I don’t understand the “business” part of the movie business. Astro Boy recouped about 11% of its total production cost during its opening weekend, which makes it a massive failure by Hollywood standards. Disney and ImageMovers’ A Christmas Carol made back about 15% of its budget, which makes it only “disappointing,” but not devastating. Somewhere in that extra 5% is the difference between “disaster” and “disappointment.”

Is it because $30 million is a lot more than $7 million? Seriously, business guys, it doesn’t actually matter if your movie made 4 or 5 times as much money as someone else’s movie when your movie cost three times as much to make. Still, animated movies tend to do very well over the holidays, and holiday-themed movies do well on DVD because of their perennial appeal. I doubt that anyone will lose money on A Christmas Carol, unlike Astro Boy. Other predictions from more reputable (but apparently not more accurate) sources than myself guessed that it would gross approximately $40 million in its first weekend, which would have been a 20% return, so someone is probably losing sleep — but not their job — over this.

So how did I do on my predictions?

Box Office
As I already said, A Christmas Carol pulled in a little over $30 million in its opening weekend, which is actually quite a bit of cash. It was plenty to put it in the number one spot for the weekend, which I correctly predicted, and more than twice as much as the #2 film, Michael Jackson’s This Is It (in its second week — in its first week, it made $34.4 million).

As much as I like to gloat, I must admit that I predicted the movie would “during its opening weekend and throughout the holiday season.” While I could technically count that as a successful prediction based on the #1 slot and sound drubbing of the competition, I did make judicious use of weasel words to hedge my bets. I gave myself plenty of wiggle room to declare victory as long as the movie finished #1, but the spirit of the prediction was that it would be a significant financial success. On the contrary, the lukewarm box office returns are below industry predictions and weaken my “absolutely kill” prediction.

Critical Response
Here is a sampling of my predictions:

I can predict with confidence that this movie will also feature creepy, dead eyes… but not as creepy as [in Zemeckis's previous films].

…the GLORIOUS 3D will be the main attraction in any review written about this movie.

I expect that the critics who aren’t too blinded by [the 3D effects]… will yawn their way through their reviews and dismiss the movie as an inoffensive and ultimately forgettable version [of A Christmas Carol].

Here is a sampling of the reviews that support my prediction, gathered from RottenTomatoes.com:
(note: I took all of my excerpts from “Top Critics” this time, to lessen the temptation to cherry-pick reviews that make me look good)

Zemeckis captures all the story’s terror, but its pathos has always been the real challenge, and it mostly eludes him.
- J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader

The motion capture animation is top-notch and it’s hard not to be impressed with what Robert Zemeckis has wrought, even if there’s the occasional sense he’s pandering to an audience that can’t get through a 90 minute story without a few yuks and a chase.
- James Berardinelli, ReelViews

Favors thrill-ride effects that are more often the star than the servant of the story. It’s like “Silent Night” played by Led Zeppelin.
- Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

There are also a number of reviews that subvert my prediction nicely. To my surprise (and the critics’ credit), most of them were not taken in by the 3D effects, and made what seems to be a concerted effort to avoid emphasizing the graphics in their reviews. Instead, most focused on what they liked or didn’t like about this particular interpretation of the story. The opinions are mixed, with only 55% of all RT critics and 46% of “top critics” giving it a positive review overall. By reading the reviews and excerpts, I determined that these percentages were unusually close to the overall sentiment of each individual reviewer: most of them straddled the fence between positive and negative, with the most common observation being “It was pretty to look at, but the story…”. Interestingly, the second most common seemed to be the opposite: “It was a nice retelling of the story, but the graphics and camera moves were nauseating.”

Miscellaneous Predictions
I also predicted that I won’t bother to go and see A Christmas Carol. I’ve seen nothing to change my mind, so I’m counting that as “correct.” My remaining prediction, that the movie will do well throughout the holiday season, remains to be seen. I may post an additional follow-up if the results are surprising.