ROTTEN TOMATOES: Foster's "Flight" Tops "Serenity" Start

Foster's "Flight" Tops "Serenity" Start

by Scott Weinberg | October 03, 2005

For the second weekend in a row, Jodie Foster's air-thriller "Flightplan" was #1 at the North American box office. The Disney flick made an estimated $15 million in its sophomore session, and its grand total now stands at $46.1 million. Debuting in second place, with a not-awful but coulda-(shoulda)-been-better tally of $10.1 was Joss Whedon's "Serenity."

The sci-fi western swooped into 2,200 screens, thrilled the "Firefly" fans ... and caught the eye of practically nobody else. With strong reviews and positive water-cooler banter, the flick could see an improvement, but hey ... the thing cost $40 million and it made a quarter of that in three days, so you Whedonites can take your heads out of the oven.

Tim Burton's "Corpse Bride" dropped to third place with a haul of $9.7 million, which boosts the film's total to just under $33 million. Expanding from 14 theaters to 1,340 (and reaping some solid rewards for it) was David Cronenberg's "A History of Violence," which made 4th place with a total of $8.2 million, while the top 5 was rounded out by the feature-length Noxzema commercial known as "Into the Blue," which made only $7 million from just under 2,800 screens.

Next week sees the release of a rather eclectic collection of new releases: Nick Park's eagerly anticipated "Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" opens on Wednesday in NY & LA, before hitting wide on Friday, and the clay-mated kooks will have some competition from Curtis Hanson's lady-centric "In Her Shoes," the Al Pacino sports-book drama "Two for the Money," and Lions Gate's raunchy restaurant romp "Waiting."

For a closer look at the weekend estimates, feel free to get comfy at the Rotten Tomatoes Box Office page.

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(1-14 of 14 posts) | Reply

Saint_Angst writes:
on Oct 03 2005 08:52 AM

hopefully word of mouth will spread the word about Serenity... IMO, it's one of the best movies this year.

(Reply to this)

speelbergo writes:
on Oct 03 2005 09:37 AM

[b]that makes me sick...[/b]
to see box office stats like that. It just proves how stupid people are. Honestly. I expected better of you people! First, Tim Burton's best movie in over ten years bows down to Flightplan, and now two of the best movies of the entire year (History and Serenity) get stumped??? I hate people.

Ten million is a pretty terrible debut, and it will be quite a challenge for Serenity to break even at the box office at this rate.

(Reply to this)

EvanMinnesota writes:
on Oct 03 2005 09:58 AM

In reply to this comment (#826342)
"it will be quite a challenge for Serenity to break even at the box office at this rate."

Actually, it is proabably assured of breaking even with a $10M opening.

Movies in 2004 that opened with $10-11M in 2004 with bad reviews (Fat Albert, Cellular, Raising Helen) ended up grossing between $50-56M worldwide. The positive reviews and word of mouth should ensure it does at least that.

And the movie it may be closest to is 28 Days Later (both genre films with mostly postive reviews and word of mouth that opened between $10M-11M) which went on to gross $45M domestically and $85M worldwide. However, Serenity has a 'nerd factor' that 28 Days Later didn't.

The key is the 2nd weekend. If the drop is 25%-30% or less then it would be an indicator it has 'legs'.

If it has the normal 35-50% drop most movies have in their second week, then look for a final domestic gross of $33 - 38M and worldwide of $52 to 57M.

(Reply to this)

skletonkee writes:
on Oct 03 2005 01:54 PM

[b]im gonna go see serenity this week...[/b]
just cause i like a good underdog story..cant stand buffy or angel though...

(Reply to this)

Agent0042 writes:
on Oct 03 2005 02:07 PM

[b]Serenity[/b]
[quote]hopefully word of mouth will spread the word about Serenity.[/quote]
I was about to say about the same thing. I saw this past weekend and really liked it. So hopefully that word-of-mouth will pick up and carry it. I attended an afternoon showing and the theater seemed decently crowded for an afternoon showing --- the mood seemed to be good too. So I think generally the people who were watching along with me liked it as well.

(Reply to this)

Tai writes:
on Oct 03 2005 03:20 PM

Wait, Flightplan is a Disney movie?

(Reply to this)

skletonkee writes:
on Oct 03 2005 06:59 PM

[b]flight attendants..[/b]
i wonder how pissed they are at themselves for giving Flightplan a bunch of free advertisement..

:)

(Reply to this)

speelbergo writes:
on Oct 03 2005 09:00 PM

In reply to this comment (#826343)
[b]What about Corpse Bride?[/b]
EvanMinnesota, i hope you're right. It's possible that serenity's strong word of mouth and cult following will string it along, but i stated my preditcion on the following evidence.

1. Corpse Bride: It has a HUGE nerd factor! (ten years of increasing "nigthmare before christmas fans waiting for a follow up) and it dropped more than 50 percent second weekend, regardless of good reviews and good word of mouth. That kind of second week drop is more often the case than not these days.

2. October is saturated with genre movie releases that will also be tugging at moviegoer's attention. With more sci-fi, action and horror on the very near horizon, Serenity's voice might get lost.

3. Notice the 'low tide' effect that preceeds big openings (I.E. Star Wars Episode III killed all the movies that opened the month BEFORE it) and with Harry Potter just 5 weeks away, the same lull should be expected.

If you're right Evan, i'll eat my hat. If not, you owe me a coke.

(Reply to this)

taran72 writes:
on Oct 04 2005 09:58 AM

[b]People will watch anything[/b]
I haven't seen Serenity, but Flightplan is one of the worst movies of the year - It insulted my intelligence like no other.

(Reply to this)

Elessar Oronro writes:
on Oct 04 2005 11:38 AM

Corpse Bride was not very good...don't care what any of the Burton worshippers say. The music sucked, and the film was kind of meh. At work, the only movie anyone is talking about is Serenity. Word of mouth is positive, and this is from people who haven't even seen the TV show. Look for Serenity to have legs like River.

(Reply to this)

lovelykeira writes:
on Oct 04 2005 12:08 PM

I'm looking forward to In Her Shoes, Waiting, and Thumbsucker which is supposed to go into wide release friday.

(Reply to this)

SuperS writes:
on Oct 04 2005 03:10 PM

[b]Oh my God[/b]
Not to make fun of you LovelyKeira.. but here a prediction... In Her Shoes = Rotten... Waiting = TOTALLY ROTTEN!.... Thumbsucker = Rotten..

Serenity was fabulous. And Flightplan shows us Jodie Foster beind a crazed luniac on an airplane that might give an asumption that she's a terrorist? Serenty is a beautiful cinematic movie with lots of stargazing scenes. Almost every character gets it's own time to shine.. Serenity did not let any of the actors be known as "Oh, yea, that guy"... The whole movie kept me shocked at points, which made it interesting on which charecter might get the death next.

On other hand.. A History of Violence is the best movie of the year, which follows with Crash and Batman Begins. But what else is new, a great movie did not do good at the Box Office then others that should be last... It's a pity to what this world is coming to these days. Its movies like AvP, Resident Evil 2, Deuce Bigalow that get attention more then the more then likely good movies. The yadvertise the worst movies ever on our television stations and don't bother to show the actual good ones!

(Reply to this)

lovelykeira writes:
on Oct 05 2005 12:36 PM

In reply to this comment (#826352)
Currently Shoes and Thumbsucker are fresh. But don't get me wrong SuperScarface these aren't like movies I'm dying to see I just think they could have some potential and look better than anything that comes out this friday or that is currently in theaters that I haven't seen. Cept for Lord of War which looks pretty tight. Crash and Batman are my favorite films of the year.

(Reply to this)

HoneycombSAFARI writes:
on Oct 07 2005 12:56 AM

oh my god is that serious? serenity was like really really good and flightplan is just jodie foster running up and down the aisles looking crazy, why does america insist on seing the bad films. at least into the blue flopped.

(Reply to this)

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