Weekend Estimates by Klady: The First BO Dude Still Alive
It was, oddly, a pretty shock-free weekend. Potter’s drop is utterly reasonable, given last weekend. Captain America, whether the number ends up being slightly better than Thor or slightly under Thor, is pretty much The Marvel Number now… which is not to say every opening matches, but the end result, at least domestically, pretty consistent.
Sony is, no doubt, a little disappointed with the Friends With Benefits launch. But the answer to “why?” is pretty clear in the demographics in the exit polling… 56% over 25. Timberlake & Kunis are celebrities and popular with young audiences, but the college kids and younger didn’t show up in force to watch them have sex and fall in love. (SPOILER ALERT! Ha.) Less problematic, but also telling about the box office is a 62% female audiences. It seems that, for fifth R-rated comedy this summer, the answer was “not dirty enough.”
It’s really been a remarkable summer run for these films, whether the critical consensus was great, good, weak, or hateful. The Hangover: Part II leads with $252m domestic. Then Bridesmaids with $164m. And heading to the $100 million mark are both Horrible Bosses and Bad Teacher, with Bosses on its way to passing Ms Diaz in the next couple of weeks. FWB will probably end up grossing in the low 60s. And we still have The Change-Up coming. Some would put 30 Minutes Or Less in that category too.
Meanwhile, FWB also extends the “seen it before” theme of the weekend, as its opening is just about a million more than Easy A, with a then little-known-by-name Emma Stone. Maybe Sony should set up a lunch for Will Gluck with Adam Sandler, who specializes in drawing teen boys to the theaters. Or not. I like Gluck’s films and would hate to see them ruined by chasing boys with fart jokes.
Meanwhile, it’s looking like the search for $400m domestic between Transformers 3 and Potter 8 could come up short for both films. And it’s also possible that Tr3 will end up staying ahead of Pot8 domestically. Internationally, Potter is likely to win that battle. But at home, with Trannies 3 heading up to, perhaps, $375m domestic, it’s easy to forget that Potter has never done $320m domestic, much less $400m. It will be the biggest Potter here, but overtaking the autobots will not be easy.
ADD: Paramount reports that TR3 has now hit $882.4m worldwide, making it the biggest of the trilogy.
Finally, in the same theme, Woody Allen’s audience is back to a precision target set by Sony Classics… and even losing screens, the film is estimated to be exactly even with last weekend. Impressive.
“Friends With Benefits” opened less than “No Strings Attached” and several other R-rated comedies in this years, maybe because “Friends With Benefits” has more nude scenes than those other R-rated comedies. (Mila Kunis used body double to do the nude scene, though)
In US, many mainstream audience want lead actresses to keep their clothes on when they do sex scenes. (ie. Kristen Wiig still wears a bra in her sex scene in “Bridesmaids”)
Happily surprised to see that “Sarah’s Key” can open that well despite of mostly medicore reviews. It may proves again that Kristin Scott Thomas is bankable in US arthouse market. (Recently, her other starrers like “The Valet”, “I’ve Loved You So Long “, “Tell No One” and “Easy Virtue ” also enjoyed box office successes in US arthouse market.)
Will “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” officially outgross “I Am Love” in this weekend? If so, “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” would outgross all films that received simultaneous theatrical/VOD releases in US. (“Cave of Forgotten Dreams” has still not been released on VOD yet)
Bittersweet weekend for Paramount you would think. One last great Marvel opening to cap what has been a banner year for the studio distribution and production wise. It’s the first studio to release four $400 million worldwide grossers in a single summer…with at least two of those over $600 mil. And the slate for the rest of the year looks so strong it seems like the studio will be headed to over 2 billion domestic this year. Still, with distribution deals about to expire, one has to wonder whether this mega-year might end up as a rainy day fund in the vein of “Avatar” with Fox’s recent releases…..
Paramount will still get the distribution fees for “Iron Man 3” and “The Avengers”, even though Paramount won’t release those two films.
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/disney-distribute-marvels-avengers-iron-31061
A little more complex than that, Mary… Disney is buying back distribution from Par. And no doubt, they will bill the productions for their own distribution fees as well.
They are paying against a minimum that project international grossed over a billion on the two films combined.
Whole thing is a little weird, really. But Disney seems to believe it is a much better international marketer than Par… and 3 billion $ grossers in the last 18 months suggests they may be right.
LEXG
As profiled in today’s edition of The Guardian.
BOW.
Happy to be left out of it, Lex.
Curious about whether the reporter even tried to talk to you. Not surprisingly, Wells made it all about himself… the only subject he really cares about.
David: You sound… betrayed.
He did try to get in touch. I blew him off like a douche, as always. Anyway, sorry I didn’t give him a quote now, I probably would’ve come off better. I suck at this kinda thing, and am pretty shy and fragile by nature. Anyway, sorry to co-opt, back to the topic…
LexG: Do you still have the same old e-mail address? Want to send you a link to something you might find helpful/interesting.
found the LexG in the newspaper ..
now LexG is famous worldwide he can do a
dp/30 with K.Stew.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/jul/24/internet-anonymity-trolling-tim-adams
joe… i have been betrayed by wells in the past… but again, happy not to be involved on this one…
I actually should have read the Guardian piece before making the snarky comment. I was trying to make a joke — suggesting you felt betrayed by LexG because he didn’t mention you by name — before seeing that LexG isn’t quoted at all. D’oh. Sorry. Seriously.
Back to the topic, how about those crazy worldwide grosses??? Potter at 834 million(!!!)…I’m not sure a film will ever break past 800 as fast, as least for decades. I think we can agree, the era of domestic box office is officially over after this summer, where “flops” like Pirates 4 and Panda 2 are massive successes financially.
Trannies 3 at 882 mil, blowing past Trannies 2 worldwide. I’m not sure that “Disney performs better internationally than anyone” pitch to Marvel stands up as much as it did before this summer after Panda 2 and Trannies 3’s gargantuan hauls along with “Thor’s” success. Other than “Pirates,” what can Disney point to lately? Even Fox, which is having a horrible year domestically, has outdone the Mouse House internationally. It’s the top dog when it comes to international, as the last Narnia movie shows.
Disney’s 2nd biggest live-action success of 2011? “I Am Number Four.”
According to Mojo, THE UNDEFEATED fell 63 percent plus this weekend, despite four added screens…
No word on when they’re going to drop the “un” from the title.
Félicitations à Sony Classics pour le maintien d’un Woody à Paris
JKill: But just you wait till it hits 1,000 screens. Then you’ll see. You’ll ALL see. 🙂
Funny how all that bluster has turned to crickets.
LexG, glad to read you are still around. You announced you were having an extremely bad time recently.
The era of domestic box office for mega-movies was “over” a decade ago.
There is nothing really new about Potters numbers. They will be a slight improvement over past numbers in the franchise both here and overseas.
And yet, don’t discount the significance of the US market. That’s the overreaction we usually see in the media. The US is not the all-or-nothing market it was in the past. But the money still counts, failure here can still mean – in the case of Pirates – $50 million less coming back to the studio.
They are going to go for the LOTR crowd and rename it “The Feeted”
THE NOT-IT: NOWHERE AND BACK AGAIN
Just saw Melancholia, which is playing at the Laemmle’s in West Hills…
AWESOME movie. Von Trier rules.
Plus, he understands Hitler. So hes got that going for him.
Thought you were joking and looked it up… It IS playing out there. What? How did this happen, and why is it happening? What did I miss about the official release?
Could it be an Academy qualifying run so Magnolia can go day and date with VOD when they “really” release it?
WTF?!?!?
….and why did Magnolia open “Melancholia” at an out of the way L.A. location, (seemingly) sans advertising; and why is it only showing once a day for, I’m guessing, a one-week run? And what ever could this mean for the future of the film?
I (naturally) assumed it would be having its North American premiere in Toronto, and its U.S. premiere at the NYFF a month later.
This sounds like the strategy a lot of doc filmmakers use for Oscar- qualifying runs: stealth, cost-cutting openings at far-flung locations strictly to appease the Oscar rule book.
Does anyone know the true story behind this bizarro “release”?
So….
Even though it lost 85 screens, Midnight in Paris actually grew its box office by 1.2%, the only film in the top 25 to register an increase. Its total is now just under $45 million, with $50 million a lock.
As is a Best Picture Oscar nomination.
One thing I’ve noticed about its performance is how consistently high its Thursday-to-Friday and Friday-to-Saturday jumps have been, and this weekend was no exception, with leaps of 57.7% and 58.2% respectively. Incredible, and much higher than anything else in the top 10.
And on the subject of the top 10 – its MiP’s 11th weekend, and it’s still there, in 10th place. The next best performers are Cars 2 and Bad Teacher, both into their 5th weeks.
Finally, the rolls of the vanquished:
Larry Crowne
Monte Carlo
Mr Popper’s Penguins
Green Lantern
Super 8
X-Men First Class
Kung Fu Panda 2
Hangover 2
Pirates of the Caribbean
Bridesmaids
Priest
Thor
Jumping the Broom
Something Borrowed
Fast Five
Water For Elephants
Tyler Perry’s Blah Blah Blah
Rio
Soul Surfer
Tangled
Movieman, it is a qualifying run, which will clear VOD before theatrical without disqualifying the film for Oscar.
@ Steven Kaye:With $1B for Pirates and $600M for Panda and Fast Five worldwide, as well as $165M domestic for Bridesmaids, they must be so jealous of MiP $45M domestic and $34M international.
I hate it when LexG sees a film before I do … cue the ennui
“Friends With Benefits opened less than “No Strings Attached” and several other R-rated comedies in this years, maybe because “Friends With Benefits” has more nude scenes than those other R-rated comedies. (Mila Kunis used body double to do the nude scene, though)
In US, many mainstream audience want lead actresses to keep their clothes on when they do sex scenes. (ie. Kristen Wiig still wears a bra in her sex scene in “Bridesmaids”)”
I didn’t even know there were any nude scenes in FWB, so unless the prude’s Paul Revere sweep across the nation shouting “ONE IF BY LAND! TWO IF BY SEA! I SAY THERE BE TITTIES IN FWB!”, what the hell would tip off “mainstream audiences” on the opening weekend?
“Maybe Sony should set up a lunch for Will Gluck with Adam Sandler”
Why? Sandler is doing just fine without Gluck.
And as for fart jokes, he’s done plenty of films without ’em.
MK shows her feet in almost every single scene.
AWESOME.
Why do you get everything backwards Maxim?
“With $1B for Pirates and $600M for Panda and Fast Five worldwide, as well as $165M domestic for Bridesmaids, they must be so jealous of MiP $45M domestic and $34M international.”
Oh, they’ve certainly done well, bulldog; but I’m sure there are at least a few people who worked on those pieces of shite who, deep down, would love to be involved with a film that was both successful AND a work of art.
Thanks, Ray.
I kind of figured it was something like that.
Sort of like when that Roman Polanski doc played for a week at a Harlem ‘plex prior to its HBO airing.
“I’m sure there are at least a few people who worked on those pieces of shite who, deep down, would love to be involved with a film that was both successful AND a work of art.”
Steven Kaye: So, again, I’ll ask: did YOU work on MiP, or are you just a crazed fanboy?
Regarding FWB, how often does the second movie with the same plot do better? Not to mention Natalie Portman’s a bigger movie star than JT or Mila.
@Steven Kaye: “I’m sure there are at least a few people who worked on those pieces of shite who, deep down, would love to be involved with a film that was both successful AND a work of art.”
Really? It’s hard to pick up intent in text sometimes, but i get the vibe from you that because they made money, they’re shit. Panda and Bridesmaids was embraced by the critics just like MiP. Tangled was released in November for Christsake. Fast Five actually was a turn for the better. And do you really want to lump stuff like Green Lantern and Rio and Madea in with a Woody Allen film? Really?
For someone who has been touting an intellectual stance on film and having a serious woody for Woody, you of all people should understand the concept of you can like one film without tearing down others, especially such a broad list that you have put up as “shite”, when that said list reflects various levels of quality and in no shape or form can any sensible film person describe them all that way.
“Other than pirates, what can Disney point to lately”
Well depends on what you mean by lately but Alice, Cars 2, Tron, Tangled, Toy Story 3 all perfomed very strongly overseas, topping some impressive domestic numbers. If Fox looks like their outperforming anyone internationally its simply because their domestic numbers are so low. I’m not a fan of Disney films but I find their no budget over $35 or under $150 strategy intriguing, especially since it seems to be paying off well even with misfires like Prince of Persia and Sorcerer’s Apprentice and the outright cratering of Moms needs Mars.
Mary: If “Cave of Forgotten Dreams” hasn’t been released on VOD yet, then what would be the significance of it outgrossing all films that received simultaneous theatrical/VOD releases in the U.S.?
Krillian, Armageddon and Bug’s Life (both version two of their respective plots) outgrossed Deep Impact and Antz (both version one of their respective plots).
Warners got a cash cow in Harry Potter, but I wonder what they will do with franchise next. Do they wait ten years when all the fans starting having their own little wizards to do a total reboot? They do not have a prequel like “The Hobbit” to keep the franchise alive. Do they have the rights to do any type of spin off? Would JK be open to any of those suggestions? It just seems weird for Hollywood just to let the franchise go.
Personally, I have no fight in this since I am not a fan or a hater of the Potter. Just curious if anyone has any idea what Warner will do next? Do they even have remake rights? It isn’t like JK needs the money.
They can’t do squat without JKR’s approval, so that decision is up to her.
$80.9 million worldwide. Significantly, Midnight in Paris has already TRIPLED Vicky Cristina Barcelona’s take in Argentina and Brazil.