The Holiday box office gets going with Jeff Bridges passing on the Tron Legacy (reviews) to his son Garrett Hedlund...Cartoon fave Yogi Bear (reviews) goes CGI for his big screen bow Reese Witherspoon. Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson ask How Do You Know (reviews) of director James L. Brooks And Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale duke it out in front of a wider audience in the biopic The Fighter (reviews)
Pamela McClintock of THR:
Hollywood is once again overstuffing the Christmas stocking with films of all shapes and sizes, hoping to benefit from the most lucrative and intense stretch of the year at the box office.
Moviegoers will embrace some of the presents; others, not so much.
This weekend, there are four new wide players: Disney's 3D tentpole Tron: Legacy, which is expected to top the weekend; Warner Bros.' 3D family picture Yogi Bear; Paramount/Relativity Media's The Fighter; and Sony's romantic comedy How Do You Know, directed by James L. Brooks.
A film opening during the year-end holidays can earn five or six times its opening number, and sometimes more, thanks to kids and college students being out school and many adults taking time off. That's unheard of the rest of the year, when the average multiple is three to four.
Before Sunday even rolls around, distribution execs are usually able to tell their bosses how much a film will ultimately make, based on opening numbers. Not so for Christmas, whose lifetime grosses are more difficult to predict because of the unusually high multiple.
A year ago, Fox's Avatar grossed $77 million in its launch on its way to grossing $760 million domestically. Initially, many pundits wondered why the film opened so low.
Sony's Nancy Meyers-directed It's Complicated opened to $22.1 million over Christmas weekend last year, and it wound up with $112.7 million domestic -- a multiple of more than five.
Tron: Legacy, opening in the same slot as Avatar, is tracking well among males of all ages. Observers expect the film to gross north of $40 million as it goes out in 3,451 theaters (including Thursday midnight runs).
Disney began introducing Tron: Legacy -- a follow-up to the 1982 cult classic -- to fanboys two years ago and to exhibitors more than a year ago. The marketing campaign began in earnest nine months ago. Usually, fanboy-centric pictures are rated PG-13; Tron is rated PG.
The movie is getting heavy play in Imax theaters, with the large-format exhibitor expecting strong returns. Overseas, the film also has a major rollout. It cost nearly $170 million to produce.
Jeff Bridges returns in the role of Kevin Flynn, while Garrett Hedlund plays his son.
Yogi Bear brings an even more recognizable character to the big screen, at least among older moviegoers who grew up on the popular Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
The CG/live-action hybrid, playing in 3,535 theaters, is expected to do well among younger kids and should do steady business throughout the holiday session.
Warners will be happy as long as the 3D film opens to $20 million or higher this weekend, considering the strong multiple it should have. (Stuart Little opened to $15 million on the same weekend in 1999 and cumed $140 million domestically.)
The weekend's two wild cards are The Fighter, which goes out in 2,503 locations after a limited bow last weekend in New York and L.A., and Fox Searchlight's Black Swan, which makes a major play in expanding from 90 theaters to 959. On Wednesday, Swan ups its screen count to 1,426.
Both films are early awards favorites, as is the Weinstein Co.'s The King's Speech, which expands from 19 locations to 43 Friday. All three picked up significant Golden Globe and SAG nominations this week....
John Young of EW
'TRON: Legacy' to cycle past its competition
The Critics Have little for the 3 big releases of the week-Despite that fact as part of my schedule early next week--I plan see Tron for myself....
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