Saturday box-office
Pirates 2 did $18,392,00 yesterday (Friday, 7.14), which is off 67% from last Friday's opener (but that included Thursday midnight screenings, remember). The probable weekend cume will be $58,317,000 and a total so-far of $254,336,000. Truckloads of dough, not that great a film...go figure.
Little Man and You, Me and Dupree were neck-and-neck last night -- Man earned $7,536,000 with a likely weekend tally of $21,480,000, and Dupree did $7,374,000 with a probable Sunday night tally of $21,745,000.
Poor Superman Returns did $3,219,000 -- off 59% from last Friday -- for a likely weekend cume of $10,058,000 and an overall tally of $162,000,000. The word of mouth probably isn't strong enough to push it to $200 million.
It's now a safe to declare that the postive word-of-mouth on The Devil Wears Prada will eventually push it past $100 million -- it did $3,175,000 last night, and will do about $9,526,000 for the weekend for a Sunday-night cume of $82,600,000.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on July 15, 2006 at 9:12 AM
comment #1
Bart Smith says ...
I think you're probably about $7-10 million low for PIRATES' weekend total. With it being the second weekend and there not being a rush to see it on Friday night, the internal multiplier should be anywhere from 3 to 3.5 -- nowhere near as low as what you're using.
Posted by Bart Smith at July 15, 2006 9:41 AM
comment #2
Rossi says ...
Everyone I know who has seen Pirates thought it was terrible. How does this word of mouth thing work?! Why in the world is it making so much money? It was awful.
And, I do feel for WB and Superman. It was a good film. Not exceptional, but certainly very good. It seems like it was hurt by bad timing (POTC opening the following week) and poor and inconsistent marketing. I'm surprised it looks like it might not hit $200million. It was certainly a better movie than the Pirates mess.
Posted by Rossi at July 15, 2006 10:08 AM
comment #3
travis b. says ...
the marketing for superman returns compared to pirates may be one of the major reasons why it's failing. pirates is literally everywhere, whereas i saw superman on a crumpled box of rice-a-roni in the grocery store. not a good sign. what i fear though, is the fallout from this. will producers be afraid to take the superhero genre seriously now? will this lead to more crap like daredevil or x-men 3? there have been some quality pictures in this genre, i would hate to see it de-evolve back to what it was in the early 90's. or maybe people are just fed up with entire rush of superhero movies in general.
Posted by travis b. at July 15, 2006 10:40 AM
comment #4
Bart Smith says ...
I don't buy the lack of marketing excuse for SUPERMAN RETURNS that keeps getting batted around. In the 2-3 weeks leading up to its release, the commercials were everywhere -- they have had Shaq shelling for them during the NBA finals. I've seen Superman's face plastered on all kinds of products at the grocery store.
The problem was that their marketing lacked any sense of focus. Bryan Singer didn't make the type of Superman movie that the general public wanted to see, and Warner Brothers just didn't know how to sell it. Compared to all the SPIDER-MAN, X-MEN, and PIRATES movies, SUPERMAN RETURNS really didn't feature much in the way of action set pieces -- nothing that would really wow audiences. Singer just didn't give them much to work with.
Posted by Bart Smith at July 15, 2006 11:12 AM
comment #5
Anonymous says ...
I've received about 80 emails in response to my review of the movie and I'd say they are about 80% positive though the 20% negatives are strongly negative.
I enjoyed the movie and had a postitive review, but not gushingly so.
Posted by Anonymous at July 15, 2006 11:31 AM
comment #6
travis b. says ...
but that's just it though. do you think the average american movie goer is a big enough basketball fan to watch the nba playoffs or finals if their team isn't in it? sure, the miami and dallas fans had their fill of superman previews, but that's pretty much it (not to mention every time i saw the shaq preview i thought of that horrible "steel" film he was in). and as for the marketing in the grocery store...rice-a-roni? seriously. that's where their marketing department is headed? i'm not saying there wasn't any marketing, but it seemed like they gave the marketing for this movie to the most incompetent people possible.
Posted by travis b. at July 15, 2006 11:33 AM
comment #7
Daniel Zelter says ...
The marketing for Superman Returns would have worked better if Warner didn't spend most of their budget promoting Poseidon at the beginning of the year. Hell, that turkey shouldn't have even been released in the first quarter. One big flop's usually like a ripple effect for a studio.
But I'm surprised about Little Man's endurance.
Posted by Daniel Zelter at July 15, 2006 12:07 PM
comment #8
Wrecktum says ...
So when's that bad word of mouth for Dead Man's Chest going to start hitting, Wells?
Posted by Wrecktum at July 15, 2006 12:22 PM
comment #9
god´s lonely man says ...
One hour in to deads man chest and my girlfriend started to fall asleep two hours into it she wanted to break up with me for dragging her along
my friends who came along lost respect for me being that they don´t like it when people shovel shit in front of thier face and tell em it´s ice cream.
don´t be like me save your relationship don´t see this Dead man chest it will turn your life upside down
Posted by god´s lonely man at July 15, 2006 1:37 PM
comment #10
Rich S. says ...
Sorry, kids, you all (or most of you) missed the boat on Pirates. It wasn't made for you. It was made for the people who spent $300 mil. on the first one. And so far, the WOM from the people I've spoken to has been uniformly positive. Not overwhelming, but positive.
The second film took awhile to get going, but the second half fulfills the promise of the first movie. And whoever has been comparing it to Empire got it dead on the nose. It's not as good a movie, obviously, but it's got the same beats. (In fact, they were probably directly lifted.) Rogue hero in peril after redeeming self. Stalwart hero reconnects with father. Love triangle with stalwart hero and rogue hero. Big surprise at the end with a cliffhanger to go save the rogue.
Plus, this movie did something I didn't think a CGI film could do anymore - it showed me stuff I wasn't expecting. Even Jeff admits this. Davy Jones and his crew are something totally new and refreshing, and THAT is what's going to drive the repeat business.
Those deriding the movie as summer popcorn trash have totally missed the boat. This movie does what a tentpole is supposed to do. It brought some beloved characters back together and let them have some more fun. It picked up the torch and ran in a way that the Matrix utterly failed to do.
It's not Michael Mann. It's not Shakespeare. It's Pirates of the freakin' Caribbean, and on that level, it's pretty damn good.
Posted by Rich S. at July 15, 2006 4:18 PM
comment #11
Anonymous says ...
Yo Rich go suck and egg on no level is this a good movie. it shit shit shit shit shit shit shit on all levels any level you want to think of I can think of far superior films aimed at the same market, hell king kong the 1972 version is a brilliant film compared to this. I would rather have my finger nails pried out with plyers than sit though that shit again, it´s mindless for mindless people.
PS if it wasn´t made for an audience then why release the movie for me to waste my time.
Posted by Anonymous at July 15, 2006 6:58 PM
comment #12
Mark Grasinski says ...
Gee, I must have missed that 1972 version of King Kong. And why should I take the word of somebody who starts a sentence with "Yo" and comes up with such gems as "suck and egg" and "it shit shit shit shit shit shit shit".
Posted by Mark Grasinski at July 15, 2006 9:14 PM
comment #13
Dave Murdock says ...
Finally saw Dead Man's Chest last night. It actually pains me to say this, but the movie was so bad I feel like Captain Jack stole money from me. I was all like "Jeff's being a sourpuss" before seeing the film, but he was dead on. I was so bored half way through, I thought about walking out. I can't be the only one, I haven't seen so many people in front of me checking their cell phones in a long time. And this from people, my wife and I, that loved Pirates 1. We saw it a bunch of times in the theater, own the DVD and watched that a bunch of times, and now we both said as soon as we walked out we aren't even going to see Pirates 3. Jeff made me real angry spoiling Superman Returns in his review without a warning and I stopped reading the site, now he's back on the menu since he nailed his review. Wish I could get my money back.
Posted by Dave Murdock at July 16, 2006 4:20 AM
comment #14
Rich S. says ...
Mark,
Thanks, I was just about to thank " " for his excellent lesson in persuasive writing. Let's see, first, don't sign your post because you never know when "they" might be watching. Besides, you just know Disney's going to call looking for an option on that TRON sequel you pitched to the X-Men panel at ComicCon last year, right? Wouldn't want to mess that up.
Second, be sure to use six "shits" in a row to describe the film. Not five, not seven. Oh, and be sure to use "shit" once more just in case the reader missed it the first six times.
Third, be sure to play fast-and-loose with punctuation and capitalization. It makes you look more avant garde. Very James Joyce and stream-of-consciousness. Plus, it obscures what you're actually talking about so you can make more points for more readers.
Finally, the crusher. Use "suck an egg." In the same year the first remake of King Kong came out (nice use of the non-sequitur, by the way), Horschack absolutely flayed Barbarino with that line on an episode of Welcome Back, Kotter. If it worked then, why mess with genius?
Posted by Rich S. at July 16, 2006 5:44 AM
comment #15
Bart Smith says ...
Looks like a $62 million weekend -- dropping a not-really-all-that-bad 54% from last weekend.
Posted by Bart Smith at July 16, 2006 8:39 AM
comment #16
The King says ...
As per another thread I posted on, how boring is this thread? Who gives two shits how much cashola a move makes? The best flick this year thus far is, without doubt, United 93 and it made jack! Regardless of hom much coin SR or POTC make nothing will change the fact that they are overlong, boring garbage.
Posted by The King at July 18, 2006 1:56 AM