2006 at the Box Office (1 Viewer)

[Brook K]

I was planning on taking my daughter to Akeelah and the Bee but I was sick all day. Guess I better not wait to long to see it.

 

[Nathan V]

I'm going to hazard $65 for MI3. As we know, personal experience means nothing in terms of predicting BO performance, but I must say most of the people I know do not care for Tom Cruise very much, if at all.

Summer starts tomorrow!

 

[TerryRL]

Most of the predictions for M:I-3 are ranging from $65-$75 million during its opening weekend. Despite some bad press for star Tom Cruise, most are in agreement that this will likely be the biggest opening film of his career. After all, the man is still the biggest box office star in the world.

 

[Nathan V]

The EW summer preview issue is running around saying Talledaga (sp) Nights will do $115, that Poseidon will be one of the very top earners, and various other guesses...? Am I the only one who finds these numbers bizarre? Poseidon? Talledega Nights? Do people still go see Will Ferrell movies?

Man, those low returns for Akeelah and the Bee are disappointing. I was hoping the innovative marketing and (supposed) high quality of the film would translate into something.

Regards,
Nathan

 

[Jason Harbaugh]

I'll put up my guess, $70m over the three days including midnight previews tonight.

Like Nathan, I know a bunch of people that don't really like Cruise lately, but when I asked if they are going to see MI:III they all said, "of course".

I don't think it will have a problem breaking $200m.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Hoffman is going to end up being the reason people remember this film.

 

[Holadem]

I dunno about that, but he is certainly the biggest reason I will be there in a couple of days (along with Abrams and Giacchino). And I am an unweavering Tom Cruise fan.

--
H

 

[teapot2001]

I'll predict $100 million.

~T

 

[Adam_S]

Poland has a hystericallyfunny column up today about over and underperforming numbers for the summer's movies:

20 weeks of summer


Poland's numbers are a bit lowball per DaVinci code, but he has nothing as egregriously wrong as EW's estimate that Pirates will max out at barely 200 million. I do think that Cars will outperform everyones low expectations tremendously.
Poland's Summer Box Office Predictions



Adam

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I agree regarding Cars. Pixar in the summer. Gee, how did Nemo do? Adjust for inflation...that's how Cars will do. Pretty simple. And Pirates will get to $300M. EW is ridiculously moronic if they think otherwise.

Da Vinci...I think maxes in the very low $200's. HPSS scraped by $300M, and that book had more time to build up, less controversy, and was a family/genre film.

MI3 will beat $200M, and will open with $70-75. People might remember it for Hoffman. But they are going for Tom, the summer, and action.

 

[Joel C]

I'm excited mostly because of JJ and Keri Russell, but I certainly don't assume most people feel that way.

 

[Malcolm R]

Yeah, I thought the EW predictions were a little bizarre, too. I'm thinking "Poseidon" is this year's "Stealth" or "The Island."

 

[Adam_S]

Poseidon will do wonderfully internationally, which is the important bit anyway.

 

[Ray Chuang]

In my humble opinion, I think Mission Impossible: III will do around US$90-US$100 million this weekend. The reason is simple: everyone says this is the best of the MI movies, and Tom Cruise is always a big box office draw despite what you think of his personal life.

 

[Nathan V]

I hope so. I personally think the film looks like a great time, and Dan Mindel's shots look terrific. I do have to say I'm also an unwavering Cruise fan. His choices are impeccable, particularly the directors he works with.

Regards,
Nathan

 

[Steve Christou]

Well I'm a wavering Cruise 'fan' and I was underwhelmed with the previous two entries in the Mission Impossible film series but I am willing to give this one a chance, the trailer rocked but than so do a lot of trailers. The film should open big unless the fickle public have gone off the permanently grinning superstar.

 

[Cory S.]

Friday's numbers are 17 million for M:I III. Looks like it's 60 plus million dollar weekend.

That seems rather low. Sucks, because the film was damn good for an action film.

 

[DavidPla]

It definitely does seem rather low with the amount of theatres it opened in. Depending on how well it does today and tomorrow, I wonder if it might not beat the opening weekend of "Mission: Impossible II" with 57 million.

 

[TerryRL]

Friday Estimates

#1 "Mission: Impossible III" $17.0 million
#2 "RV" $2.9 million ($22.8 million) 37% Friday-to-Friday drop
#3 "An American Haunting" $1.9 million
#4 "Stick It" $1.8 million ($14.3 million) 53% Friday-to-Friday drop
#5 "United 93" $1.4 million ($16.3 million) 59% Friday-to-Friday drop
#6 "Silent Hill" $1.1 million ($38.0 million) 60% Friday-to-Friday drop
#7 "Scary Movie 4" $1.05 million ($81.0 million) 56% Friday-to-Friday drop
#8 "Hoot" $1.00 million
#9 "Ice Age: The Meltdown" $900K ($180.1 million) 47% Friday-to-Friday drop
#10 "Akeelah and the Bee" $895K ($8.1 million) 47% Friday-to-Friday drop

Paramount's "Mission: Impossible III" easily led the field yesterday as it pulled in $17 million, giving star Tom Cruise the second biggest opening day mark of his career behind the $21.2 million start (on a Wednesday) by "War of the Worlds" and just ahead of the $16.4 million debut of "Mission: Impossible 2".

While a great start, industry watchers expected a much more potent first-day launch of something north of the $20 million mark. Still, the $150 million sequel is expected to finish the weekend with an opening of more than $50 million, becoming either the second or third biggest opening in Cruise's career.

Expect many within the media to report how the opening is proof that Cruise is "losing his midas touch" at the box office, but M:I-III will probably end up being the actor's seventh consecutive $100 million-plus performer, tying him with Tom Hanks' record streak. Cruise is currently the only performer to have two streaks of at least five $100 million-plus earners. Overall, only Cruise, Hanks, and Will Smith have had streaks of at least five films to pass the century mark.

Is Cruise "losing his touch"? That's tough to predict considering that Cruise's films usually don't have monster (anything above $50 mil) openings. They often debut with solid numbers and leg their way past the $100 million mark. Still, the lower-than-expected Friday mark of M:I-III could be more to do with the franchise slowing down rather than Cruise.

Here are the opening numbers (and eventual grosses) of Cruise's last six films prior to M:I-III...

-"War of the Worlds" $64.8 million ($234.2 million) 2005 (Cruise's biggest opening and biggest hit film)
-"Collateral" $24.7 million ($101.0 million) 2004
-"The Last Samurai" $24.2 million ($111.1 million) 2003
-"Minority Report" $35.6 million ($132.0 million) 2002
-"Vanilla Sky" $25.0 million ($100.6 million) 2001
-"Mission: Impossible 2" $57.8 million ($215.4 million) 2000

"RV" had a strong hold as it lost a very moderate 37% of its business from last Friday. "An American Haunting" got off to a decent start as it pulled in close to $2 mil yesterday. "Stick It" was off by 53%, while "United 93" fell off a steep 59% from its pace from last weekend, looks like it won't be the leggy hit that many in the industry predicted. "Hoot" disappointed as it earned only $1 million on opening day and ended up in the eighth slot.

 

[Malcolm R]

Not sure about that. Cruise has let his public facade slip in the past year or so, allowing his true freak flag to fly where all can see. It may be having an effect on his popularity.

The trailers are great and I'd really like to see MI3, but hate the idea of putting another dollar in his pocket. I may skip it and pick up a second hand, used DVD later on.