The Box Office Power Rankings do not like the Twilight movies. We are not fooled by the excitement or ticket-buying power of teenage girls. We are on Team No One. (Did I do that right?)
Neither movie has ever finished better than third place in the Box Office Power Rankings. We are confident that this validates our methods.
The first movie in the series was hammered by stiff competition. With a Rotten Tomatoes score of 44, it was 10th in the top 10 its opening weekend. To put that in context, New Moon’s 28 netted it a seventh-place finish in the Rotten Tomatoes criterion its first weekend. (Thank you, Couples Retreat, The Fourth Kind, and Planet 51.)
But the reality is that neither of these movies, given Thanksgiving release, is ever really in the Box Office Power Rankings conversation, even though they’re mostly avoiding the end-of-year Oscar bait. They might be ATMs for the studio, but without even better-than-mediocre reviews, they’re DOA in this neighborhood.
And that means there’s lots of room for movies that are more … colorful. These five weeks of rankings feature wins by Precious (twice), The Blind Side (twice), and The Princess and the Frog, and a second-place debut by Invictus.
| Box Office Power Rankings: November 13-15, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire | – | 8 ($5.9M) | 10 ($33.8K) | 10 (91) | 10 (79) | 38 |
| 2 | Disney’s A Christmas Carol | 1 | 9 ($22.3M) | 8 ($6.1K) | 7 (55) | 7 (55) | 31 |
| 3 | 2012 | – | 10 ($65.2M) | 9 ($19.2K) | 4 (39) | 5 (49) | 28 |
| 4 | The Men Who Stare at Goats | 4 | 7 ($5.9M) | 7 ($2.4K) | 6 (54) | 6 (54) | 26 |
| 4 | Michael Jackson’s This Is It | 2 | 6 ($5.1M) | 4 ($1.7K) | 8 (80) | 8 (67) | 26 |
| 6 | Paranormal Activity | 3 | 3 ($4M) | 2 ($1.5K) | 9 (82) | 9 (68) | 23 |
| 7 | The Fourth Kind | 6 | 5 ($4.6M) | 5 ($1.8K) | 2 (18) | 3 (34) | 15 |
| 8 | Law Abiding Citizen | 8 | 2 ($3.8M) | 6 ($1.8K) | 3 (24) | 3 (34) | 14 |
| 9 | The Box | 7 | 1 ($3.2M) | 1 ($1.2K) | 5 (45) | 4 (47) | 11 |
| 10 | Couples Retreat | 10 | 4 ($4.2M) | 3 ($1.7K) | 1 (12) | 1 (23) | 9 |
| Box Office Power Rankings: November 20-22, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire | 1 | 5 ($10.9M) | 9 ($17.3K) | 10 (91) | 10 (79) | 34 |
| 2 | The Blind Side | – | 9 ($34.1M) | 8 ($11K) | 8 (71) | 6 (53) | 31 |
| 3 | The Twilight Saga: New Moon | – | 10 ($142.8M) | 10 ($35.5K) | 4 (28) | 4 (44) | 28 |
| 4 | Disney’s A Christmas Carol | 2 | 6 ($12.3M) | 5 ($3.4K) | 7 (55) | 8 (55) | 26 |
| 5 | 2012 | 3 | 8 ($26.4M) | 7 ($7.7K) | 5 (39) | 5 (49) | 25 |
| 6 | The Men Who Stare at Goats | 4 | 4 ($2.8M) | 4 ($1.4K) | 6 (54) | 7 (54) | 21 |
| 7 | Michael Jackson’s This Is It | 4 | 1 ($1.6M) | 1 ($1K) | 9 (80) | 9 (67) | 20 |
| 8 | Planet 51 | – | 7 ($12.3M) | 6 ($4K) | 3 (23) | 3 (39) | 19 |
| 9 | The Fourth Kind | 7 | 2 ($1.7M) | 2 ($1.1K) | 2 (18) | 2 (34) | 8 |
| 9 | Couples Retreat | 10 | 3 ($1.9M) | 3 ($1.1K) | 1 (12) | 1 (23) | 8 |
| Box Office Power Rankings: November 25-29, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | The Blind Side | 2 | 9 ($57.5M) | 10 ($18.3K) | 8 (71) | 6 (53) | 33 |
| 2 | Precious: Based on the Novel “Push” by Sapphire | 1 | 2 ($9.4M) | 8 ($14.2K) | 9 (91) | 9 (79) | 28 |
| 3 | Disney’s A Christmas Carol | 4 | 6 ($22.1M) | 6 ($7.3K) | 7 (55) | 8 (55) | 27 |
| 4 | The Twilight Saga: New Moon | 3 | 10 ($66.3M) | 9 ($16.4K) | 3 (28) | 4 (44) | 26 |
| 4 | Fantastic Mr. Fox | – | 3 ($9.4M) | 3 ($4.6K) | 10 (92) | 10 (83) | 26 |
| 6 | 2012 | 5 | 8 ($25.2M) | 5 ($7.3K) | 5 (39) | 5 (49) | 23 |
| 7 | Ninja Assassin | – | 5 ($21.2M) | 7 ($8.5K) | 4 (31) | 2 (34) | 18 |
| 8 | The Men Who Stare at Goats | 6 | 1 ($2.2M) | 1 ($1.9K) | 6 (54) | 7 (54) | 15 |
| 9 | Old Dogs | – | 7 ($24.2M) | 4 ($7.1K) | 1 (5) | 1 (19) | 13 |
| 10 | Planet 51 | 8 | 4 ($13.9M) | 2 ($4.6K) | 2 (23) | 3 (39) | 11 |
| Box Office Power Rankings: December 4-6, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | The Blind Side | 1 | 10 ($20M) | 10 ($6K) | 10 (71) | 8 (53) | 38 |
| 2 | Brothers | – | 8 ($9.5M) | 9 ($4.6K) | 9 (57) | 10 (58) | 36 |
| 3 | Disney’s A Christmas Carol | 3 | 7 ($7.8M) | 6 ($3K) | 8 (55) | 9 (55) | 30 |
| 4 | Armored | – | 4 ($6.5M) | 7 ($3.4K) | 7 (47) | 7 (50) | 25 |
| 5 | The Twilight Saga: New Moon | 4 | 9 ($15.4M) | 8 ($3.7K) | 3 (28) | 4 (44) | 24 |
| 6 | 2012 | 6 | 5 ($6.8M) | 5 ($2.1K) | 5 (39) | 6 (49) | 21 |
| 7 | Everybody’s Fine | – | 1 ($3.9M) | 2 ($1.8K) | 6 (46) | 5 (47) | 14 |
| 8 | Ninja Assassin | 7 | 3 ($5.1M) | 4 ($2K) | 4 (31) | 2 (34) | 13 |
| 9 | Old Dogs | 9 | 6 ($6.9M) | 3 ($2K) | 1 (5) | 1 (19) | 11 |
| 10 | Planet 51 | 10 | 2 ($4.4M) | 1 ($1.5K) | 2 (23) | 3 (39) | 8 |
| Box Office Power Rankings: December 11-13, 2009 | |||||||
| Box Office Ranks | Critics’ Ranks | ||||||
| Rank | Movie | Last Week | Gross | Per Theater | Rotten Tomatoes | Metacritic | Total |
| 1 | The Princess and the Frog | – | 10 ($24.2M) | 10 ($7K) | 10 (82) | 9 (73) | 39 |
| 2 | Invictus | – | 8 ($8.6M) | 8 ($4.1K) | 9 (77) | 10 (74) | 35 |
| 3 | The Blind Side | 1 | 9 ($15.1M) | 9 ($4.4K) | 8 (71) | 6 (53) | 32 |
| 4 | Brothers | 2 | 5 ($5M) | 6 ($2.4K) | 7 (57) | 8 (58) | 26 |
| 4 | Disney’s A Christmas Carol | 3 | 6 ($6.8M) | 7 ($2.8K) | 6 (55) | 7 (55) | 26 |
| 6 | The Twilight Saga: New Moon | 5 | 7 ($8M) | 4 ($2.2K) | 2 (28) | 3 (44) | 16 |
| 6 | 2012 | 6 | 3 ($4.4M) | 5 ($2.4K) | 4 (39) | 4 (49) | 16 |
| 8 | Armored | 4 | 2 ($3.5M) | 3 ($1.8K) | 5 (47) | 5 (50) | 15 |
| 9 | Old Dogs | 9 | 4 ($4.4M) | 2 ($1.4K) | 1 (5) | 1 (19) | 8 |
| 10 | Ninja Assassin | 8 | 1 ($2.7M) | 1 ($1.3K) | 3 (31) | 2 (34) | 7 |
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.
