Box Office Briefing: Killing Them Softly Has Perished Swiftly

This is one of those “dead zone” weekends of the year, a weekend in which very few films have ever opened to big success. The post-Thanksgiving weekend is practically a death slot, as is the first weekend in December (which should bode ill for next week’s wide releases). But the after that it’s pretty much smooth sailing as the box office explodes mid-December (as it will this year with the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey). We just need to get through this dead zone first, as every wide release, even one starring Brad Pitt, is practically guaranteed to fail.