Sherlock Holmes topped the box office this weekend, but not even the master detective could solve the Mystery of the Missing Moviegoer, which has plagued Hollywood the past few weeks.
Warner Brothers “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” starring Robert Downey Jr., finished with a projected $40 million, followed by Fox’s family-friendly “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked” which debuted with $23.5 million.
The weekend box office haul, however, was 12% lower than this time in 2010, causing a lot of handwringing in an industry that’s seen an overall dip of four percent over the year, says Paul Dergarabedian, box office analyst for Hollywood.com
“It’s just a case of having to lower our expectations of what these films are capable of,” says Dergarabedian. “What more can you offer audiences besides ‘Sherlock Holmes,’ ‘Alvin’ and ‘Mission: Impossible’?”
That movie, though, enjoyed a huge weekend haul to land in third place, considering it only appeared in 425 IMAX theaters. “Mission: Impossible - The Ghost Protocol,” finished with $13.3 million, buoyed in large part by the six-minute “The Dark Knight Rises” prologue screening with it. Warner Brothers was irate that its eagerly awaited IMAX footage from the third film in director Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy was used to boost a rival studio’s film, Deadline.com reported.
Still it was a rough weekend, especially considering the last “Sherlock Holmes” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks” films were much more successful when they were in theaters together during the 2009 holiday season.
“Holiday distractions are always there, but audiences always manage to find time to make it to the movies over the last two weeks of the year - and it’s just not happening this year,” says Dergarabedian.
There’s still time for a Christmas miracle, though, during the final stretch of the holiday season with the release of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Adventures of Tintin” and the wide release of “Ghost Protocol.”
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