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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Friday Estimates by Repeating U Klady

Friday Estimates 2013-06-29 at 9.39.13 AM

The Summer of Surviving Your Hits™ adds another sure hit and another “wait until international” film this weekend, as The Heat got off to a slightly better start than Ms. McCarthy’s Identity Thief and is likely looking at a weekend just over $40 million, pretty much assuring that the Sandra Bullock-shared comedy will become Fox’s #1 in-house (non-DWA, I mean) domestic grosser of the year and potentially bigger than Epic worldwide as well. (Note: DWA’s The Croods got to a surprising $577m worldwide number, making it Top 10 for a first-of-a-franchise animation all-time.)

Flip side, White House Down didn’t find the hook for a wider audience – aka women – and while it could still end up somewhere around $100m domestic, Roland Emmerich’s foreign muscle is going to have to come on strong, even with the White House as a focus being a potential international hindrance. My personal take? You don’t invite the ladies to come, the ladies don’t come. If there were ads somewhere that featured the daughter, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and a balance of talking and action, I didn’t see them.

Monsters University is a monster for Pixar, pacing behind only Toy Story 3. Expect a slowdown when Despicable Me 2 hits the market, but still, huge success for PIxar, even if the sequel business seems crude for the artists of Emeryville.

Then there are the two testosterone specials in the middle of the summer. (Doesn’t Iron Man 3 seem like a lifetime ago?) Neither Man of Steel or World War Z is a world beater, but it’s now clear that WB and their partners will clear the red ink. $300m domestic is possible, though not assured. And international will be over $250m, perhaps as much as $325m. So while they are not likely to be in green in theatrical, most of post-theatrical will be profit. WWZ has a higher bar to hit. The domestic should be close to $200m – almost covering worldwide marketing costs – and then the weight of success is on international, where the hurdle is probably $100m too high to actually work out for the film… but with Brad Pitt and a movie that isn’t wordy, one never knows.

Also in the “just on the edge” category are Star Trek: Into Darkness and Epic. Profitable but still sequally disappointing is The Hangover III (now over $325m worldwide). Now You See Me did surprisingly well domestically, but the budget on the film has it waiting for international numbers to try to make it clearly profitable. After Earth and The Internship are money-losers.

And the clear winners so far are Iron Man 3 ($1.2b), Fast & Furious 6 ($670m), The Great Gatsby ($313m), Man of Steel ($422m) and This Is The End ($68m domestic with low foreign expectations), with The Heat likely to join the group.

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34 Responses to “Friday Estimates by Repeating U Klady”

  1. Oh, no! Lawrence Anyways has bombed!

  2. chris says:

    Great point about “White House Down.” Watching the movie, I was surprised Gyllenhaal’s Bonnie Bedelia role was bigger than the cameo the trailer seemed to suggest it was.
    And, personal feelings aside (I didn’t like it, quite a bit), I suspect the box office has more bad news in sight next week with the overlong, convoluted “Lone Ranger.”

  3. Uh says:

    Budget for HANGOVER III was 130+. Not including marketing.

  4. David Poland says:

    Not sure of your point, Uh.

  5. movieman says:

    After seeing “Desperate Me 2,” I still think it’s going to under-perform a la “Kung Fu Panda 2.”
    And unlike “KFP,” it’s just not very good. The whole thing just felt very, very mild and is pretty much instantly forgettable.
    Since the Minions are clearly the best thing in the movie (as well as the focus of Universal’s marketing campaign), I don’t know why they just didn’t make this a Minion vehicle and dispense with Gru entirely.
    I guess we’ll see what happens next weekend.
    Sorry to hear that about “L/Ranger,” Chris. Yet I can’t say that I’m terribly surprised either. They’re not even screening it until Monday nite in Cleveland (less than 24 hours before its first public performance).
    Sad that “WHD” didn’t open better. It’s 100 times better than “Olympus Has Fallen,” and as good an old-fashioned popcorn movie as I’ve seen in quite some time.

  6. Gus says:

    Going to hope that Gustavo’s comment is not sarcastic but I agree – it is a deep, deep shame that such an incredible, diverse, emotionally rich film from someone who was only 23 at the time the film was made (!!!!!!) isn’t being greeted with trumpets from the critical community. Lawrence Anyways is a staggering piece of work. Even if it is uneven and overlong (criticisms to which I would concede), its depth and beauty seems inarguable to me. And again, it’s a period piece made by a person who never lived in that period, about a life experience the writer/director has not personally had. And he’s 24. It is just stunning in so many ways.

  7. Geoff says:

    Ok can we now anoint Morgan Freeman as an official box office draw?? Dude has been in three hits this year (Now You See Me, Oblivion, Olympus Has Fall) and I get that he was not the actual star of any of them, but he has been used VERY prominently in the advertising for each one, even right there with Cruise in Oblivion. And he’s all over the trailer for Last Vegas….I get the sense that focus groups show him to be a comforting presence to audiences no matter the genre.

    And I think it’s funny that ‘See Me is gonna do what two other Jesse Eisenberg WOM hits that audiences LOVED (Zombieland, The Social Network) could not do which is gross $100 million domestic.

    White House Down is a disappointment but what did Sony expect releasing it on this date? You have WWZ, Man of Steel, and there’s absolutely zero breathing room with Lone Ranger and Pacific Rim coming out over the next two weeks – I’m gathering the best release date for them would have been just when Olympus Has Fallen came out, in March or April.

    And yeah Dave, I don’t see how Hangover III (how the hell did that movie cost $130 million??) and Great Gatsby are that much more profitable than STID or Man of Steel….I gotta think Leo got some serious points for ‘Gatsby and same for the stars of Hangover, but who knows?

  8. Dr Wally Rises says:

    People wrote off STID too early, it’s holding like a champ and will be within 10m or so of the original by the time it’s done domestically. My best guess is that Paramount will try their best to work around Abram’s Lucasfilm commitments and ask him to direct the next one for the franchise’s 50th Anniversary in 2016.

  9. anghus says:

    “People wrote off STID too early, it’s holding like a champ and will be within 10m or so of the original by the time it’s done domestically”

    You think there’s another 20 million dollars in box office for STID? It did a nice job of sticking around and closing the gap, but i doubt itll finish near 250 million. Its on 1000 screens and losing them fast.

    Hard to see STID as a win. With all the goodwill from the franchise relaunch, to not match the domestic box office even with inflated IMAX and 3D ticket prices? It’s not a loss by any stretch, but i think there were some who believed Star Trek could be a 500 million dollar+ global franchise. As is, the franchise is about as valuable as GI Joe. Actually, that’s not even true. GI Joe moves toys.

    I for one would love to see an Abrams-less Trek movie by someone who would tone down the action in favor of something more cerebral. I’m not asking for The Motion Picture, but i would love to see somebody come in and give Star Trek a massive boost to the intelligence quotient.

  10. “Going to hope that Gustavo’s comment is not sarcastic”

    Definetely NOT sarcastic. 😉

    I watched it two days ago and its melancholy still resonates within me.

  11. LexG says:

    Always kind of amused how guys who must be legit critics clock in here and cutesily “break embargo” with a toss-off comment dissing an upcoming huge movie, usually as an ego thing to let us all know they saw it first (see, chris above, but others do it too.) Similarly, and no offense because I like movieman a lot, but I never know why he doesn’t just pull a Leydon and shamelessly link to his reviews, since he capsulizes them here for us every Saturday.

  12. LexG says:

    Poland going on about “the women” not coming out to see WHD fails to address the Tatum issue with “bros.” Have “dudes” embraced CT yet? I know movie bloggers LOVE the guy because he works with Soderbergh and because he proved funny and earnest in 21JS… But go to ANY IMDB-type mouth-breather board, or poll any of the guy’s-guys bros in your office what they think of Channing Tatum, they’ll laugh you out of the fucking galaxy for not calling the guy a “weak bitch” or a “terrible actor” or a “phony wigger.” He’s still in that “getting used to” period for male audiences where they don’t feel comfortable with him. Not saying that’s right, because it’s moronic, but guys over 30 (ie, the guys who worship DIE HARD) are always slowwwww on the draw to embrace a new leading man. They still think of him as their sister’s Tiger Beat clippings.

  13. berg says:

    Lone Ranger was great, and I have to say that the rabbits work a bit of magic

  14. eric mayher says:

    Not to excuse White House Downs performance so far but it is having to compete with Man of Steel, WWZ, This Is the End, and the movies that follow like The Lone Ranger and Pacific Rim. The Heat is the first primarily female targeted movie since the Great Gatsby and there is nothing on the schedule, except maybe The Conjuring on July 19th, since women do seem to like horror. And yes is there is a dude problem with Tatum. Sad how insecure so many so called macho men are. He’s not going to start stripping in this movie guys.

  15. Joe Leydon says:

    LexG: Few people are as shameless as me. Remember: I am America’s White Trash Film Critic.

  16. Joe Leydon says:

    Berg: And there’s the Buster Keaton homages.

    http://www.movingpictureblog.com/2013/06/silent-general-inspires-lone-ranger.html

    (See, LexG: No shame at all.)

  17. LexG says:

    Leydon rules.

    Where’s the per-screen numbers for MANIAC?

  18. palmtree says:

    I second the Morgan Freeman comment. Whenever he shows up, the audience just thinks, “Damn, this movie’s legit.” Hell, even his voice is a box office draw (March of the Penguins).

  19. chris says:

    Actually, I was saying “White House Down” may not be the last biggie to go down ignominiously, Lex, in the spirit of exchanging ideas about movie box office in, you know, a movie box office thread. It does absolutely nothing for my ego to have seen it, anymore than it would for you not to have.

  20. Joe Leydon says:

    Freeman is like Michael Caine: People hire both of them to provide an instant aura of class for their films. And when they’re cast together… well, I bet Now You See Me would have made even more money if they’d had more scenes together.

  21. palmtree says:

    Joe, so what you’re saying is that Christopher Nolan is a casting genius.

  22. Bulldog68 says:

    Now if Joseph Gordon Levitt had the Jesse Eisenberg role…

  23. anghus says:

    Lex, i see your point on Tatum. I remember seeing him GI Joe, which was the first big movie i can remember seeing him in, and thinking this guy had no skills at all. And people kept saying “no, you need to see him in A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints.” It was 21 Jump Street that made me like Tatum.

    And embargoes are hilariously ignored. The online critic types will compliment a film or condemn it on twitter, which apparently is not ‘official’.

  24. Bulldog68 says:

    The Channing all over your Tatum bit is fucking hilarious dawgs.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPOUgobWTT0

    But respect is very difficult to earn after you have starred in Dear John and The Vow. They weren’t just romantic comedies which may be more forgivable in these “dudes” books. They were all out Romance movies, 100% lovey dovey stuff. “Dudes” don’t dig that.

  25. Joe Leydon says:

    Bulldog: Yes, but I bet a lot more people of both sexes remember Ryan Gosling for The Notebook than for Drive.

  26. brack says:

    Comparing Tatum to Gosling is funny. It’s like comparing apples to oranges.

  27. Joe Leydon says:

    But what about comparing The Notebook to The Vow?

  28. Hallick says:

    “Freeman is like Michael Caine: People hire both of them to provide an instant aura of class for their films.”

    Who would the female equivalent of this be? Helen Mirren? Judy Dench? Is there an American example?

  29. Nick Rogers says:

    Women far outnumbered men at the WHITE HOUSE DOWN screening I was at, which has to be all about Channing Tatum. As for LONE RANGER, yes, in the 20 minutes it’s emulating classic silent-film slapstick, it is one of the best films of the summer. What a pity about the other 129.

  30. jesse says:

    White House Down definitely seemed like it had a date problem — as in release date, not date-movie, because I’m not so sure you need to show off Maggie Gyllenhaal to sell a Channing Tatum movie to ladies. This seems like a perfect August sell — right down to the Air Force One parallels. I guess 2 Guns took the meat-and-potatoes-no-3D-action-flick-with-movie-stars August slot this year, but didn’t White House Down call June before 2 Guns called August? Must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time. But yeah, between Man of Steel, World War Z, Monsters (mostly for kids, sure, but kids who were young when the first one came out are White House Down-appropriate ages now and might still be into this for nostalgia — plus in general I think Pixar tends to get further beyond the family crowd than most animation, in that most of my thirtysomething friends go see Pixar movies and they certainly do not all go see everything from DreamWorks or even regular Disney) (cue Lex bemoaning the pussification of everyone), and the next few weeks of big releases, White House Down is probably just one more movie than a lot of guys OR girls are going to flock to in such a short period. Not to mention it opens opposite a DIFFERENT buddy-action comedy, The Heat, even though the latter is way more comedy than action.

    Actually, though White House Down is an enjoyable enough Die Hard knockoff (certainly moreso than Olympus; Die Hard 5 must’ve traumatized a lot of people for Olympus Has Fallen to even get the faintest glimmer of “it’s actually a pretty decent Die Hard-type flick” buzz earlier this year), I feel like it was kind of a missed opportunity that Foxx and Tatum aren’t really a buddy duo for a lot of the movie. It was sold that way; it was mentioned as sort of a buddy thing when they were making the movie; and those parts of the movie are fun. So why does it spend 140 minutes to get them into like five or six scenes together? Why not make that the movie? Is Emmerich so beholden to his own formula?

    Though I have to say: much of the first half-plus of WHD qualifies as restrained and borderline witty compared to other Emmerich movies (and I don’t really have a problem with him; you could just tell that he didn’t write this one).

    Is Lone Ranger really not that fun? It looks really neat in the trailers. I was hoping the fresh start away from Pirates but still including Depp and Verbinski would result in something less convoluted, storywise, than any of the Pirates movies — the first one wears it better, but all three of Verbinski’s are exhausting on a story level. Although at least with the Lone Ranger and Tonto, you’re at least assured that there (probably?) won’t be a bunch of meaningless side-switching and undermining each other — stuff that was fun in the first Pirates but became knotty and tedious in the later ones. Verbinski has such a way with elaborate action sequence design, and Rango was so much fun, that I have probably unreasonably high hopes for this one.

  31. Nick Rogers says:

    jesse: Nearly all of the neat stuff, as you adeptly put it, comes from the first or final 10 minutes or so. The framework they use seemed awesome at first blush to me — a way to examine the power of heroism as something in time immemorial. But that’s quickly abandoned in favor of a wildly discordant tone that picks and chooses what’s worthy of homage in the Lone Ranger legacy and what’s worthy of satirical modern-day scorn. At least Verbinski will always have his great Western in Rango.

  32. LexG says:

    I know in my heart Lone Ranger is going to be great.

  33. brack says:

    “But what about comparing The Notebook to The Vow?”

    You can, but that wasn’t what you were doing. You were talking about how people remember or accept these actors in various roles. You mentioned Drive, which I would say plenty of people have discovered the film since it’s been on Netflix streaming for over a year.

    Gosling goes for a variety of roles, takes risks, and isn’t looking to be an A list box office draw. Plus Drive is such a bad ass film and I can’t see anyone else playing that role. Tatum is trying to be an A list star, or at least his agent or whoever thinks he can be. Women like him, but I personally don’t think he’s much or an actor or has a cool factor that would attract a male audience consistently.

    Plus isn’t Jamie Foxx in this movie as well? He’s got a decent track record. Not to sound racist, but I thought more black audiences would be coming out for this. Perhaps the white guy saving the black guy angle wasn’t that appealing.

  34. anghus says:

    i hope Lone Ranger is fun. I had a friend who said this the other day after seeing it:

    “A Tim Burton movie with Hans Zimmer scoring instead of Danny Elfman… that is what a Gore Verbinski film is anyone ever asks.”

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