Weekend Estimates by The Klady Kid
The Karate Kid is the second big family film of the summer… though there is less room to breath here than there was for Shrek 4, as Toy Story 3 (aka, “easily the first best studio film of 2010 so far”) is on the way in just a few days, followed 2 weeks later by The Last Airbender, which seems to be The Karate Kid With Lots O’ CG and seems to have a real chance to be the next film to take the media by surprise. $200 million domestic for Kid is a real possibility, but again, foreign is where the big green fat is. It’s profitable without foreign… so when that international money starts rolling in, it’s all cash in, profit out… cash in, profit out.
So The A-Team opens right between Miami Vice & Starsky & Hutch… both of which ended up between $160m and $170m worldwide. Do the few years since those suggest that A-Team might be looking at $180m worldwide? Could be. Could the action sell, as opposed to the old TV sell, improve the numbers in the key foreign markets that aren’t opening mid-World Cup? Possible. Still, there are no signals that this film is going far north of $200m worldwide – perhaps not even that high – so there is a good chance there will be red ink for Fox on this one, though the studio has the distribution cushion, having sold off part of the production to Dune.
How To Train Your Dragon continues to play well enough to hope to pass Kung Fu Panda domestically… just a million or so away now. However, Shrek Forever After will likely pass both films to become DreamWorks Animation’s #4 all-time on Thursday – maybe Friday – and is pretty assuredly heading towards $250m domestic by the end of the 4th of July holiday, even with the added competition. And again… foreign, Foreign, FOREIGN. S3 did almost $500m overseas. This one hasn’t opened in any of its major foreign markets, except Russia, where it is up over the last film in the franchise. So… we’ll see.
Killers is another movie that is really waiting, as the domestic results are mediocre, on foreign. What Happens In Vegas‘ $80m domestic is out of range, but you can bet that Lionsgate (and Carl Icahn) have their eye on Kutcher’s $100 million foreign potential. Even if it does that, it won’t be the hit that Lionsgate execs wanted to prove they know what they are doing nor would it be the proof Icahn would like that they are all petulant, overpaid idiots. Ah… the magic of the middle.
Get Him To The Greek continues to mirror Forgetting Sarah Marshall, though no doubt, they are hoping that Russell Brand will help to generate more at the UK box office than Marshall’s $15m.
The Prince of Persia isn’t going to get to $100m here… but it should crack $300 million worldwide before the end of next weekend. Still, I would look for Disney to take a $50 million or so writedown on the film this quarter, as it’s so well balanced by the Alice In Wonderland DVD smash.
In a similar position, Robin Hood, which is near $300m worldwide… but it’s not enough for that expensive a film.
Sex & The City 2 is another one that probably won’t hit $100m domestic, but is banking on foreign. They are already open in all their major markets and are over $100m foreign… but the first film did over $260m foreign. I would bet that this time, it will end up between $160m and $200m foreign… enough to keep the film from being in red ink. Time to lower the budget and make the franchise work… $40m – $50m a movie, one every 2 years, I think they get to S&TC 5 before they are really done. Then in 15 years, they can do Sex & The Viagra: The Granny Years.
Iron Man 2 passed Iron Man‘s worldwide total this week and will tip $300m on Tuesday, joining the $600m worldwide club, along with 51 other films in history. This is no disaster, but it can’t be making Disney too happy either. Those expecting a Transformers, Pirates or Batman style leap for the second film ($150m ww, $450m ww, $630m ww, respectively) had to be disappointed.
Will Smith does it again, the haters are about to go into overdrive.
True – Smith’s box office know-how is really something to be reckoned with. The articles about his BO-first thinking in choosing and shaping projects are pretty phenomenal reads.
Let’s give Jackie Chan a li’l credit here.
I love Jackie…or at least I’d love him more if he stopped making garbage…but unless he’s paired with Chris Tucker he’s never gotten close to this. But I do think he was part of the equation.
More bad news for Fox: “The A-Team” also opens softly in several overseas countries.
http://www.screendaily.com/news/distribution/a-team-takes-world-cup-hit-overseas-and-launches-on-15m/5014943.article
[The A-Team endured a soft launch overseas that was doubtless impacted by the start of the World Cup over the weekend.
Fox International estimated the action remake of the 1980s television series grossed $15m from 3,640 screens in 35 markets.
Leading the way was Australia on a fine $2.9m from 324, Russia on $1.7m from 755, South Korea on $1.5m from 344, and Taiwan on $1m from 109.
The Australian and South Korean results were notable considering both countries were in action in the first round of the tournament. The Mexican team played too and the film produced $934,000 in that country from 774, while Brazil, whose team does not play until Tuesday, generated $821,000 from 256.]
Considering how troubled so many child stars’ lives turn out later on, doesn’t Will Smith have any better sense than to turn his kid into one?
David, have you considered providing weekly international charts rather than domestic box office? You seem so disinterested in domestic numbers week after week that I’d think you’d rather not perpetuate the fixation on them.
I believe it’s because there’s no central clearinghouse that collects that data. All the boxofficemojo etc. international stats are updated in an ad hoc manner as the various distributors bother to send them in.
Sony is clearly holding “Karate” close to the vest due to the Cup; only one of the countries it opened in has a team in the tournament and it had a great $7,500 per theatre average internationally; A-Team had about a $4,200 average overall and number 1 in 3 out of 35 markets. THREE OUT OF 35….180 million worldwide is not going to happen, to be kind.
Fox is going to want to cut its losses and throw their weight behind “Knight and Day”…and the marketplace is too crowded with “Eclipse” coming and Pixar rolling out Toy Story 3 much faster than its usual…..150 million worldwide….maybe.
FYI for The Klady Kid: The UK did not play the US, England played USA. There is no unified UK team in soccer.
Just left the A-Team. Not a disaster, but this isn’t going to have legs. Way to effing long. And the ridiculous factor is just well, pretty ridiculous. Had Mulder and Scully showed up at the end of the movie to wrap things up I wouldn’t have been surprised (there is actually a finale cameo that’s a bit odd).
No Mulder, but that STEVE GARVEY CAMEO at the end was something else.
York, I think one of the major reasons why a lot of child stars going off the rails is because their parents aren’t usually very stable people. Will and Jada seem to have their heads on straight.
York, I think one of the major reasons why a lot of child stars go off the rails is because their parents aren’t usually very stable people. Will and Jada seem to have their heads on straight.