District 9 rightly got a lot of attention. No stars! $30-million production budget! Good special effects! Great reviews! Strong word of mouth! A $37-million opening weekend!
It’s a compelling story, and God knows the movie business needs constant reminders that funding six District 9s can be far more lucrative than bankrolling one G.I. Joe.
Of course, nobody creates the same movie six times. So let’s imagine that instead of spending $175 million to produce G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, a studio decided to make District 9, Julie and Julia ($40 million), Inglouirious Basterds ($70 million), and some piece of shit that cost $35 million and was never released in theaters.
Through August 26, G.I. Joe grossed $123.5 million, Julie and Julia (released the same day, August 7) $62.5 million, District 9 (August 14) $78.5 million, Basterds (August 21) $50.6 million, and Piece of Shit (N/A) $0.0 million. The total box office to date for our quartet: $191.6 million, or 55 percent more than G.I. Joe. And remember that none of our movies has been out longer than Joe, and that the widest release (Basterds) was in 21 percent fewer theaters than Joe at its peak.
In our Box Office Power Rankings, Julie and Julia won in its debut weekend, while District 9 did the same and then held off Basterds to retain its crown.
Yet even though District 9 is a great success story, one has to give credit to those other two films. They might have bigger budgets, actual stars, and familiar directors, but they are seriously hard sells compared to the alien-ghetto premise of Neill Blomkamp’s sci-fi movie.
| Box Office Power Rankings: August 7-9, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | Julie and Julia | – | 9 ($20M) | 9 ($8.5K) | 8 (75) | 8 (66) | 34 |
| 2 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | 1 | 7 ($8.9M) | 4 ($2.6K) | 9 (83) | 10 (78) | 30 |
| 3 | (500) Days of Summer | 8 | 2 ($3.7M) | 8 ($4.6K) | 10 (87) | 9 (76) | 29 |
| 4 | G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra | – | 10 ($54.7M) | 10 ($13.7K) | 4 (37) | 2 (32) | 26 |
| 5 | Funny People | 1 | 6 ($8M) | 5 ($2.7K) | 7 (65) | 6 (60) | 24 |
| 6 | A Perfect Getaway | – | 4 ($5.9M) | 6 ($2.8K) | 6 (58) | 7 (63) | 23 |
| 7 | G-Force | 3 | 8 ($9.9M) | 7 ($2.8K) | 3 (24) | 3 (41) | 21 |
| 8 | Orphan | 5 | 1 ($3.7M) | 2 ($1.6K) | 5 (56) | 5 (42) | 13 |
| 9 | Aliens in the Attic | 6 | 3 ($4M) | 1 ($1.3K) | 2 (22) | 5 (42) | 11 |
| 10 | The Ugly Truth | 8 | 5 ($6.8M) | 3 ($2.3K) | 1 (15) | 1 (28) | 10 |
| Box Office Power Rankings: August 14-16, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | District 9 | – | 10 ($37.4M) | 10 ($12.3K) | 9 (89) | 9 (81) | 38 |
| 2 | Julie and Julia | 1 | 7 ($12.1M) | 7 ($5.1K) | 7 (75) | 7 (66) | 28 |
| 2 | Ponyo | – | 2 ($3.6M) | 6 ($3.9K) | 10 (92) | 10 (86) | 28 |
| 4 | The Time Traveler’s Wife | – | 8 ($18.6M) | 9 ($6.2K) | 4 (36) | 5 (47) | 26 |
| 5 | G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra | 4 | 9 ($22.3M) | 8 ($5.6K) | 5 (37) | 2 (32) | 24 |
| 6 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | 2 | 4 ($5.1M) | 3 ($1.9K) | 8 (83) | 8 (78) | 23 |
| 7 | The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard | – | 5 ($5.6M) | 5 ($3.1K) | 3 (29) | 3 (40) | 16 |
| 7 | G-Force | 7 | 6 ($6.9M) | 4 ($2.3K) | 2 (24) | 4 (41) | 16 |
| 9 | Funny People | 5 | 1 ($3M) | 1 ($1.2K) | 6 (65) | 6 (60) | 14 |
| 10 | The Ugly Truth | 10 | 3 ($4.4M) | 2 ($1.6K) | 1 (15) | 1 (28) | 7 |
| Box Office Power Rankings: August 21-23, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | District 9 | 1 | 9 ($18.2M) | 9 ($6K) | 10 (89) | 10 (81) | 38 |
| 2 | Inglourious Basterds | – | 10 ($3 8.1M) |
10 ($12K) | 9 (88) | 8 (69) | 37 |
| 3 | Julie and Julia | 2 | 6 ($8.8M) | 8 ($3.6K) | 7 (75) | 7 (66) | 28 |
| 4 | Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince | 6 | 3 ($3.5M) | 4 ($1.8K) | 8 (83) | 9 (78) | 24 |
| 5 | The Time Traveler’s Wife | 4 | 7 ($9.7M) | 7 ($3.3K) | 4 (36) | 5 (47) | 23 |
| 6 | Shorts | – | 5 ($6.4M) | 5 ($2.1K) | 6 (44) | 6 (53) | 22 |
| 7 | G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra | 5 | 8 ($12.2M) | 6 ($3.1K) | 5 (37) | 2 (32) | 21 |
| 8 | G-Force | 7 | 4 ($4.1M) | 3 ($1.6K) | 2 (24) | 4 (41) | 13 |
| 9 | The Goods: Live Hard, Sell Hard | 7 | 1 ($2.7M) | 2 ($1.5K) | 3 (29) | 3 (40) | 9 |
| 10 | The Ugly Truth | 10 | 2 ($2.8M) | 1 ($1.4K) | 1 (15) | 1 (28) | 5 |
Methodology
Culture Snob’s Box Office Power Rankings balance box office and critical reception to create a better measure of a movie’s overall performance against its peers than gross receipts alone.
The weekly rankings cover the 10 top-grossing movies in the United States for the previous weekend. We assign equal weight to box office and critical opinion, with each having two components. The measures are: box-office gross, per-theater average, Rotten Tomatoes score, and Metacritic score.
Why those four? Box-office gross basically measures the number of people who saw a movie in a given weekend. Per-theater average corrects for blockbuster-wannabes that flood the market with prints, and gives limited-release movies a fighting chance. Rotten Tomatoes measures critical opinion in a binary way. And Metacritic gives a better sense of critics’ enthusiasm (or bile) for a movie.
For each of the four measures, the movies are ranked and assigned points (10 for the best performer, one for the worst). Finally, those points are added up, with a maximum score of 40 and a minimum score of four.
