2009 at the Box Office: North America edition

by Alex on March 2, 2010 · 0 comments

avatar poster neytiri

2009 is long gone by now since we’re already in March but we still had a few old releases lurking around (I’m looking at you Sherlock, Alvin, Avatar and The Blind Side), making a lot of money and changing the order of things. So I said to myself, I won’t do this top 10 in January like everyone else, I’ll do it in March when everything will be said and done and all movies in there will stop swapping spots between each other.

The top 10 of 2009 in NA basically looks like this:

  1. Avatar (Fox) $706.5M (Still in Theaters)
  2. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Paramount/Dreamworks) $402.1M
  3. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (WarnerBros) $301.9M
  4. The Twilight Saga: New Moon (Summit) $296M (SiT)
  5. Up (BuenaVista) $293M
  6. The Hangover (WarnerBros) $277.3M
  7. Star Trek (Paramount) $257.7M
  8. The Blind Side (WarnerBros) $248.7M (SiT)
  9. Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel (Fox) $216.5M (SiT)
  10. Sherlock Holmes (WarnerBros) $206.4M (SiT)

Half of the movies on that list are still running in theaters but at this point their spots are set in stone.

By now you probably figured out that 2009 was a very good year at the box office, but here’s the thing, I’m not going to bother ranting about how this movie did that or this other movie become a huge surprise, nope, I’ll just let the facts and numbers speak for themself.

General:

  • the average ticket price was $7.5 from $7.18 the year before;
  • over 1.412 billion tickets were sold (5.3% up from 2008);
  • over 10.595 billion were grossed (+10% from 2008), the biggest year ever for Hollywood unadjusted for inflation;
  • 518 movies came out in 2009 compared to 605 in 2008;
  • The Twilight Saga: New Moon had the biggest opening of the year with $142.8 million;
  • The Twilight Saga: New Moon had the biggest single day of the year with $72.7 million on November 20th;
  • no movie managed to stay in first place for more then 2 weekends during 2009, Avatar managed 7 weekends but 5 of those were in 2010;
  • 4 of the top 10 movies are direct sequels, 2 others come from established franchises and the remaining 4 are original properties;
  • the weakest weekend of the year was September 11-13 with $76.2 million;
  • the strongest weekend of the year was December 25-27 with $259.9 million (record);
  • 44 were first at least a weekend, two of those came from 2008;
  • 8 movies were first for 2 weekends;
  • 32 movies made more then $100 million (record), 18 more then $150 million (record), 10 more then $200 million (2007 had 11), 7 more then $250 million (record), 3 more then $300 million, 2 more then $400 million (record) and 1 over $700 million (record);
  • 16 3D movies were released or re-released in 2009, another record;
  • 7 3D movies made more then $100 million and the top 5 biggest 3D hits ever all came out last year;
  • Paranormal Activity opened in 12 theaters with $77,873 and went on to make $107.9 million in 2712 theaters (widest weekend) on a budget of $15,000;
  • the widest release was Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in 4455 theaters on July 24-26, the biggest ever(The Dark Knight had 4366);

Studios:

  • Warner Bros has 4 of the top 10 movies of the year, 5 of the top 25 and 9 in the top 50;
  • 12 out of 52 weekends a Warner Bros movie was first;
  • 6 WB movies made more then $100 million, 4 more then $200 million and 1 more then $300 million;
  • Fox has 2 movies in the top 10 and 6 in the top 25;
  • 6 out of 52 weekends a Fox movie was first;
  • 6 Fox films have made more then $100 million, 2 more then $200 million and 1 more then $700 million;
  • Paramount/DreamWorks has 2 movies in the top 10, 4 in the top 25 and 8 in the top 50;
  • 6 out of 52 weekends a Paramount/DreamWorks movie was first;
  • 5 Par/DW movies made more then $100 million, 2 more then $200 million and 1 more then $400 million
  • Buena Vista (Walt Disney Pictures) has 1 movie in the top 10, 3 in the top 25 and 7 in the top 50;
  • 7 weekends a Buena Vista movie was first;
  • 5 BV movies made more then $100 million and 1 more then 200 million;
  • Sony has no movies in the top 10 for the first time since 2005;
  • what it does have is 4 movies in the top 25 and 10 in the top 50;
  • 10 weekends a Sony movie was first;
  • 5 Sony movies made more then $100 million;
  • Summit Entertainment has 1 movie in the top 10 and 2 movies in the top 50;
  • one Summit movie made more then $100 million in 2009 (guess that movie);
  • Summit had 3 weekends in first place last year;
  • Weinstein Company has 1 movie in the top 25, 1 weekend in first place and 1 movie that made more then $100 million;
  • Lionsgate, Focus Feature and Overture each have one movie in the top 50;
  • Lionsgate also has 3 weekends in first place thanks exclusively to Tyler Perry;