'Alice in Wonderland' Will Take Box-Office #1 Again with $17.4 Million on Friday
'Green Zone' tops the weekend's newcomers
No surprise here, Disney's Alice in Wonderland will again take the #1 spot at the weekend box-office as it took in an estimated $17.4 million on Friday and I would guess will end up somewhere around $55-60 million for the three-day. Alice is dropping about 57-percent from its record-breaking weekend of $116 million last week, but with numbers like that I would say this weekend's results are welcomed as it will have made north of $200 million domestically after this weekend and over $300 million worldwide. Solid work.
As for the weekend's new releases, they make up the rest of the top five, starting with Paul Greengrass's Green Zone taking in $5 million on Friday and what should be around $15 million for the weekend. Considering this is a film that went through a long post-production and ended up with a budget north of $100 million Universal is going to have to hope for big home video numbers should they ever expect it to end up in the black.
Summit's Remember Me starring Robert Pattinson earned $3.6 million on Friday and will end up around $10-11 million for the weekend from 2,212 theaters. I can't find any budgetary numbers, but I can't believe it had that big of a budget. The film has more than divided critics, as I seem to be one of the lone few shouting from the rooftops saying you should see it. I know a few RopeofSilicon readers have reported back after seeing it in the comment section of my review, hopefully a few more will add their thoughts as the week goes on.
Next is Paramount's R-rated comedy She's Out of My League, a film I also enjoyed as it pulled in $3.3 million on Friday and will likely settle in around $10 million for the three day. Our Family Wedding rounds out the top five with $2.5 million from 1,605 theaters.
It looks like this week's biggest loser is going to be Overture's Brooklyn's Finest, which opened last weekend with $13.3 million and is showing signs of a 70-percent drop with only $1.4 million on Friday. Yikes, but I guess that's what you get for giving up on the ending after developing a relatively decent story. By the way, did you hear about how it originally ended? The Playlist offers an interesting recap, but it wouldn't have helped the film had Fuqua gone that route either.
The complete Friday top ten is listed below and Laremy will be here Sunday morning with the complete weekend results. In the meantime add your thoughts in the comments below and check out Laremy's predictions for this weekend right here.
- Alice in Wonderland – $17.4 million
- Green Zone – $5 million
- Remember Me – $3.6 million
- She's Out of My League – $3.3 million
- Our Family Wedding – $2.5 million
- Shutter Island – $2.4 million
- Avatar – $1.6 million
- Brooklyn's Finest – $1.4 million
- Cop Out – $1.2 million
- The Crazies – $1.1 million
Numbers courtesy of Variety.
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I guess you should never underestimate the power of Johnny Depp's fanbase.
I'm guessing a 325-335 million final for Alice, and probably the number 3 or 4 of the year domestically, behind HP7.1, IM2, and perhaps TTSE or TS3D too.
What about Inception?
Sadly, as I mentioned yesterday, I think you have to consider Shrek 4 a legitimate contender for that top spot as well. Not sure about Toy Story; it should have no problem clearing $300 million but I'm not sure beyond that. Also I don't expect Eclipse to put up the numbers New Moon did. New Moon was able to be an event film that pretty much everybody saw. But pretty much everyone outside of the core fanbase realized that it was terrible, so many of them probably won't turn out for Eclipse. I see it ending up somewhere around $250 million. Inception is a huge question mark for me. It could end up being mind-blowing and making a boatload of cash, or people could just not get it. Avatar made so much money because it was completely mindless entertainment; you don't have to think at all to watch that film. Whether Inception is mind-blowingly original, like The Matrix, or a mess like The Fountain (those are the two extremes I've seen people talking about it falling between), it definitely won't be a movie you can watch without thinking. And I'm expecting Alice to finish right around $300 million, but it depends on how it plays from this point forward. It could go a bit lower or higher.
I'm not sold on "Shrek" just yet. It'll do well, I'm sure. But the last film made about $322 million, a sizable drop from the well-received second film. I don't know anyone (and I mean anyone) who liked the third Shrek film. The new movie has to overcome the terrible stench of the last film, plus it's only got a few weeks to make bank before "Toy Story 3" cleans up. Sequels to well-received comedies almost always falter- for every "Meet the Fockers", there's an "Analyze That" or "Miss Congeniality" or "Night at the Museum 2" (which made about $70 million less than the previous film). And those are sequels to movies that were generally liked. "Shrek the Third" had a lukewarm reception at best, hated at worst.
Even with 3D prices, I'll be surprised if the film can cross $300 million and make comparable money to the last film.
Yeah, as I said on Thursday, I'm not sure how much cultural relevance Shrek still has, especially after the awful third installment. I'm hoping that people have moved on from Shrek and it won't be that big of a deal, and that it will get obliterated by Toy Story. I guess I'm just trying to prepare myself should it turn out to be one of the year's biggest earners.
What is "TTSE"?
I assumed he was referring to The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. It took me a few minutes to figure it out too.
There's bound to be some rowdy R-rated comedy doing a Hangover. In other words a bawdy comedy outgunning a lot of blockbusters. J.J.Abrams' Star Trek got outgunned by Todd Phillips Hangover. What that means is expect the unexpected.
4 words: Hot Tub Time Machine.
The thing about blockbuster R-rated comedies is they don't come along very often. Before The Hangover, the last similar film to put up those kind of numbers was Wedding Crashers, and before that There's Something About Mary. And I don't see R-rated comedies this summer that look like they could pull that off. Hot Tub Time Machine might have a shot if it was releasing in the summer, since that's when the biggest recent R-rated comedies have all made their cash (Superbad, Knocked Up). I guess one potential film that could do it is the Phillips-Downey-Galifianikis film Due date that opens Nov. 5, but again, it'll be much harder for it to do $200 million-plus outside the summer.
Remember Me had a $16m budget.
Also, Remember Me's numbers don't bode well for Robert Pattinson outside of Twilight. Sure it will turn a nice profit for Summit, but I've got to think they were hoping the Twilight fanbase would turn out much more than it did; that's obviously the only reason this movie was made. But $5000 PTA is pretty pedestrian.
Not everyone knows how Shrek films suck these days. I guess you really could consider it a top contender
But I'm Hoping Harry Potter grabs the top spot finally.
Actually the first Harry Potter film won the box office in 2001 over The Fellowship of the Ring.
:My Prediction For Top 5 Grossing Movies Of The Year:
1. Toy Story 3 – $450M
2. Iron Man 2 – $420M
3. Alice In Wonderland – $330M
4. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hollows – $312M
5. Shrek Forever After – $305M
Notice how well Avatar held this week: only down -15% from last Friday. Apparently its -40% drop last week was due solely to competition from "Alice." Also, now that it's back to its tiny drops again, even though it's only in 2D theaters, it's clear that it wasn't the 3D alone that made people want to see it, nor the 3D alone that made people keep coming back.
Less unexpected but still pretty impressive is that "Crazy Heart" and "The Blind Side" will both have bumps this weekend. can you believe it's the 17th weekend of wide release for "The Blind Side"? And that it'll likely get at least one more weekend in wide release, thanks to what will likely be a rise in PTA this weekend and a lack of direct competition next weekend? Wow! Do you think Avatar can stay in wide release that long as well?
FYI, Avatar is NOT ONLY in 2D theaters. Many of the multiplexes near me have it in 3D, just down to 1 screen, since Alice is using the other 2 or 3 screens capable of 3D, such as the Carmike 16 in Allentown, PA – Avatar 3D (1 screen), Alice 3D (3 screens – plus 1 screen in 2D). Or take AMC Hamilton (near Trenton, NJ) which has Avatar 3D (1 screen), Alice in IMAX 3D (1 screen), realD 3D (1 screen) and 2D (2 screens).
Speaking of Oscar bumps, why did Summit put Hurt Locker back in theaters near me when that's been on DVD for 2 months? They should be expanding The Ghost Writer more and sooner (it finally hits 500 screens next week), if you ask me.
According to Box Office Mojo data, only 7 romantic dramas were made from 2002-2009 that made over $20 million dollars. Do people not want to make these things because they don't make a lot of money, or do they not make a lot of money because no one wants to make them. Right now, what's seen as a failure in a romantic comedy is seen as a modest success for a romantic drama. So it looks like most of our romantic drama will have to continue to come from television.
It would be nice to know where all this money is coming in for Alice because its certainly, not coming in where i work. The 116 million dollars should have been comparable to our Shrek 3 opening where I work. But it was FAR off from that, I think 3D is killing 2D theaters :( what a shame.
I don't think 3D is killing 2D, if anything it gives moviegoers a choice on how to watch a movie.