How Thanksgiving helps Christmas movies

By Steven Zeitchik

With a five-day weekend juicier than an orange-juice factory -- it's the longest natural weekend on the movie calendar -- the Thanksgiving frame is always a kind of industry Prozac for anyone worried about box office.

This year proved even more of an upper than most, netting a 4% gain over last year's Thanksgiving weekend. Leading that charge was "Four Christmases," which earned a stunning $47 million over the five-day period, or $32 million if you isolate the three days of the weekend itself.

We're always amused when a Christmas movie does well over Thanksgiving -- does that mean a Valentine's movie should do well on Groundhog Day? -- but Vince Vaughn's "Christmases" offers some evidence on an interesting hypothesis we've long had: November can be surprisingly kind to a Christmas movie, but it helps to have some proximity to...Thanksgiving.

Last year, after all, Vaughn's equally yuletide (and mixed-reviewed) "Fred Claus" earned just  $18 million when it opened November 2.

Meanwhile, one of the best holiday bows historically, "Dr. Seuss' How The Grinch Stole Christmas"($55 million) came out the week before Turkey Day, on November 17.

It's a classic tradeoff question -- do you go earlier in the hopes of taking advantage of a longer runway, or do you risk running out of steam by the time holiday moviegoing kicks in (not to mention sacrifice some moviegoers who are wondering why they're supposed to get in the holiday spirit two days after Halloween). Turns out the answer lies somewhere in-between. Like a drugstore candy display, we want to get into holiday mode early -- but not too early.

The other subplot this weekend of course came with Twilight, which showed a 62% drop this weekend in earning $18 million. That, for the moment, showed that the idea of mothers holding off to see it with their kids -- not to mention the repeat viewers longing for just a few more glances of Rob Pattinson -- are proving to be smaller factors than some expected in getting moviegoers to theaters.

But it's too early to render verdicts about the film's legs, especially since December vacations, along with a few weeks of breathing room after opening weekend, could drive people back to the movie theater all over again. The holidays have a way of doing that.

Comments

[stann]

Great article. It's going to be interesting which of the current / recent crop of Christmas mvoies go on to become classics to rank alongside the likes of It's A Wonderful Life and Miracle on 34th Street.

[Fozia]

My name is fOZIA. I´m from Germany.
This site is very good ,you can get many information.
i will tell this website to my friends !!!

Regards
Fozia