Box-Office Wrap-Up: May 21 – May 23, 2010
Shrek Forever After wins, but is the franchise finished?
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| Tenorclef and CineJAB were both around $4m off, kudos to them. The franchise is now clearly trending the wrong way after Shrek 3's massive second weekend drop-off and this opening result, far worse than any of the sequels. Still, it's not all bad news. The budget is listed at $165m and the domestic haul for this one could be $200m. Add on what should be a generous international total and Paramount Dreamworks should have a modest financial gainer on their hands. Will we see a Shrek 5? You'd have to be against at this point. You'd also have to think the bleed here won't look like Shrek 3's total — because it is starting so much lower. Result: $71.2 million My rank: I picked it to finish #1 and my prediction of $87.18 million was $15.98m off for a percentage error of 22.44%. | |
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My rank: I picked it to finish #2 with $26.54 million, which is $0.06m off for a 0.23% error.
My rank: I picked it to finish #4 with $17.14 million, which is $1.56m off for a 8.34% error.
My rank: I picked it to finish #5 with $7.19 million, which is $1.91m off for a 20.99% error.
My rank: I picked it to finish #6 with $4.23 million, which is $0.03m off for a 0.71% error.
My rank: I picked it to finish #3 with $20.36 million, which is $16.26m off for a 396.59% error.
My rank: I picked it to finish #8 with $2.34 million, which is $0.46m off for a 16.43% error.
My rank: I picked it to finish #9 with $2.09 million, which is $0.11m off for a 5% error.
My rank: I picked it to finish #7 with $2.85 million, which is $1.05m off for a 58.33% error.
How say you? Surprised by the MacGruber disaster? Willing to give up on the Shrek franchise? Any other comments you'd like to toss into the mix? Comment away, now and forever!
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I was significantly wrong on MacGruber. What a bomb! You discussed this some on Friday, however is it time to start worrying about the long-term viability of Universal? I realize that MacBomb didn't cost much to make … but Robin Hood definitely did. How many years can they keep this up?
Get Him to the Greek, Despicable Me and Little Fockers will most likely all succeed. Next summer they've got Cowboys and Aliens… I think they'll be fine, really. Remember Fox in 2008, now that was horrendous.
I'm still not too sure about "Get Him to the Greek"- it is an apparent rock music comedy (and those movies don't do well), not to mention it's a spin-off of a film that brought in solid but not blockbuster numbers. Also, Jonah Hill is not a star. It could do alright, but depending on the budget it probably won't be a huge hit.
"Despicable Me" and "Little Fockers" should do ok (the former probably more likely than the latter), but comparing Universal to Fox from '08 is a bit of a canard. Fox had a bad summer until early '09. Universal hasn't had a film make 3x its budget since "Fast and Furious" LAST APRIL.
Get Him to the Greek probably doesn't have too high a budget–barring "Funny People," most Apatow movies (directed or produced) cost around $30mil, and this one looks about the same. And I'm of a mind that it'll manage at least $60mil, if not $80.
I'm not so sure about Despicable Me. Most animated films seem to rest on their advertising campaigns and not on their quality, so if it has a good advertising campaign, it could do pretty well, but so far its ad campaign, while certainly present, has been confusing and vague, even though a discerning moviegoing has to admit that the premise sounds intriguing.
Little Fockers should do well–very well. Universal has had a bad year (and it didn't have so hot a year in 2009, either), but I think they'll recover from it okay.
I'm pretty damn surprised MacGruber did so poorly, though. I saw it, and it was quite solid. Not amazing, but definitely above average. It should have at least done $10mil OW. $4.1mil is pathetic.
Universal could be the next MGM, sadly, it could be replaced by Summit, a studio that's overflowing with money from the Twilight franchise, and doesn't even give it a higher budget.
I consider summit to be a studio that holds Oscar, indipendent movies (Hurt Locker), and lifeless, quick-made movies (Twilight)
Except so far Summit hasn't proved itself adept at marketing anything outside Twilight. Their only other movie to make a serious profit in theaters was "Knowing"–all the rest disappointed, or even fell flat like "Astro Boy." If it weren't for Twilight, Summit would be seriously struggling right now, and unless they shape things up, Twilight may be barely enough for 4 or 5 years before they're history.
Pretty downer weekend, but next week should be alot better with POP and SATC 2 coming out. Both are poised to be pretty huge. As for Shrek it deffentially looks like this franchise is over.
RIP Shrek: 2001-2010 (Unless it pulls a Ice Age 3 on us)
I think Shrek will have good legs because its next competition is Toy Story 3 in 4 weeks.
Just want to say that I called the film pulling a Batman and Robin, that is the only joy I get out of seeing Shrek die out like this.
If that's the case, bet on a dark gritty realistic reboot in 2018.
Nice number for S4 after all (after a low Friday, that is), with a bit of luck it might just make $200M, or at least challenge Madagascar and MvA. It'll still be a nice lesson for studios, though. Decent hold for IM2, but $320M is a roof which is bad for sure. Great hold for RH and if PoP doesn't severely hurt it next weekend, $110-115M will actually be possible to reach, and $100M is now locked imo. Date Night's run continues to be interesting, it's so close to $100M now, yet it may only end up with $98M and that'll be it. I doubt anybody wants it to be another Public Enemies/Yes Man/Meet the Robinsons.
Very disappointing for HTTYD, I mean sure it was going to be hurt, but still. Look at the PTAs – Avatar's PTA was down 32,5% when AIW came out, HTTYD's plummeted 45%. The loss of so many theaters is also strange, I mean ACC only lost 332 theaters, Avatar 293, etc. when their respective 3-D competition came out. The movie'll still pass KFP, but 5x multiplier is out of reach and $216-217M is the most it can hope for. Still, no matter what, it will have been a great run when all is said and done.
Actually, losing only 33% of your theaters nine weeks into your run (Dragons) is an excellent number. The box office results merely show that 3D was proping up this title, and was a major part of the experience. Avatar was still pulling in a great PTA when Alice came out, so it wouldn't be expected to lose many theaters, and theaters consider genre when considering competition, not 3D availability. ACC held on because theaters always want to offer a variety for their patrons, and not having ACC available on the weekend before Xmas is a move that would be questioned.
Next weekend I would expect HYYTD to lose 50% of it's theaters, but it might be less because many multiplex's that don't have Alice, will want two kid's films. Say 45% then.
i could see buzz for MacGruber keeping it steady for a few weeks, i think too many people just didn't know what it was, but when I saw it the whole audience (a fairly full one, actually) seemed to really like it. What was the theater count like for that one?
MacGruber had 2,551 theaters which is a very healthy release. The cinemascore for it was C- which is terrible. If you can believe online comments, some people walked out before the ending (I've only done that once in my life). At least it's an opportunity to learn how movie theaters cope with this bad of a bomb. They are contractually obligated to keep it in their theaters, but will they be able to push it into their smallest auditoriums and limit it's daily showings? I'll find out this weekend since I'll be at the theaters thursday and saturday.
Ok am I the only one who is still shocked by Iron Man 2's performance. It's already on track to make three times it's budget internationally, but I still can't figure out why it isn't doing that well here in the states. Not that it's doing terribly but I don't think people thought that it wouldn't have been able to match it's predecessor domestically. Yes I know I did give it fairy low openning weekend prediction a few weeks ago.
The only decent theory I've heard is that this is the ceiling for any non-Superman,Spiderman,Batman comic book hero movie. That as many people who would want to see this kind of movie saw the first one, so there wouldn't be an increase. It's just a theory. Unless some college students choose to do some academic research on it, we won't know for sure.
"Unless some college students choose to do some academic research on it, we won't know for sure" lol, I'm sure that someone will.
Next weekend:
1.Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time-$55.6 (N/A)
2.Sex and the City 2-$50.2 (N/A)
3.Shrek Forever After-$30.2* (-58%)
4.Robin Hood-$9.1 (-51%)
5.Iron Man 2-$9 (-66%)
6.Letters to Juliet-$7 (-23%)
7.Just Wright-$3.6 (-14%)
8.MacGruber-$2 (-51%)
9.Date Night-$1.9 (-32%)
10.How to Train Your Dragon-$1.2 (-33%)
I think Sex and the City 2 will anihalate Prince of Persia for several reasons.
1. Fans of the first Sex and the City movie will flock to see the sequel in big numbers
2. Video game adaptations have generally been dead on arrival
3. With Iron Man 2 and Robin Hood taking some of Persia's business, Sex and the City 2 will win due to lack of female skewering competition.
Sex and the City 2 is opening on Thursday. That takes away about $10 million.
Remember, next weekend is a 3 day holiday weekend, so expect some much smaller drops as a result.
I'm surprised that no one is expressing their astonishment that Kites is #10.
I was just about to say that, actually. Everyone's talking about Shrek and MacGruber and here I'm thinking, "What in the world is Kites? How did that get there?!!"
Having seen Kites, I have to agree with people who don't want to take Bollywood movies too seriously in the marketplace. There are cultural aspects to the movie that will play better in the east and third world than Europe and the U.S. For instance, it's very O.K. to marry for money and marrying for love is a romantic notion that leads to ruin. That social climbing through deceit is O.K. That people who are rich probably got their money through corruption. That the police are ruled by the rich. That the rich are going to give you all kind of crap and you are just going to have to take it. That the rule of law is to be flouted by everybody when it suits them. Etc. That is why Brett Ratner is going to cut down this 130 minite film to make it more suited to western audiences. But it's too bad I read he's going to cut out the dance scenes, which were great, but unnecessary to the plot. Again, unnecessary to the plot for a western audience. Eastern/Third world audiences will be VERY interested in how the protagonist wormed their way into the lives of the rich!
It's a case of good news-bad news for me with the disappointing Shrek. On the bright side, it will show studios that not everything in 3D will be a huge hit, and Shrek 4 was so mediocre that it probably didn't deserve anything better than this anyways. However, it is sad to see one of my favorite franchises (save the last two) come to an end on such a sour note, and the underperformance of this one probably rules out a fifth that could redeem the franchise. Oh well.
Next weekend I see Sex and the City dominating, possibly over $70 million. The female demographic are becoming a strong power at the box office, and this one has been having strong online ticket sales. Prince of Persia will probably do decently, although I wouldn't be surprised (or sad) if it flopped. Shrek 4 could have a decent hold, but its likely that it will fall similarly to Shrek The Third, a mid-fifty percentage drop. I guess it all depends on its mid-week performance.
Early predictions (three day weekend)-
1. Sex and the City 2- $67 million
2. Prince of Persia- $45 million
3. Shrek Forever After- $36 million
4. Iron Man 2- $15 million
5. Robin Hood- $10 million
I have to respectfully disagree with Laremy that this will probably be the last Shrek. Over the course of it's total life, this film will be responsible for a profit of Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars. With very little risk! The only thing that has changed is that the risk for a new movie has gone up. But they have a Hundreds Of Millions Of Dollars cushion to work with. When they run out of other ideas, they will go back to this well.
I think there won't be another Shrek because, everyone understands, if a Shrek movie hasn't flopped his time, it surely will next time.
Next Week:
1. Shrek 4
2. POP
3. SATC2
4. Iron Man 2
5.RH
6. Letters
7. Just Wright
8. ANOES
9. HTTYD
10. MacFlop ( Formerly known as: MacGruber)
Shrek will probably end up with better legs, people being cautious of this one. Plus, this weekend was graduation weekend where I live and people had all that stuff to do.
Next Week:
1. Prince of Persia – 58.7 Million
2. Sex and the City 2 – 39.4 Million
3. Shrek 4 – 29.7 Million
4. Robin Hood – 10.2 Million
5. MacGruber – 4 Million(for some reason I feel it might have legs)
6. Letters to Juliet – 3.8 Million
7. Just Wright – 2.0 Million
8. Date Night – 1.8 Million
9. How to Train Your Dragon – 1.2 Million
10. Nightmare on Elm Street – .9 Million
You are unusually low on SATC2.
Because I don't think it will do that well. The first one did good, but this show is so old and played out. I just think that the teenagers are now getting out of school and with their free time they'll head to the action/adventure movie that brought them Pirates of the Caribbean.
I didn't even know there was Kites opening this week!
I heard only 7% came from IMAX theaters, that's a nice bite in the ass for theaters who overpriced.
Honestly, I love the Prince of Persia franchise, but due to some people thinking its another cheesy popcorn flick, add the fact that Sex and The City would take the female dollars eliminating the chance for dating couples to watch Persia, and you have another film underperforming.
$40M Persia, $45M Sex.
So sad…movies this summer are not getting what we expected.
Actually, I believe Prince of Persia will be THE date movie for the Memorial Day weekend. Most of the guys who got dragged to the first SATC will try to avoid a repeat of that. Both films should do well.
You've got a point. Trailers do seem to show a connection between Gylenhall and Arterton
Youch! As with Iron Man, even though they wouldn't say it publicly, you know Paramount is disappointed with Shrek. Factoring in price inflation (3D and just normal inflation) this is a more than 50% audience bleed from Shrek 3. And a double youch for MacGruber. I'll admit that both of these results shocked me. I was too busy to get any predictions in this weekend, but I would have gone $100-120 million on Shrek and around $25 million on MacGruber. Still surprised about Iron Man, which now will barely pass the first one, and nice to see Robin Hood only fall 50%. Yeah it needed a smaller one, but I was afraid it would drop off closer to 60%.
We've been debating next weekend for what seems like forever. Memorial Day means better holds, but a lot of money pulled to Monday and out of the three-day. Prince of Persia has been heavily marketed by Disney and feels like it should translate decently, but I'm thinking $60 million is the ceiling, and it will likely do less than that. Sex and the City will certainly be huge, but the Thursday opening is still a big question to me. The first one was heavily frontloaded to Friday, but will this one bring the ladies out in droves on Thursday, or will they wait for Friday? If the openings were head to head, I wouldn't hesitate to take Sex and the City for the win, but as it is, I'm still unsure at this point.
People are being more selective nowadays. With tickets pushing 20 bucks, people-especially families-want to be sure that the movie is worth it. Moviegoers won't mind paying the high prices if they know they will get a great cinematic experience. Shrek 3 burned a lot of people and Shrek 4 felt the effect big time.
The stage is set for a monster opening for Toy Story 3 in a matter of weeks. The marketing has been solid, early reviews have been stellar, and the movie is bursting at the seams from all the reverence and goodwill its' predecessors amassed.
I agree. 400mil domestic for Toy Story 3, and could potentially make a run at 500mil. I see a billion plus overall worldwide, since It's going to open on major foreign markets (those that happen to be soccer crazy) after the World Cup.
Not that I don't believe you, but where have stellar reviews of Toy Story 3 been mentioned?
An "unfinished" cut of Toy Story 3 was screened in Showest last March in front of exhibitors, and among the crowd was of course various journalists from movie sites and magazines that was covering the convention (EW, Cinemablend, slashfilm etc etc). Though they couldn't give detailed and official reviews yet, they were using the words brilliant, epic, amazing, and the like.
The buzz has also been stellar from those lucky enough to see the "cliffhanger" screenings across the country.
The reactions by those who've seen it from Showest, the college "cliffhanger" screenings, and other advance private screenings as evidenced by a CNET article on the movie in early April, have been solid. No one has posted an official review yet but all early reactions to an "unfinished" cut of the film have been overwhelmingly solid and positive.
Some of the reactions did highlight the last 30mins or so of the movie s "pure brilliance"
@Roy and Dave: Ehh…well, I guess that would count as good word-of-mouth.
I couldn't get in at one of those cliffhanger sneak peeks, since people started lining up for it about 2hrs before the screening.
I did hang around outside to gauge the reaction of the packed house as the filtered out afterwards, and they were giddy, happy, and smiling ear to ear.
You want to know the reason why this year's summer blockbusters are underperforming?
3 words: Fifa World Cup
The world cup doesn't start for another few weeks though. Plus the interest in te states is really not that high
Shrek 4 bombed in a sense. The 3rd brought in over 100 million opening weekend. The 4th + 3D only brought in 72 million. This looks bad for 3D.
Prince of Persia opened a week earlier in the UK and it was denied the top spot by StreetDance 3D, a british dance film featuring contestants from Britain's Got Talent (Diversity, Flawless, George Sampson and Ashley Banjo), Gotta Dance (Akai Osei) and So You Think You Can Dance (Charlie Bruce).
That, along with a soundtrack featuring songs from urban acts Cheryl Cole from Girls Aloud, Chipmunk and N-Dubz, people in the UK chose song & dance numbers over Action/adventure.
StreetDance 3D sounds like a friggin awesome movie. Is it basically "Step Up" but British? Cuz I'd watch the hell out of that.
Anyone notice Dreamworks stock dropped 11% today?
I wonder why.
Some final thoughts on the weekend: The 3D take for Shrek was 61% of its total, which is better than Clash of the Titans (52%), but not as good as Alice or Dragon (both around 70%) and far below Avatar (around 80%). This despite having the widest 3D release ever (which of course will be true of almost any new 3D film as theatres are still upconverting; Shrek played at just under 2,400 3D locations). This is further proof that the films have to be sold as films and not just on the gimmick alone. People won't automatically show up just because it's in 3D. Also, the actual raw ticket sales were probably lower than even the first Shrek film.
Secondly, it's now becoming a definite question as to whether Iron Man will be able to pass Alice in Wonderland to become the year's top grossing film, which seemed a given before the film's release. Personally, I see only two films that have a chance to pass Alice the rest of the year: Toy Story 3 and Harry Potter 7-1. And if WB reneges on converting Potter to 3D (which I'm still hoping for after the poor reception to the 3D in Clash of the Titans), I would strike it off that list. The other two films people will should about having a chance are Eclipse and Inception. I've discussed these at length here; I think New Moon maxed out the audience for the Twilight franchise by being an event film that everyone saw, but most everyone outside the fanbase hated it. Because of this, I expect Eclipse to make about the same or less than New Moon, and certainly not the $335 million that will be needed to pass Alice. And Inception seems to be a thought-provoking film, and those don't make the mega dollars of the more shallow action films. I don't expect much more than $200 million out of it, and again, definitely not $330-plus. That just leaves Toy Story, which I still fully expect to pass Alice and probably to win the box office for the year. But I think it's now legitimate to debate whether Alice in Wonderland, a March release, can in fact win the box office for the year.
Are you counting Tron, or only movies that make their cash in 2010?
If StreetDance 3d get's a wider international (outside of UK) release, it could challenge Alice.
Wouldn't it be interesting if next week, all the Batfans started complaining about Alice overtaking Dark Knight?
On a side note:
Tyler Perry vs. The Rock (all numbers truncated)
Diary Of A Mad Blackwoman $50.6 2-25-05
Walking Tall $46.4 4-2-04
Winner: Tyler Perry $4.2 cume
Madea's Family Reunion $63.2 2-24-06
Doom 28.2 10-21-05
Winner: Tyler Perry 39.2 cume
Daddy's Little Girls $31.3 2-14-07
Gridiron Gang $38.4 9-15-06
Winner: Tyler Perry $32.1 cume
Why Did I Get Married $55.2 10-12-07
The Game Plan $90.6 9-28-07
Winner: The Rock $3.3 cume
Meet The Browns $49.9 3-21-08
Get Smart $130.3 6-20-08
Winner: The Rock $83.7 cume
The Family That Preys $37.1 9-12-08
WWE SmackDown vs. RAW 2008 Console Videogame $0.0 11-13-07
Winner: The Rock $46.6 cume
Madea Goes To Jail $90.5 2-20-09
Race To Witch Mountain $67.1 3-13-09
Winner: The Rock $23.2 cume
I Can Do Bad All By Myself $51.7 9-11-09
Planet 51 $42.1 11-20-09
Winner: The Rock $13.6 cume
Why Did I Get Married Too?* $59.9 million 4-2-10
Tooth Fairy $59.9 1-22-10
Final Winner: The Rock $13.6 cumulative
Tyler Perry $489.4 million
The Rock $503.0 million
Note: The Rock made one less movie over this period
*Dwayne Johnson had a small part in Why Did I Get Married Too
I can't post this weekend, so here's my predictions:
1. Sex and the City 2………. 73.1
2. Shrek 4………………… 46.7
3. Prince of Persia………… 40.3
4. Iron Man 2……………… 13.2
5. Robin Hood……………… 10.3
6. Letters to Juliet……….. 6.0
7. Just Wright…………….. 2.4
8. MacGruber………………. 2.0