The Weekly Box Office Commentary: Holy F***ing S**t! Edition

The weekend estimates are in, and all I can say is wow. Just wow. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest is breaking records left and right. Apart from biggest opening weekend ever (at $132 million), it managed biggest opening day ever ($50 million), and if the estimates hold, it'll be the first movie ever to cross the $100 million line in two days. Wow, just wow. Hard to say how much money the flick will ultimately make, but rest assured it will be quite a lot. Though, X-Men: The Last Stand, which also opened to over $100 million earlier this year, took a nasty beating in subsequent weeks, and looks to end up with a comparatively paltry $230 million total. The word of mouth was mixed at best, though; if PotC is better received, $400 million is not out of the question. Non-probable, but not out of the question.

Superman apparently returned a bit too soon, as it took a nasty 58% drop, making "only" $22 million in its second week, for a grand total of $141 million (which PoTC almost made in a mere three days!). Not very good news for what supposedly is the world's most famous comic book character. Here's a brief list of superheroes beating Superman: Batman, Spider-Man, X-Men, Jesus.

An Inconvenient Truth is chugging along, having moved up to fourth highest grossing documentary, at about $15 million. At some point a few months ago I made the prediction it would end up with about $25 million, good for third place overall, which I think will hold.

In other box office news, the star power that is David Hasselhoff propels Click over the $100 million, making it the Hoff's second $100 million hit in a row, following 2004's Dodgeball.

The Weekly Box Office Commentary

Happy July 5th! No one celebrating July 5th? Okay then.
The latest box office numbers are in, and apparently Superman has returned, bringing in 74 million over the extended weekend^[1]. About time too, apparently the movie has been in the making for some 10 years and ended up costing 260 million dollars (of which at least 100 million had been spent before filming even began!). It doesn't beat the two Spider-Man flicks or the latest X-Men one, but it's a not too shabby number nevertheless.

An Inconvenient Truth brought in $2.6 million, moving the Truth up to the fifth highest grossing documentary of all time.

Other than that, not too much of interest. Other than The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift is making way too much money. I opted out of that franchise after...the first movie, and the idea that the box office returns may well secure the production of a fourth fast and furious flick...oh, the horror, the horror.

^[1] July 4th is Independence Day in the US, making Friday - Tuesday a five day weekend.

The Weekly Box Office Commentary

Here's another new pseudoweekly feature, wherein I'll comment on the latest box office figures. I've already commented on box office numbers in at least one previous entry, though that was specifically for An Inconvenient Truth. I don't intend on writing longer dissertations on the inner workings of the box office, I suggest going to Box Office Prophets or Box Office Mojo for that. Rather, I plan on commenting on a select few movies currently in theaters that I find interesting.

The number one movie of the weekend is Click, Adam Sandler's 510^th hit movie in a row. To be honest, I never did understand the appeal of Sandler. I mean, his movies are fairly amusing, but box office gold? Nevertheless, it should come as no surprise that Click is a hit, as it also stars David 'The Hoff' Hasselhoff.

Speaking of overrated comedians^[1], Jack Black apparently also has a hit movie out called Nacho Libre. In two weeks, it's taken in about 52 million dollars.

Over all, this didn't appear to be a good movie-going weekend in the US.
The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift? Man, those Japanese horror movie really are scary!
Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties? Starring Academy Award nominated actor Bill Murray...my head almost exploded typing that.
The Lake House? Yeah, because we've all been clamouring for a romantic movie starring Keanu Reeves. "Woah! We'll. Always. Have. Paris! Duuuude!"

Outside of the top ten, An Inconvenient Truth is chugging along. It's now the seventh most successful documentary of all time, with more to come.

^[1] Sandler, not The Hoff!

Truth Doesn't Hurt

Okay, this blog is not turning into the Al Gore fanblog, but seeing the Friday box office estimates, I can't resist commenting on it.

In my last entry on Al Gore's global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, I noted the three day estimates for last weekend was very impressive. In fact, they turned out to be even better. For the four day weekend (Monday was Memorial Day in the US), the Truth took in $367,311 in 4 theaters.
This weekend, the Truth expanded into 77 theaters, and according to Showbizdata, the documentary took in an estimated $412,000 this Friday, good for ninth place. The Friday numbers indicates an overall weekend well over a million dollars. A very impressive number given the still very limited theater count.

In other box office news, X-Men 3 took a nasty 77% drop from last Friday. I predicted the movie would end up with about $350,000,000 in my previous post. Obviously that's not going to happen now.

Monday evening update: For the entire weekend, the Truth took in $1,356,387 according to Box Office Mojo. Very impressive.

A Convenient Truth

I'm a huge statistics nerd. I'm also a movie buff. In addition to that, I have a keen interest for politics. Ever so often, I get to combine the three. This entry is one such occasion.

This weekend Al Gore's global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth opened in limited release. According to Box Office Mojo, the movie took in an estimated $266,000 in four theaters over the weekend. Let's compare that with with another movie that opened this weekend, X-Men: The Last Stand. In 3,690 theaters, it took in an estimated $107,000,000 (these are three-day weekend numbers; Monday is Memorial Day in the US which essentially makes it a four-day weekend).
Of course, that's comparing apples to oranges. The Truth is a documentary. About your imminent death, no less. Not exactly blockbuster material.
The most profitable documentary ever, Fahrenheit 9/11, took in $119,194,771 in its entire (American) run. X-Men almost took in all that in a weekend.

The strategy for the release of the Truth (and many independent movies) is to build up word-of-mouth by first opening in limited release, and then expand into more theaters as the movie's reputation grows. With Hollywood blockbusters, it's the exact opposite; they open in as many theaters as possible in order to take in as much money in the first weekend as possible. That is to minimize the effect of bad word-of-mouth getting around too much and having too much of an impact on the box office (although, the X-Men flicks have typically been well liked, and I don't think the latest one will be an exception).

Where the Truth goes from here is anybody's guess. It did extremely well in it's opening weekend, and it's been getting excellent reviews pretty much all around. If it catches fire, it can be this year's March of the Penguins (the second most profitable documentary ever, with $77,413,017 in US box office). My prediction* is that the Truth ends up with about $25,000,000, good for third most profitable documentary ever.
And X-Men will end up with about $350,000,000.

* It should be noted I'm horribly bad at predictions.