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Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End took in approximately $37.7 million Saturday, for a three-day gross of $94.7 million. Expectations for the film’s weekend gross continue to drop. It now appears that the film will finish the five-day stretch in the $140 million neighborhood.
Guess the Gross will continue to update Pirates’ box office take throughout the Memorial Day weekend.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End took in between $33.8 and $43 million on Friday (depending on whose numbers you look at) for a two-day cume in the range from $55.8 to $57 million (somehow the math works for everyone here.)
These numbers mean that the film will have a shot at the three-day record held by Spider-Man 3, though it appears that the film will fall just short of Spider-Man 3’s three-day record and will take in approximately $175 million over its first five days of release. The long running time is contributing to the lower expectations, since the movie is playing to sold-out audiences around the country. In some places, the film is playing 24 hours a day.
Guess the Gross will continue to update Pirates’ box office take throughout the Memorial Day weekend.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End exploded on North American theatre screens Thursday night, taking in $17 million from the evening screenings.
Guess the Gross will continue to update Pirates’ box office take throughout the Memorial Day weekend.
Knocked Up: The Director of the 40 Year Old Virgin (Judd Apatow) + Great Buzz + Strong studio support + High powered marketing - No big name stars + No other comedies in the market = A good open, good legs, over $90 million domestic.
Gracie: Sports movie - No stars - No buzz + Good trailer + Low budget + Strong international appeal of soccer = Overall profitability but a quick trip to the scrap heap domestically.
Mr. Brooks: Kevin Costner comeback + Good early buzz + Older demographic appeal - Complicated plot - Serious marketing challenge = A mediocre opening weekend and a long life on DVD.
Hostel 2: Sequel + Cult following - Highly competitive weekend + Only horror in the market = Diminishing returns for a supposed franchiser thanks to a poor choice of opening weekend.
Oceans 13: Clooney + Pitt + Damon + Popular film series + First PG-13 new release in the market in month of June = Bigger than expected returns for the further adventures of Danny Ocean and crew.
Surf’s Up: Penguins + CGI + Happy Feet + March of the Penguins + two weeks after Pirates have sailed = The penguin extends it’s species 15 minutes of fame as a America’s favorite cute animal
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer: Sequel - Original stunk + Jessica Alba + Silver Surfer - Weak trailers + Strong studio support = Prospects may be improving for this troubled franchise unless the movie stinks as bad as the original.
I Could Never Be Your Woman: Michele Pfeiffer comeback - ZERO Buzz + Director of Clueless (Amy Heckerling) - Director hasn’t had a hit since Clueless - Paul Rudd leading man + Only adult romance in the market - Less than a month till opening and no trailer = Why is this movie being released wide in the Summer? Why is it being released wide at all? This one is dead on arrival.
Nancy Drew - Rising young star (Emma Roberts, Julia’s niece) + Popular book series + Good trailer - Live action family movie = Chance of a break out success but live action family films have struggled against animated films with more obvious kid appeal.
1408 - John Cusack + Samuel L. Jackson + Stephen King + Good buzz - Poor release date - Bad title = Rough going opposite a pair of younger skewing openers and King adaptations haven’t exactly been great at the box office; see Dreamcatcher.
Captivity: High profile controversy + Rising star (Elisha Cuthbert) - Backlash - Hostel 2 - Bad release date = Expect a weak opening thanks to heavy competition and a controvery driven marketing campaign that peaked to soon.
Dead Or Alive: Videogame movie - Awful buzz -Star Jamie Pressley crushing the movie in interviews - No star power - Already DOA Internationally = Dead On Arrival.
Evan Almighty: Massive budget - Bad buzz + Popular star (Steve Carell) + Sequel to the most profitable comedy ever made - No Jim Carrey + Morgan Freeman is back + No opening weekend competition = Should open well but buzz will likely crush it quickly unless director Tom Shadyac has something big up his sleeve that hasn’t been in the lackluster trailers.
September Dawn: What? - Who? - Why? = Box Office Mojo claims this one is opening wide across the country otherwise I would mention it.
You Kill Me: Great buzz + Great trailer - Ben Kingsley, leading man? + Luke Wilson = Like September Dawn, I wouldn’t mention it but for the fact that it may be opening on more than 1,000 screens. With a low budget and a platform release it could be buzzworthy but opening wide it will be chewed up and spat out by the summer blockbusters.
Live Free Or Die Hard: Bruce Willis + John McClain + Amazing Internet Buzz + Wednesday opening = The surprise blockbuster of the summer, if the internet is serious and not merely ironic about their buzz on this one we could be looking at a serious blockbuster of the $200+ million dollar variety.
Ratatouille: Disney + Pixar - Rats - French = Pixar’s first real marketing challenge, a rat against Penguins will lose every time. Will still open well but this one could be the first time Pixar comes in under 100 million.
Sicko: Michael Moore + Controversy - Tough subject (Health care) + George W. Bush + Protestors = Another success for Moore thanks to an unpopular president and angry protestors willing to do all of Moore’s marketing for him with their withering cries.
Another week and another release that will likely fly past $100 million in a mere three days. In the case of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, $150 million for three days is certainly not a stretch and with Memorial day Monday plus an early launch Thursday evening, the numbers become astronomical with 170’s and 180’s not out of the question for the first five days.
So what makes Pirates a bigger hit than Shrek The Third? It’s a minuscule difference in demographic. Shrek 3 skews younger than Pirates and that makes a difference at the box office of about $50 million dollars. Shrek thrived on families with young children, 10 and under. That is a terrifically large audience, but there is another large audience that Shrek could not reach, the coveted 18-24s.
Don’t get me wrong, Shrek did get a share of that audience, you can’t make 121 million in three days without some of that demo. But, if the choice is between Shrek 3 and Pirates 3, as it is this weekend, the 18-24s are going with Pirates. Then there is the older demos, moms and dads whose kids are already out of the house or in their late teens. This is another demo that Pirates can reach and Shrek can’t and that is a big audience.
The X-factor in the match up of Shrek week two vs. Pirates week one is whether Pirates can pull parents of young kids away from Shrek. If that happens this could a tough weekend for the big green ogre.
Oh, by the way, there is another movie coming out this weekend, though you are forgiven for not noticing. Lionsgate is launching the horror film Bug starring Ashley Judd and Michael Shannon. The question here is what is Lionsgate thinking? They have a buzzy horror flick with good reviews that could find a pretty good audience on a weekend in January of February or in September or October. Opposite the four quadrant appeal of Pirates 3, Bug is barely a box office afterthought.
Technorati Tags: Business, Film, Tickets Out, Weekly Contest
Shrek The Third exploded onto North American movie screens this weekend, taking in an estimated $122 million from Friday to Sunday, as well as another $907,000 from advance Thursday night showings, for a phenomenal $29,597 per screen average. The Paramount/Dreamworks production was the only wide release to enter the top 10 this weekend. Shrek The Third more than doubled the gross of the remaining films in the top 10.
Spider-Man 3 fell to the No. 2 spot after two weeks at No. 1. The film took in $28.5 million and boosted its domestic gross to $281.858 million.
28 Weeks Later also dropped one spot from its previous week’s position, to No. 3, after taking in $5.15 million in its second weekend of release. The film has taken in $18.611 million in 10-days of North American release.
Disturbia holds the No. 4 spot on the chart for a second consecutive week after taking in $3.675 million in its sixth weekend of release, for a total of $71.323 million.
Rounding out the top five is last week’s No. 3 film, Georgia Rule, which sold $3.493 million of tickets in its second weekend of release for a 10-day take of $12.614 million.
In limited release, Once took in an impressive $60,500 on two screens for a per-screen average of $30,250, and a cumulative gross of $70,100 since its release Wednesday (May 16).
The Wendell Baker Story sold $53,600 worth of tickets on 17 screens, for a per screen average of $3,152. Even Money took in $26,000 on six screens for a per screen average of $4,333.
Technorati Tags: Announcements, Film, Weekly Contest, Shrek, Sex, Guess the gross, Winner, Top movie, Weekend box office
The Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End contest will run from Thursday to Monday. This means that all entries need to be in by 8:00 pm EST, Thursday.
It is unclear whether Disney will open the film Wednesday. There have been rumors to that effect, and it appears that they would like to, but might not be able to get the screens they desire for an early opening.
I realize that, at press time, the Thursday screenings are only taking place Thursday night; however, based on the way Shrek The Third’s grosses were reported this weekend -- Thursday showings which began before 12:01 am Friday were reported separately and not included in the three-day weekend gross -- and therefore, there will be some who argue that the contest should begin on Friday. Since we’re probably talking about a few million dollars and since I don’t want to run into a situation next week where we started the contest on Friday and were unable to break out the Thursday grosses separately, I’ve made the executive decision to start the contest on Thursday.
Have a great week and an enjoyable Memorial Day Weekend.
The latest in a very recent and unusual trend, Shrek the 3rd hits theaters this weekend with only a really modest level of marketing. Shrek along with Spider-Man and Pirates are really the first in a new series of blockbusters so big they don’t need to spend much on advertising. Shrek the 3rd has smartly teamed with Burger King, which has taken up much of Shrek’s TV appearances and has done some in theater advertising, but the TV buy for the film itself has been minimal.
This is a smart strategy and cutting costs on the marketing end of things can only help the bottom line. With or without a heavy rotation on TV, Shrek is going to open strong. The real story on Shrek is long term and this is where things get interesting.
For anyone who thought the Disney-Dreamworks rivalry ended when Dreamworks was folded into the Universal Group, last week’s move by Disney to bring Pirates of the Caribbean: At Worlds End to screens on Wednesday instead of the planned Friday opening is a clear statement that the bad blood continues.
Smelling an opportunity to cut into Shrek’s long term summer box office, Disney will begin leeching screens off Shrek earlier than expected. With Spider-Man 3 holding strong, how many screens can Shrek expect to hang on to with the arrival of Pirates? There has never been a competitive situation in a summer like this one. Shrek being the middle child in this release scenario, is in the toughest spot.
Spidey is holding strong and Sony will not give up screens easily. Pirates is coming on Wednesday and looking to break the opening weekend record set by Spider-Man 3; Disney is going to push to get as many screens as possible and with the strong buzz, awesome tracking and awareness numbers, theater owners are going to want to give Disney much of what they want.
Shrek the 3rd is going to be a hit but it will take more hits than I’m sure Dreamworks and Universal imagined when they chose this release date. The long term prospects, the hopes of reaching the heights that Shrek 2 reached, crossing $440 million domestic, are very unlikely. Coming up short of $300 million, which is quite possible, could do some serious damage to the long term prospects of this ever more expensive franchise.
Despite a 60.3% drop in ticket sales, Spider-Man 3 took in an estimated $60 million in North American ticket sales and held the top spot on the weekend box-office chart for a second consecutive weekend. With a 10-day domestic gross of $242.071 million and a worldwide gross of $622 million, the film is already 2007’s top grossing film.
While Spider-Man 3 will almost certainly drop out of the top spot next weekend when Shrek The Third hits movie screens, the film has strong legs -- as evidenced by its $14,111 per screen average for the weekend -- and will make a strong run at $375 million domestically.
The week’s top debut is another sequel, 28 Weeks Later, which opened at No. 2 on $10 million in ticket sales. The R-rated thriller took in a good $4,342 per screen. Following at No. 3 is another new release, Georgia Rule, which made the walk of shame after selling $5.879 million in tickets in its first three days of release. The film, which stars Jane Fonda, Felicity Huffman, and Lindsay Lohan (who is undoubtedly no stranger to the walk of shame), averaged a meager $2,330 per screen.
Disturbia continues to perform well, taking in $4.807 million in its fifth week of release, good enough for fourth place. Rounding out the top five is Lionsgate Films Delta Farce, which took in $3.5 million for an $1,812 per screen average.
Outside the top 10, The Ex, playing on 1,009 screens, took in $1.355 million -- an average of $1,342 per screen.
Two films debuted weakly in limited release this weekend: Blind Dating took in $64,000 on 74 screens for a per screen average of $864 and The Hip Hop Project garnered $40,150 on 42 screens for a $955 per screen average.
The summer movie season kicked off with a bang when Spider-Man 3 raked in more than $150 million in its first three days of release and bodes well for the remainder of the summer. With so many films to see, how does one choose which films to see?
It’s all in the math. No, not the grosses (though that plays a part), but rather in the way in which various elements come together to shape the movies you’ll want to see and choose to avoid.
We’ve broken down Guess the Gross’s summer movie preview into four parts, so as not to overwhelm you. Your cruise directors Kernan and Roy will guide you on a journey that will be chock full of adventure, and, if you’re lucky, romance.
MAY
Georgia Rule: High-powered cast - bad publicity - unoriginal presence + women desperate for a chick flick - second weekend of Spider-Man 3 = A weak opening and a quick trip to the shelves at Blockbuster.
28 Weeks Later: Sequel + good reviews + cult status of original film - xenophobic U.S. audiences + zombies + great director = Another impressive, if not spectacular North American box office take and 28 Months Later coming to theatres near you in about… 28 Months.
Delta Farce: Larry the Cable Guy + redneck humor - limited appeal to literate audiences - too early for Iraq war humor - none of the actors in the film are funny + low budget = A film that will tank at the box office, but make enough money through DVD sales to NASCAR audiences to insure years of Larry the Cable Guy films.
Shrek The Third: Big green pedigree - early pan in Variety + audiences who aren’t old enough to read reviews and the parents who take their kids to the movies to shut them up for two hours + summer vacation = More than $300 million in ticket sales and a third sequel where Donkey knocks up a Spice Girl.
Bug: Memorial Day weekend + horror film from Lionsgate - little advertising support + Internet buzz + gore, violence, and nudity - potential competition from a sunny three days and a bunch of Pirates = A low-budget thriller that will make enough money to ensure the sequels Bugs and Bugs 3: The Exterminator Strikes Back.
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End: Keith Richards + the old gang back together + closing time for the trilogy + have I mentioned PIRATES - 168 minute running time = A $135 million opening weekend and a run at the top spot on the summer box office chart.
Technorati Tags: Film, Previews
