The Streak is Over

July 7, 2003

On Saturday July 6th, 2003, From Justin to Kelly earned $10,424 at the box office. This may not seem like much, but a day earlier it earned only $5,092. That jump was the first day-to-day increase in its box office, a feat that didn’t happen until 16 days into its release.

Most movies go through a very predictable pattern at the box office. Big opening on Friday, bigger box office on Saturday. Then they see a drop on Sunday and Monday but tend to fluctuate during the week. And by Friday their box office jumps up again and the pattern repeats (albeit, with smaller and smaller amounts at the box office.)

However, recently it has become increasingly common for movies to open big on Friday and see a drop on Saturday. In June alone, six of the eight wide releases showed this pattern. This is usually caused by one of two factors: The Fanboy Effect, everyone who wants to see the movie is such a rabid fan they see it as soon as it opens; Hollywood Hype, the quality of the ad campaign exceeded the quality of the movie. (And something it's both.) However, even when this happens there’s usually at least one day during the week in which the movie sees some day-to-day improvement. And in cases were there isn’t the weekend always brought an improvement.

That is, until To Justin From Kelly came along. Not only did its box office drop from Thursday to Friday it did it without an appreciable drop in its theatre count. Then it did it again the next week. Fourteen straight days of declining figures at the box office is a record that will last a long, long time. To be fair, I thought the same thing when 8 Mile dropped 62.25% after finishing first at the box office; we're barely half way through 2003 and that's been beat 3 times.

Here's a breakdown of the movie's daily box office.

Source: Box Office Mojo

Filed under: 8 Mile, From Justin to Kelly