Fox’s remake of the studio’s 1951 science fiction classic, The Day the Earth Stood Still topped the weekend box office with an estimated gross of $31 million, more than twice as much as its closest competitor, but a far cry from Will Smith’s I Am Legend, which debuted with more than $77 million during this weekend last year.  Though the holdover films in the top ten did well once again (Four Christmases declined just 20%, which Bolt was down just 23%, Twilight just 38% and Australia 39%), the lack of an I Am Legend type hit led to a 47% decline in the top ten box office total versus last year, reversing a string of five straight weekends that showed gains over 2007.

Weekend Box Office (Studio Estimates): Dec. 12-14, 2008

Rank	Film	Weekend Gross	Screens	Avg./Screen
1	The Day the Earth Stood Still	$31,000,000	3,560	$8,708
2	Four Christmases	$13,270,000	3,540	$3,749
3	Twilight	$8,013,000	3,649	$2,196
4	Bolt	$7,506,000	3,133	$2,396
5	Australia	$4,285,000	2,703	$1,585
6	Quantum of Solace	$3,800,000	2,635	$1,442
7	Nothing Like the Holidays	$3,500,000	1,671	$2,095
8	Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa	$3,250,000	2,768	$1,174
9	Milk	$2,636,000	328	$8,037
10	Transporter 3	$2,250,000	2,541	$885

The Day the Earth Stood Still, which cost just $80 million to make, earned $39 million overseas.  Fifty-five percent of the debut weekend audience was male, while 51% was over 25.  But bad reviews (just 22% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) and a mediocre CinemaScore could indicate that The Day the Earth Stood Still may suffer a significant decline next weekend.

 

While remakes of well-received films pose problems for the studio in the form of difficult, often unfair comparisons with the original, in this day and age they also provide the opportunity to reissue the original film in the new Blu-ray format.  Fox has done so with the original The Day the Earth Stood Still, and even though the 1951 movie is a black-and-white, 4:3 film, it still benefits from the Blu-ray treatment--primarily because of Bernard Herrman’s brilliant score, which has never sounded better than in this new Blu-ray version.  The capacity of the Blu-ray format allows for a wealth of new features including an “Interactive Theramin: Create Your Own Score and Gort Commands,” and superb documentaries about the “Making of The Day the Earth Stood Still,” about the talented screenwriter Edmund North and pulp science fiction author Harry Bates, who wrote the story that the movie was very loosely adapted for the film, plus great commentaries on both the film and film’s groundbreaking score.  For science fiction fans, The Day the Earth Stood Still Blu-ray is by far the best thing to come out of Fox’s decision to remake the film.

 

Lionsgate’s Punisher: War Zone, which is based on the Marvel comic book series, continues to sink like a stone, falling from a disappointing debut at #8 to a pitiful sophomore ranking at #14, thanks to a decline of 67.7%.  Having earned just $7 million in two weeks, the new Punisher film, despite still being in 2,500 theaters, had its weekend grosses nearly doubled by Milk, which is showing in just 328 venues, and Slumdog Millionaire, which has been limited (so far) to 169 theaters.