Cloverfield smashes January box-office records

Mike January 21st, 2008 Movies

Cloverfield only cost $25 million to make. I had commented on this to my wife after watching it, wondering aloud how much it could have cost considering most of it was done by a hand-held camera. The special effects had to be the only big-budget item in the film. The actors were mostly no-name people who likely didn’t demand much money.

Well, they’ve already made that $25 million back and then some.

Breaking two records for January, Cloverfield brought in an estimated $41million over the three-day weekend, which doesn’t even include increased sales today due to the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.

That is a record for a three-day box office take in the month of January. It broke the record previously held by Star Wars: Special Edition that came out in 1997 and earned $35 million.

Not only that, but it’s already broken the 4-day record for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday set by Black Hawk Down in 2002 which made $33.2 million.

Now, while this appears to be a huge story considering everyone is reporting it, I don’t always care about these records being broken. The big issue for me is that in 1997, ticket prices weren’t even close to what they are now, so the $41 million Cloverfield made might only be $30 million back in 1997.

People go nuts over the amount of money spent on these huge openers, but I would rather see reports on ticket sales and that kind of thing instead.

Anyways, Coverfield was a great movie, check out our AML Movie Review on it.

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