I don’t know exactly what happened or why, but Inglourious Basterds ending up with $37.6 million domestic (obviously no sharp Saturday fall-off occured) and $65.1 million worldwide is a very good score for the Weinstein Co.

I frankly expected a steep Saturday fall-off based on disappointed word-of-mouth, but that didn’t happen. Against all logic and all good taste, a lot of people seemed to like IGB and have been telling their friends. The rumble is simple and clear. The Weinsteins have won themselves a breather! But only a breather. Deliverance and salvation has to happen steadily over the next few months. (And Nine has to pretty much knock it out of the park.) But remember that the Weinsteins are splitting the domestic IGB revenue with Universal.

Remember also that it cost $70 million to make (it ideally should have been made for $15 or $20 million tops with everyone taking back-end profit-shares) and that selling it cost $35 to $40 million. And that an ideal scenario is for a film to triple its opening weekend haul, so if it triples $65 million worldwide….well, I really doubt that will happen. But if it does it will bring in close to $200 million worldwide plus video and video games and whatever else.

So it’s not looking too bad, and a pretty good thing for the Weinsteins.