Stunned.
Complete silence, scorched earth, brain frozen, incapable of reacting.
Harry Percy: "I've seen this episode before!"
After the summer blockbusters, a familiar story with similar plotlines unfolds once again.
The film starring Anson Wood arrives with overwhelming force, smashing records and lighting up the box office once more.
Even with all the anticipation and media hype—exactly as Warner Bros. had planned for—the reality of it still hits like a bomb going off in your head.
Boom—
Just like that, it explodes.
On one hand, Catch Me If You Can had just made history on its Christmas Day Wednesday release, with everyone buzzing, "Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks teaming up? It's as great as expected!"
On the other hand, Anson's surprise flash-mob marketing event burst across North America, turning the vast and desolate Midwest into the focal point of attention, igniting the market step by step.
Thanks to great word-of-mouth and the star power of two A-listers, Catch Me If You Can had a stellar weekend box office performance, with a rare trend where Saturday's earnings exceeded Friday's and even Sunday showed strength, bursting onto the scene as an unexpected hit.
Typically, for a well-promoted film, weekend box office earnings are highest on Friday, followed by Saturday, and then drop on Sunday, with Friday being the peak due to opening excitement.
However, occasionally a well-promoted film that explodes on Friday can maintain momentum into Saturday, thanks to strong word-of-mouth or a timely event, which is rare.
Catch Me If You Can is one such case.
First, Friday saw the initial burst.
Friday's single-day earnings more than doubled Thursday's, proving Thursday's dip was just setting the stage for the next explosion.
Second, Saturday's continued surge was almost unbelievable.
While the growth was modest, the entire Hollywood industry was in awe. It was probably the first time they'd seen such box office energy during the Christmas season—wait, no, the second time. The first was Titanic. But unlike Titanic, which built up gradually, Catch Me If You Can erupted all at once, like a volcano.
Shocking!
Finally, even Sunday held up, without the usual steep drop-off, keeping the market ablaze thanks to strong reviews and buzz.
History was made.
Catch Me If You Can swept the weekend box office with $82 million over three days, easily breaking the December opening weekend record set just a week prior by The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, raising the bar by 32%. It also claimed third place for the entire holiday season, only behind the two Harry Potter films.
Additionally, it took in $105 million over its first five days, surpassing The Two Towers's newly-set December first-week record. What made this feat truly impressive was that it happened during Christmas week, when families usually gather, making it much harder to achieve than for The Two Towers.
And!
It did all this in a crowded field.
Just look at the North American box office for the final weekend of 2002:
1st place: Catch Me If You Can, $82 million.
2nd place: The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, $48 million.
3rd place: Two Weeks Notice, $15 million.
4th place: Maid in Manhattan, $12 million.
5th place: Gangs of New York, $11 million.
In this fierce competition, Catch Me If You Can carved its own path, while all the other highly anticipated films struggled to meet expectations. Apart from The Lord of the Rings, the weekend box office performances were underwhelming.
In the summer, Spider-Man came out swinging, debuting amidst both high hopes and concerns, and despite immense pressure, the market had been eagerly waiting for such an event, and a record was born.
This time, Catch Me If You Can was the final act. After a series of holiday releases had already drained much of the market's energy, and with strong competition already having had their moment, it faced a tough uphill battle.
Yet!
Catch Me If You Can still made history, casting Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings into the shadows.
Normally, the Christmas and New Year's weekends see a box office boost as people head to theaters to enjoy their holiday break—except for Christmas Day itself, when fewer go out. But this time, the surge in ticket sales was almost entirely driven by Catch Me If You Can, leaving the other films to struggle for scraps.
The focus was all on one movie.
Of course, from another angle, Harry Potter missed its chance to follow Spider-Man as only the second movie in history to break $100 million in its opening weekend, and Catch Me If You Can also fell short of this milestone.
This officially marked the failure of Hollywood's attempt to turn the holiday season into a second summer blockbuster season—though the goal remains a long-term challenge.
Even so, the strong performances of Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, and Catch Me If You Can gave other studios hope. They saw that the holiday season could deliver pleasant surprises outside of summer, and the battleground was expanding beyond just the summer months.
In particular, Catch Me If You Can, which had a production budget of only $52 million, managed to rake in $100 million in its first week, positioning it to turn a profit even before Harry Potter or The Lord of the Rings, making studios reconsider the value of the holiday box office.
What's more, this was only its first week—future box office returns were still looking promising.
First, Anson's flash-mob marketing tour was nearing the East Coast and was set to conclude soon, with everyone curious about which city he'd choose for the grand finale and how he'd wrap up this epic marketing campaign.
After all, with the tour now a focal point across North America, if Anson ended it with a lackluster appearance at some random theater, it would be an anticlimax. But with the tour already following a set formula, the real challenge was how to innovate and surprise within that framework.
Not only were audiences intrigued, but even Hollywood was curious to see how the tour would end. Whether it ended in disaster or triumph, it was sure to be a spectacle.
Expectations kept rising, to the point where it was almost overwhelming—and even a little scary. At this stage, no one knew whether the tour's impact would be more of a blessing or a curse. DreamWorks and Universal, however, were clearly struggling, exposing their own weaknesses in marketing and distribution.
So, what's the next move?
Second, while all eyes were on Anson's North American marketing tour, good news also came from Hollywood's home base in Los Angeles—
The Golden Globe nominations had been announced.