with us is erik childress of the chicago film critics' assoc. i erik. > > hello. > so, what did everyone see last weekend? > > last weekend you had a bunch of new openings come up. you had tom cruise's latest film, "jack reacher," did only about $15.6 million. one of his lesser openings for the better part of his career. judd apatow's "this is 40" made it $12 million. but everyone was still seeing "the hobbit," which, even though the number was down, was still very handily at number one. > and "the guilt trip." how did that do? > > not very well at all. only about $7.5 million over five days - it opened last wednesday. so that is a very disappointing number. > so why are we so close to this record? > > we are very close to the record because we had a lot of event films this year. we had beginnings with "the avengers," we had endings with "the dark knight rises," and "twilight." "skyfall," the new james bond film, was kind of a little bit of both, actually. so we had a lot of big titles come out, and most of them turned out to be very good. so peo

erik childress, our movie guy, is here. is this turning into a record-breaking year, or at the very least a record-breaking season? > > certainly both, actually. november just broke the highest november record on tap, way from back in 2009, which is the highest box office calendar year on record. 2012 is going to be very close. i think we are coming right down to the wire. we are only about $7 million ahead of pace right now, so it is going to depend on how well these december blockbusters do. > here is what happened at the box office last weekend. the "twilight saga" coming in at $17 million, "skyfall" at $16 million, "rise of the guardians" at $13 million, "lincoln" at $13 million, and "life of pi" at $12 million. but brad pitt's movie came in at seventh place. > > the worst wide-release opening of brad pitt's career. but i don't think this is really a sign of brad pitt. i mean, audiences clearly didn't like the movie at all. they gave it an f cinemascore, which is very rare for a service company. but the weinstein co., f

our movie man, erik childress, is here with a movie rewind. what a year it was. > > the fourth straight year that we have hit over $10 billion at the box office. it is going to be very close, but we are headed toward a possible record year. > let's take a look at some of the highlights of the year. we got a bond movie this year. > > yeah. $1 billion for a bond movie. can you believe that? it did more money overseas than even "the dark night rises" did. it was a tremendous year for james bond. > and there were tragic moments, one of which involved "the dark knight," and the shooting in aurora. > > everyone sort of wondered how it might affect the box office, if people were going to stay away from the movies. clearly they didn't. they went and saw it, and it was the second highest grossing film of the year, also with over $1 billion worldwide. > "the watch," of course, though, was a poorly-timed movie because it was on the heels of the killing of trayvon martin, and it had to do with neighborhood watching. > > it was of originally called "neighb

the hobbit scored huge numbers this weekend at the box office and that may have our movie guy erik childress grimacing just a bit here. good to have you back on the show. how do you reconcile that the hobbit's numbers were outstanding at the box office over the weekend and yet the reviews have been just ok, including a review from our very own director of this show? > > well, opening weekend was gonna be big no matter what. the lord of the rings obviously has its fans---the books, clearly. and so the biggest december opening of all time is not that big a surprise actually and the worldwide numbers follow that. but i have a feeling that the length of the film and the lukewarm reaction---even people who are positive about it have some negative things to say about the way it was filmed and its length and it being stretched over three movies--- it's on;y a 300 page book. i have a feeling it's not going to do as well domestically as the other lord of the rings films but like spiderman and ice age earlier this year the worldwide numbers are still going to be huge. > > it has a big fan base. let's

our movie man, erik childress, joins us now with a look at some of the films that will be playing atater near you. good to have you on the show. > > thank you. > > do the studios wait and save the best for last? > > i don't think they necessarily save the best for last. we've had movies coming out ever since the beginning of november, stuff like the james bond film, "twilight," "the hobbit" comes out before christmas. so i don't think they hold the best for last, but it is sort of their last chance to close up the books, get some space out from some of those other big blockbusters. we have had films that are even jettisoned from christmas. "the great gatsby," the remake with leonardo dicaprio, was supposed to open on christmas, and the studio thought better of it and moved it back to may. > > how critical are those box office numbers at christmastime for the studios? > > like i said, it is sort of that last-ditch effort to get in the last big blockbusters of the season. kids are off for christmas, so it's a good time to open movies. christmas in general, christmas day is traditionall