The Tourist round out the top five with grosses of $14.2M and $13.9M, respectively. Check out the full top ten below:

Weekly International Box Office (in millions)

	Film	Weekly Gross	Int'l Total	Worldwide
1	Tangled	$15.6	$212.5	$395.4
2	The Green Hornet	$15.1	$15.1	$57.3
3	TRON: Legacy	$14.6	$170.3	$329.2
4	Little Fockers	$14.2	$133.5	$269.5
5	The Tourist	$13.9	$122.1	$186.8
6	Gulliver's Travels	$11.6	$99.7	$138.4
7	Che Bella giornata (Italy)	$10.6	$42.1	$42.1
8	The King's Speech	$9.4	$33.2	$80.9
9	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader	$9.2	$257.6	$356.6
10	Love and Other Drugs	$8.9	$34.1	$66.2

[Read more at BoxOfficeMojo]

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'X-Men: First Class' photo the latest in a long line of high-res superhero pics!

X-Men: First Class released its first two official photos today (I've merged them into one, expandable-upon-click picture above) in the midst of what appears to be a tidal wave of superhero pictures hitting the net. It's safe to say that between First Class, Thor, Green Lantern, and Captain America: The First Avenger, superhero movies are going to make up a sizable chunk of 2011's overall box office. I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty excited! I've had fun with all these photo releases, and so, I've included a few high-res photos after the jump. Is anyone else pumped about this superhero summer? Which one are you most excited to see?

Thor – May 6, 2011

X-Men: First Class – June 3, 2011

The costumes look pretty janky in that top pic, don't they? Not sure how I feel about the overall look of that photo. Very B movie-ish, no? Especially Mysitque. She just looks dumb. This photo, however, is muuuuch better.

Green Lantern – June 17, 2011

Captain America: The First Avenger – July 22, 2011

Spider-Man – July 4, 2012

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MTC Tracking: Viewers looking to attach themselves to 'No Strings Attached'

Tracking reports have come out for this weekend's new releases, No Strings Attached and The Way Back, the latter of which will likely be ignored by most moviegoers. Natalie Portman's career is white-hot right now, thanks to the success of Black Swan and her pregnancy, but will teaming up with reliable rom-com star Ashton Kutcher help lead to even strong box office results? Check out these early weekend box office predictions for the four-day holiday frame:

No Strings Attached – $20 million
Many people were expecting this to be Portman's Norbit, a terrible film that would hurt her chances at a Best Actress Oscar. Reviews are better than expected though, and Kutcher—whether you like him or not—can open a movie decently. This looks like a very solid result to me

The Way Back – $1.5 million
Movies set in deserts don't sell. Period.

[via HSX]
MTC Tracking stands for "Major Theater Chain" tracking. These numbers are taken from box office tracking reports that are sent out to theater owners and posted anonymously on HSX.

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Box Office Headlines: Winning articles about a failing industry in 2010

Box office junkies, check out these two box office articles below. They're both great reads!

Hollywood's box office slump continues: Are movies losing their mojo?

Hollywood is marking an unhappy milestone: Box office revenues have now been down from the previous year’s tally for 10 consecutive weeks. After a bruising holiday season littered with high-profile misfires like The Tourist, How Do You Know, and Gulliver’s Travels, the major studios are hopeful that 2011 will bring a reversal of last year’s worrying 5 percent decline in overall movie attendance. 2011 is not off to the most encouraging start. Though final numbers aren’t in yet, this weekend’s total box office haul looks like it will come in 25 percent below last year’s. Yes, last year at this time audiences were still flocking to the 3-D hit Avatar. Still, 10 straight down weeks stings—and not in a good Green Hornet way.

Keep reading at EW.com

'True Grit', 'Inception' impress most in tepid 2010

2010's attendance drought was mostly due to a tepid slate of movies: it's a product-driven industry, and, when the movies are largely unappealing, empty seats proliferate. It's not that most movies were duds, it's that few were break-outs, and the following were the most impressive of the lot...

Alice in Wonderland - A perfect storm of factors yielded a mighty $334.2 million gross, ranking as the second-biggest haul from 2010 and surpassing Charlie and the Chocolate Factory as the top Tim Burton-Johnny Depp collaboration. It not only benefitted from Burton and Depp batting in their wheelhouse, but the good will generated by Avatar as the first 3D event of the 2010 and a ubiquitous marketing campaign that balanced the mad fantasy with a relatable story.

Keep reading at Box Office Mojo

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DVD/Blu-Ray Sales: 'Machete' is a cut above 'Dinner for Schmucks', sells 1.2 million combined copies in first week!

The-Numbers has posted its weekly DVD sales chart for the week ending January 9th. Danny Trejo's geek-heaven Machete easily topped the chart with sales of 691,317 units and $11.1 million. Considering the action movie earned just $26.6M in theaters, that number is quite a feat. It's equally impressive that Machete managed to move 475,000 Blu-Ray copies as well, which all but guarantees that Machete will outdo its theatrical run on the home market. The buying power of the fanboys is pretty incredible!

Dinner for Schmucks, despite earning almost triple of what Machete earned in theaters, came in second place with 583,264 copies and $9.9M in revenue. Considering how poorly the comedy was received, that's probably a fair start. Despicable Me ended up in third place as it blazed past the 6 million copies-sold mark and broke the $100M plateau—very impressive.

Fellow new releases The Last Exorcism and Case 39 both underwhelmed with sales of 236,085 and 155,131 copies, respectively. Otherwise, things were looking pretty healthy for on the DVD front. Drops were small overall, and while we don't ususally see the astronomical numbers we used to, Blu-Ray sales are more than making up the difference.

Keep reading for the full DVD sales chart, as well as TBOJ's exclusive Blu-Ray sales chart!

DVD Sales for Week Ending January 9, 2011

Rank	Title	Units this Week	% Change	Total Units	Sales this Week	Total Sales	Weeks in Release
1	Machete	691,317	-.-%	691,317	$11,054,159	$11,054,159	1
2	Dinner for Schmucks	583,264	-.-%	583,264	$9,909,655	$9,909,655	1
3	Despicable Me	484,267	-13.0%	6,207,673	$9,645,291	$106,306,122	4
4	Resident Evil: Afterlife	308,258	-45.6%	874,911	$5,237,303	$14,944,069	2
5	Salt	281,089	-31.4%	1,333,759	$4,683,421	$21,515,614	3
6	Inception	252,676	-50.5%	3,718,745	$3,926,332	$64,329,267	5
7	The Last Exorcism	236,085	-.-%	236,085	$3,978,032	$3,978,032	1
8	The Town	216,935	-41.2%	1,462,051	$2,817,986	$22,529,008	4
9	Toy Story 3	207,257	-32.7%	9,550,601	$3,079,963	$168,484,726	10
10	The Twilight Saga: Eclipse	205,736	-24.3%	7,611,551	$4,641,404	$138,065,091	5
11	The Other Guys	183,130	-28.0%	1,472,138	$3,373,255	$27,851,517	4
12	Easy A	171,516	-30.8%	739,981	$3,035,833	$12,694,054	3
13	Knight and Day	165,924	6.7%	1,400,155	$2,060,776	$18,850,506	6
14	Glee: The Complete First Season	155,387	-57.6%	1,409,948	$3,993,446	$38,455,606	17
15	Case 39	155,131	-.-%	155,131	$2,790,807	$2,790,807	1
16	Shrek Forever After	150,985	-5.9%	2,897,653	$2,373,228	$51,022,722	5
17	The American	148,426	-27.8%	353,894	$2,224,906	$5,304,871	2
18	Family Guy: It's a Trap!	146,974	-34.4%	768,893	$2,035,590	$10,114,318	3
19	Eat Pray Love	141,902	36.0%	1,727,756	$2,097,312	$28,435,368	7
20	The A-Team	141,236	-55.6%	1,399,231	$1,864,315	$21,647,340	4
21	Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps	128,447	-26.9%	685,977	$2,053,868	$10,968,772	3
22	The Expendables	102,868	-37.6%	2,408,950	$1,261,347	$39,656,946	7
23	Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'hoole	100,932	-21.6%	548,503	$2,085,457	$8,475,775	4
24	Step Up 3	98,051	-4.3%	393,914	$2,124,128	$8,430,302	3
25	The Sorcerer's Apprentice	87,183	-2.5%	1,288,735	$1,300,770	$21,609,680	6
26	Avatar	83,788	-.-%	10,252,697	$1,703,787	$185,184,605	38
27	Beauty and the Beast	79,147	-33.2%	-	$1,348,293	-	431
28	24: Season Eight	73,454	-.-%	450,360	$2,858,830	$17,108,471	4
29	How to Train Your Dragon	65,070	-.-%	5,460,929	$956,113	$107,287,062	13
30	Grown Ups	63,806	-20.5%	2,370,945	$1,141,113	$40,062,146	9

---

On the Blu-Ray front, Machete was also on top with 475,000 units. Resident Evil: Afterlife moved down into second place with about 265,000 discs, and it's total Blu-Ray sales are now only about 130,000 copies behind DVD sales. Inception, meanwhile, has already sold more Blu-Ray copies than DVDs. This week, the mind-bender moved around 258,000 copies, and it should pass the 5 million mark some time in the next two weeks. Check out the Blu-Ray sales chart below:

Blu-Ray Sales Estimates for Week Ending Jan 9, 2010

Rank	Title	Units this Week
1	Machete	475,000
2	Resident Evil: Afterlife	264,623
3	Inception	257,858
4	Despicable Me	214,605
5	Dinner for Schmucks	205,200
6	Salt	165,538
7	The Town	162,213
8	The A-Team	134,900
9	The Last Exorcism	95,855
10	Avatar	85,263
11	The Other Guys	81,368
12	The Dark Knight	81,273
13	The Sound of Music: 45th Anniversary Edition	71,298
14	Toy Story 3	70,775
15	Beauty and the Beast: Diamond Edition	69,588
16	Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps	66,500
17	Taken	58,093
18	Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole	57,190
19	The Twilight Saga: Eclipse	56,430
20	Laugh it up Fuzzball: The Family Guy Star Wars Trilogy	56,288

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Wait, these movies earned how much?!

Film blogs have a tendency to only focus on new movies each week. TBOJ is just as guilty as any other. The reality at the box office is that certain movies break out and make tons of money, while others are just sort of there. They'll open well enough, but then often sit in the lower rungs of the chart for weeks, sometimes months, gathering money (or not) that no one ever notices. Sometimes you'll go over one of BoxOfficeMojo's weekend charts and think, "Whoa! I totally forgot about (insert movie)! It earned that much?!" The grosses aren't always impressive, but they're always interesting. Thus, here are twelve recent movies you may have forgotten about, and how they ended up finishing at the box office.

Red – $90.1 million ($21.8M opening, 24.2% of total gross)
It doesn't matter if I absolutely hated it, Red did very well with audiences. So well, in fact, that a sequel was just greenlit!

Life As We Know It – $53.2 million ($14.5M opening, 27.3% of total)
You may not like her movies, but Katharine Heigl's box office record is still exemplary. Her poorest box office performance came from the too-expensive Killers, which earned "just" $47M. She's the queen of mid-level rom-coms.

Easy A – $58.4 million ($17.7M opening, 30.4% of total)
This film reminds me of Baby Mama—a girl-centered comedy that had a pretty solid box office run, but then goes on to have a nice life on the home market.

Secretariat – $59.3 million ($12.7M opening, 21.4% of total)
It was a cantor, not a gallop, for this horse movie, and though it still didn't earn half of what Seabiscuit made, heads probably aren't rolling at Disney Secretariat.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps – $52.5 million ($19M opening, 36.2% of total)
With middling reviews and an unremarkable $52.5M, Oliver Stone's sequel just sort of came and went, and no one thought much about it.

Unstoppable – $80.4 million ($22.7M opening, 28.2% of total)
With a $100M budget, Unstoppable still cost far too much, but at least it stayed on the rails after its mediocre opening. This will be a phenomenal TV movie in a year or two.

Due Date – $99.7 million ($32.7M opening, 32.8% of total)
This comedy has quietly plodded along toward $100M over the past few weeks. It's like the Date Night of late 2010!

You Again – $25.7 million ($8.4M opening, 32.7% of total)
Even Betty White couldn't draw audiences into this generic-looking comedy, but it is somewhat amazing that this managed a 3.1 multiplier after such a poor opening weekend.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole – $55.7 million ($16.1M opening, 29% of total)
With a title so unwieldy and strange, I wasn't surprised when this underperformed on opening weekend. Still, Owls followed a typical animated film trajectory and finished with a 3.6 multiplier. Not that that makes up the $80M budget, though.

Hereafter – $32.7 million ($12M opening, 36.7% of total)
Pretty mediocre for a Matt Damon/Clint Eastwood collab.

For Colored Girls – $37.7 million ($19.5M opening, 51.7% of total)
Tyler Perry movies are always frontloaded, but this is just ridiculous! It couldn't even achieve a 2.0 multiplier. Luckily, it only cost $21M.

Burlesque – $38.2 million ($11.9M opening, 31.2% of total)
On the upside, this ended up outgrossing Fame ($22.4M) and Rent ($29.1M) handily. On the downside, campy musicals are still too niche-y for mainstream success.

Which of these grosses surprise you the most? Let me know in the comments!

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International Box Office: 'Tangled' beats 'The Tourist' by a hair

Though it hasn't even opened in the United Kingdom, Spain, South Korea, or Japan, Tangled is raking in big bucks around the globe. This week, it topped the international box office chart with a strong $26.3M, pushing its international total to $175.9M—just about equal with its domestic gross, but with much more life left in it! That figure was just barely enough to fend off second place film The Tourist, which earned $26.2M and continues to perform much better overseas than it was able to domestically. This week, the Johnny Depp/Angelina Jolie film crossed the $100M mark internationally, and it looks poised to pass $200M worldwide in the next few weeks. Gulliver's Travels, the third place film, is also posting stronger numbers overseas. The Fox film pulled in $20.8M this week for an $80.4M international total and $118M worldwide. Against a $112M budget and loads of promotion, this still has a ways to go before its out of the hole. Check out the international top ten below:

Weekly International Box Office (in millions)

	Film	Weekly Gross	Int'l Total	Worldwide
1	Tangled	$26.3	$175.9	$360.6
2	The Tourist	$26.2	$100.4	$164.6
3	Gulliver's Travels	$20.8	$80.4	$118
4	Little Fockers	$20.3	$111.2	$245.4
5	The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader	$17.8	$242.9	$341
6	TRON: Legacy	$17.6	$143.2	$300.1
7	Che Bella giornata (Italy)	$15.2	$24.1	$24.1
8	Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1	$8.8	$639.1	$928.8
9	Unstoppable	$8.4	$66.1	$146.5
10	The King's Speech	$8.1	$18	$62.6

[Read more at BoxOfficeMojo]

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