Hurricane Irene is creating a perfect storm for the weekend box office.
Studio executives and theater owners are bracing for millions of dollars in lost revenue with moviegoers battening down the hatches at home.
The three big releases — Sony TriStar’s “Colombiana,” The Weinstein Co. flick “Our Idiot Brother” and Film District’s “Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark” — are on upwards of 2,500 screens and will take the brunt of the storm. Cohen Media Group’s “Chasing Madoff” also will open on a handful of screens.
“It’s not good news for the box office, but it’s a little too early to measure the impact,” said Chris Aronson, 20th Century Fox’s head of distribution.
The storm-affected area accounts for about 23 percent of the movie marketplace, Aronson estimated. He predicts the box office will be down 10 to 12 percent compared to the same weekend a year ago, when the domestic box office took in $115 million.
The news isn’t good either for already-released movies such as “The Help,” “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” and “Spy Kids: All the Time in the World.”
“Given that people are being told to stay indoors, I’m not sure the box office is going to do much business,” said Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente.
But DiClemente doesn’t see investors dumping shares of theater stocks in the wake of the storm.
The big question is whether theaters will be open for business. A spokesman for AMC theaters said two theaters in Norfolk, Va., and a handful in the Washington, DC, area would close after their screenings last night. There were no closures in the New York area at press time.