| Film | Weekend | Purr | Total | |
| 1 | The Karate Kid | $56,000,000 | $15,288 | $56,000,000 |
| 2 | The A-Team | $26,000,000 | $7,355 | $26,000,000 |
| 3 | Shrek Forever After | $15,800,000 (-38.0%) | $4,085 | $210,052,000 |
| 4 | Get Him to the Greek | $10,100,000 (-42.5%) | $3,738 | $36,500,000 |
| 5 | Killers | $8,170,000 (-48.4%) | $2,858 | $30,670,000 |
| 6 | Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time | $6,600,000 (-52.9%) | $2,124 | $72,300,000 |
| 7 | Marmaduke | $6,000,000 (-48.3%) | $1,867 | $22,278,000 |
| 8 | Sex and the City 2 | $5,525,000 (-55.2%) | $2,009 | $84,745,000 |
| 9 | Iron Man 2 | $4,550,000 (-42.5%) | $1,974 | $299,311,000 |
| 10 | Splice | $2,860,000 (-61.3%) | $1,167 | $13,071,000 |
This just in: Hot monkey love.
When I wrote my summer predictions, which have already proved – as they were meant to – how woefully wrong I can be, I targeted The Karate Kid as the breakout non-sequel hit. When I wrote my column Friday I thought it would get trumped by The A-Team. Shows you what I know. I thought the film would be a slow and steady, but this could parallel the numbers and success of The Hangover, in that it could play all summer. Next week – how it weathers Toy Story 3, which has some but not all of the same audience – will show if this is a $100 Million dollar grosser, or a $200 Million dollar grosser.
The A-Team is an action movie with large, stupid action that the trailers advertised. For some reason it didn’t click. There appears to be little cultural currency to the title, and the cast aren’t necessarily stars. Bradley Cooper is still just a year off The Hangover, Liam Neeson a year off of Taken, and Sharlto Copley a year off of District 9. This film came together fast. Fox may be able to get it to $100, but it’s going to have to not drop a lot next week. Jonah Hex is direct competition, but it’s also supposedly terrible – though exceptionally short. Sounds like the junket is better than the movie. Hopefully A-Team plays internationally, but it’s weird that Fox couldn’t open it. They’re not having a great year so far. Marmaduke is bombing, they’re still on a limp trying to get Date Night to $100 Million (they’re at $96 Million, and made half a mil this weekend). Knight and Day is tracking weak, and they haven’t whipped fanboys into a frenzy over Predators, which should be an easy sell. What’s up with that?
Shrek 4 cleared $200 this weekend, though next week’s just a big nut-punch for the guy. At this point, $230 seems like a right stopping point, but it could get to $250 if it doesn’t lose all its Imax and 3-D. Get Him to the Greek is playing as well as could be hoped for after last weekend. It could hang out for a while, and it was reasonably cheap… unlike Killers, which was not cheap, and did not hit. Also depressing: the Prince of Persia numbers, which have not gotten any better for anyone. International is stronger (it’s at $190 Million, so $262 all in), but it may be wiped out by soccer. I’ve seen a lot of people giving a shit stateside about the World Cup, so that may have hurt The A-Team‘s numbers, but I think a lot of people probably watched the USA-England game, but when it ended in a tie that may have sent them on their way. Sex and the City 2 has a good shot of just getting to $100 domestic, and it has done over $100 internationally. The “paycheck” nature of this film will likely keep it from being the middle chapter (the film was expensive because everyone got paid), and the cast is getting too old for this shit. But Hollywood doesn’t like leaving money on the table if they can help it, so a third film will be all about keeping the budget down if they go for it.
Iron Man 2 is less than a million away from $300, but will not best Alice in Wonderland‘s domestic total, and so far it’s the summer’s only unqualified hit, though The Karate Kid should join those ranks. Robin Hood (at #11) is less than half a million away from $100. Splice is not getting loved, but could still find an audience on home video. next week promises one of the monsters of the summer with Toy Story 3. But the mantra of the summer seems to be – for most movie fans – Inception and Scott Pilgrim.
18 comments
How is Scott Pilgrim even in the conversation? Are movie fans and general audiences the same thing? I'm not aware of any buzz coming from that second group…or even much of that first one outside of the CHUD "Kiss of Death" hype.
We'll have to see if THIS Karate – ahem, Kung Fu – Kid can replicate the original's Box Office. I guess it would have to do about 200mil or more for that right? The thing is, with setting this in China, what they going to do with the sequel – come to America? Glad to see Marmaduke, City and Persia struggle. Happy to see Iron Man 2 make it to 300 too.
In the grand scheme of things, movie grosses don't mean a thing to me, but you've made this one of my favorite things to read during the week, Dre. Really digging the Friday editions with the analyzations.
As above….
Karate Kid kicked the shit out of The A-Team? Seriously, WTF?!!! I guess Will Smith's mission to make his son famous has succeeded after all. I really hope that Inception ends up being the biggest hit of the summer besides Toy Story 3. I feel like it's starting to reach Matrix-sized levels of hype and while it may not have a huge opening weekend, it should play all summer long based on critical acclaim alone. I also find it very strange that Predators opens in less than a month and it has absolutely zero hype. I really hope it's good but I'm starting to get nervous. Fox is really having a shit year, but they could probably give a shit less and are still coasting on Avatar's box-office raping.
I was kinda hoping The A-Team would win the weekend just because I feel like I already know how the story to The Karate Kid would play out. It will be on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network eventually if not The Hallmark Channel. And yeah you're right Dellamorte, I'm dying to see both Inception and Scott Pilgrim (of which the latter I doubt will play well with audiences not in the know, a lot of them will probably say "but I already skipped Speed Racer…"). That and you have to wonder about Michael Cera fatigue (which I hope is replaced with I-wanna-bang-Mary Elizabeth Winstead-itis). I thought Prince of Persia was something of a sure bet even as a friend of mine told me in the game the hero is a stone cold killer (in a way not unlike Assassin's Creed). Oh well, I'm off to see Splice since I missed it last weekend!
My summer starts with Toy Story 3 (appetizer), continues with Inception (entree), and concludes with Scott Pilgrim (dessert).
You need to appeal to women and families to have a hit these days. Guys just don't go to movies on their own anymore, so chasing the audience that made all those '80's action movies hits is a mistake. A-Team had little to no appeal for chicks or little kids so it's no surprise it didn't do business.
I think a lot of people are setting themselves up for disappointment if "Inception" doesn't turn out to be TEH BEST MOVIE EVER!!11! and ends up being "merely" good. The trailers have all been great but if it's as cerebral as it seems that doesn't exactly scream "box office hit to me," especially during the summer months. Hopefully it's very good and does well financially.
I swear I posted a comment a few hours ago about how "Scott Pilgrim" really isn't going to matter in the summer box office race and how it's just going to be the next (in an alarmingly long list) movie to receive the CHUD Kiss of Death/Stamp of Approval…
I think that these two movies are in direct competition, even though it doesn't seem that way. I'm a little surprised box office analysis didn't pick up on this. The A-Team and The Karate Kid are movies that have the same fanbase they had back in the 80's. The difference is, many of that fanbase has grown up and had kids of their own. So those nostalgic fans flocked to The Karate Kid instead of A-Team because it's family friendly, eating away at The A-Team's opening numbers. When I read early predictions for the Karate Kid, I was surprised. I expected a 52 million dollar opening for Kid (pretty close), sweeping A-Team's legs.
But I also think both movies would have benefited by not opening against each other. I'm pretty sure each movie would had a 10-12 million dollar increase on their weekend numbers.
It's 'draw' not 'tie'. It's also 'football' not 'soccer' but I think that one's a losing battle.
Talking about how much money a movie makes is the dumbest thing I have ever heard of.
Inception is going to clean up. The trailer alone for that movie is more entertaining than most features this year. I saw "The girl with the dragon tattoo" last night in a packed house i Charlotte, Nc and the audience loved it. 2 hours and 32 minutes of subtitles and I was just blown away at how well constructed it was. There are a few very disturbing scenes in this film that I wonder if they will let Fincher get away with in the remake, but I hope they do because it adds so many layers to everything that comes after. I was just stunned at how good it was. It completely lived up to the hype. I haven't read the books, but i'm going to get the first one this week. As a side note, this movie was playing in one theater in Charlotte, and it's a big one, i'd say 250-300 easy and it was 90 % full for the 8:15 last night. There wasn't a single walk out and there was clapping at the end. It played gangbusters here in the deep south. I guess we're not all mouth breathing morons here after all. There was also a trailer for a film called "Lebanon" which they say is the 'Das Boot' of tank films. Anyone heard of that? It looks interesting.
On a side note: Seriously, what gives with the upcoming PREDATORS??? Virtually no hype for a movie that comes out in just a month or so and with Robert Rodriguez attached which I thought all fanboys thought it was great he was attached to the project??? Is the studio responsible for PREDATORS going for a "More is less" angle or what??
Here's the thing about FOX and the bombing of the A-team and Lack of predators marketing. Tom rothman has been getting a lot of flack for years now but it finally reached critical mass when no talented directors of any sort wanted anything to do with fox. Rothman has had to lay off with his micromanaging and movie ruining bullshit and bring in talented people to make films for the studio so that he gets a better rep around town. But really he doesn't want any of these flicks to actually succeed so he can say "Fuck you! Told you so! Back to pumping out Chipmunk & Garfield sequels and bad comic book & video game films because MY WAY makes fucking money, cunteroos ". In other words what you are seeing with the A-team and Predators is geek friendly films being shat on so that Rothman can get complete control of these films again. Knight and day doesn't count because Tom cruise and his scientology quacks will cut Rothman up in pieces if he fucks up the marketing.. Food for conspiracy thought.
The same audience that didn't turn up to see Kick Ass will be the same audience that doesn't turn up for Scott Pilgrim. I am not the audience for either, and the word of mouth for Kick Ass was not good so I avoided it. With that logic, the general consensus would be that Scott Pilgrim will get people into the seats the first week when it is the 'movie 'u jour' but it will probably fail at the BO unless word of mouth on it is good, which seeing the trailers so far is most unlikely
I know that Edgar Wright makes good movies. But Scott Pilgrim has the worst lead in Hollywood taking it down by the short hairs…that and the fact that the trailer reminded me of the final scene of Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back means that I will only see it on cable and that is if people really tell me it is great.
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