Cloverfield set a new January box office record with an estimated total of $41 million, while 27 Dresses was a very successful bridesmaid earning $22.4 million. Together with some strong performances from holdover films, these two new movies pushed the top ten box office total to $130 million, a full 19% improvement over last year.
Cloverfield, which was produced by J.J. Abrams, is a low budget monster movie with no big name stars that benefited from a sophisticated viral marketing campaign (see 'Cloverfield Marketing Extends to Japan'). Unlike Snakes on a Plane, which also boasted a major online campaign, Cloverfield managed to deliver with the critics (a 76% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes) and at the box office. Fifty-five percent of the Cloverfield audience was under 25 (the Web campaign obviously worked) and sixty percent was male, which is actually fairly well balanced for a monster movie, since the genre often skews heavily to masculine side.
Last week's leader The Bucket List dropped just 22% and finished in third place with an estimated $15.1 million, while the indy favorite Juno slipped just 25% and finished in fourth place with a take of $10.2 million. National Treasure: Book of Secrets also continued to demonstrate great legs, earning $8.1 million and bringing its cumulative up to $198 million in five weeks.
Warner Bros.' remake of Takashi Miike's One Missed Call slipped out of the top ten but still earned $2.8 million, bringing its cumulative to over $24 million -- not bad for a film that failed to earn a single positive review and registered a 0% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. At the other end of the critical spectrum Sony expanded the animated film based on Marjane Satrapi's
