Gone Girl far surpassed expectations to earn $38 million this past weekend, (early tracking had it at $20 million), landing between last year’s Gravity which opened to $55 million in October and Captain Phillips, which opened at $25 million.
For the past three years, opening in October was the sweet spot for Best Picture. 12 Years a Slave was also an October opener in limited release. The year prior, Argo opened in October, earning $19 million opening weekend. November is also a magic month, with The King’s Speech opening in very limited release, making just $355K. The same thing happened the following year with The Artist making roughly $200K. Slumdog Millionaire opened in November in 2008 ($360K) and also No Country for Old Men ($2.1mil).
Beyond that, you can see how the date change really impacted Best Picture as we have Million Dollar Baby opening in December in 2004 ($179K), Return of the King in 2003 ($72 million), Chicago in 2002 ($2 million), A Beautiful Mind in 2001 ($360K) and finally the December breaks with Gladiator, which opened in May of 2000 ($34 million).
So you can see that nowadays, an October or a November opener is your best bet, outside the anomalies, like Gladiator. Boyhood winning would be one such anomaly.
The Social Network was an October opener with $22 million, the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opened in December ($12 mil), Benjamin Button was another December opener ($26 mil), Zodiac had a March opening with $13 million, and Panic Room earned $30 million its opening March weekend. Fight Club, an October release, had $11 million, and Se7en had a September release with $13.
But Gone Girl had three key elements heading into the weekend – massive amounts of buzz (capturing the zeitgeist, after all), fans of the bestselling book – which is, as of today, the number one book and audiobook on iTunes. Lots of publicity by Ben Affleck, who is a draw on his own and fans of David Fincher who know that when they go to see one of his movies, whether more art house or blockbuster, is going to be exceptional.
This American director has yet to be lauded by the Academy, but the success of Gone Girl seems to bode well for a nomination, at least. Though the subject matter either thrills men or it makes them cup their balls in fear. No one can deny the mastery behind that camera, however. All are uniformly in agreement about that.
I don’t know what the term “Oscar buzz” even means anymore. To me it’s a muggle word, said by people on TV or in the mainstream press to mean “stuff people who write about the Oscars are talking about.” Being in the eye of the storm it doesn’t mean much to me – everyone has their own idea of what Oscar buzz means and honestly, what it literally means — as Mark Harris solidifies – is a few months off yet. What it literally means is voters walking around talking about movies they love. We in the industry (as such) define it as movies with good reviews and well respected filmmakers. A movie like Whiplash has Oscar buzz because people like Anne Thompson and AO Scott are talking about it.
What we know about the Academy — and the consensus vote overall — is that divisive films do not win Best Picture. You need as low a Rotten Tomatoes negative number as possible. The conflict in this, and the reason Oscar best picture winners do not last is this: the best films in history divide audiences. Great art IS, by nature, divisive. Even Boyhood is divisive — sharply. And that’s one of the most powerful things about it. It just so happens that it will likely be less divisive than some other films this year, which could result in a win.
If you put Gone Girl on one hand and Boyhood on the other you see wildly different films, as different as Raging Bull and Ordinary People, Goodfellas and Dances with Wolves, and yes, the Social Network and the King’s Speech.
I find Gone Girl to be a thrilling piece of cinema and if it is rewarded with Oscar nominations, all the better for the legacy of the Academy in rewarding such good work. But if it isn’t, that doesn’t change what it is. The 90+ audience rating at Rotten Tomatoes and the box office really says it all.
Other October openers soon to come:
Whiplash
Kill the Messenger
Birdman
St. Vincent
Fury
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Simone, I’ve thought that too about Nolan not winning best director (well first he’d have to be nominated). But I’m betting pesos to crumb cakes Interstellar’s screenplay is going to be far superior to Gravity’s.
Zodiac was shot on RED, but I don’t know why it looks so good. Almost film-like in his hands.
I am NOT denying that he is a master. Just so you know. David Fincher IS a master.
To celebrate this, I will put ZODIAC on now. One of the best Fincher movies and even it looks good on Blu-ray (no Fincher has looked good on HD-era since Se7en, you know).
I think I have to sit out… until early November. This site is going GG/DF-crazy that you must should look into reality, too. I think I counted that the last 6 out of the last 10 threads were all Gone Girl/David Fincher. Too much for one movie. Sorry.
In roughly 2 1/2 days, Gone Girl made as much as Zodiac did in it’s 9 week theatrical run. No comparison there, just an observation.
haven’t seen it yet but i’m reading the book ,his wife just went missing , frankly their characters as we get to know them are peculiar to say the least !
I keep telling people that GG is like a really great missing person/police procedural like Law and Order but that they shouldnt expect a cookie cutter trajectory. Crazzzy stuff goes down.
If I didnt tell them that last part, they would almost assuredly be disappointed because, and I hate to say this …
People will be expecting/predicting WHO killed Amy or WHO kidnapped Amy and trying to figure THAT out. When they realize that this movie is not what they “want” it to be … They zone out and become irritated and walk out feeling somewhat disappointed.
I know people like that. So I preface it with the “but dont expect it to be cookie cutter, expect craziness” and hopefully itll then go down well for them.
Ive heard too many people grumbling out of the theater about how the movie was stupid (which is code for … It wasnt what they expected/wanted).
:-/
can*
I can’t barely keep up with all the great writing GONE GIRL is inspiring — a trademark of timeless achievements.
K Bowen, I meant to chime in about Leave Her to Heaven when you first mentioned it a couple of days ago, but I wasn’t near a functional keyboard that afternoon and then I forgot. Glad you’ve brought it up again. Fantastic comparison and one that struck me too. (strangely I didn’t make the connection when reading the novel but then the parallels clicked for me onscreen.)
As soon as got home from Gone Girl on Friday I was about to post side-by-side head-shots of Gene Tierney and Rosamund Pike in matching black sunglasses — but I restrained myself and didn’t tweet it out since I worried about being a spoiler on the open forum of twitter.
Love love love Leave Her to Heaven — one of my favorite film noir of all time — all the more because of that vivid over-saturated color palette that makes it feel like a fever dream.
As for the zeitgeist points of contact between Leave Her to Heaven and the sociological climate of 1945, I’d say that many of the hundreds of thousands of American soldiers returning home after WWII were probably shocked and a little horrified to go back to their hometown sweethearts and be forced to confront The New American Woman who had been created in their absence –the aggressive roots of feminism necessitated by newfound female independence and power when wives and girlfriends and daughters took charge of the homefront during the war years.
Some of that might sounds like a wobbly subtext these days, but in 1945 it probably had a much edgier impact.
For the most part, I really like Gone Girl and Sasha has mostly been right about this one in terms of quality. But congratulating it on originality is a little much. Have you ever seen Possession? It goes over a lot of the same ground about marriage and divorce and love and knowing your partner, but does it in a style that’s like Week-End era Godard. As to zeitgeist, did Leave Her to Heaven capture the zeitgeist of 1945? Because they have pretty much the same plot. And I didn’t particularly like Boyhood, but it’s pretty clearly has the more radical concept compared to Gone Girl, which is a really well-made Hitchcock-style thriller that trades on a twisted male-female relationship. I would say that it’s precisely the opposite of zeitgeist-y as it travels well across different periods of time.