2007 at the Box Office (1 Viewer)

[TheBat]

maybe the studios will learn their lesson not to pile up on the movies. but I really doubt it.

Jacob

 

[ChrisMatson]

Regarding Knocked Up and BO potential...
My wife and I decided to catch Knocked Up after dinner last night. It was sold out at the closest theater to the restaurant for the 9:05 showing--next time was 10:35. I knew the next closest theater had a showing at 9:45. We got to that theater just after 9 and it was sold out as well. At that point, we decided to wait until today or tomorrow to see it instead of going to a late showing. I think this one will open big.

 

[Tim Glover]

I really don't think the movie pile up is the issue. Quality is #1 and these films have just plain underperformed. Word of mouth hurt Spidey 3 & Pirates. To have such a drop from Dead Man's Chest which raked in last summer with very, very strong legs to this summer's At Worlds End possibly not making $300 mill? Wow. The only issue causing that is film quality.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

But word of mouth on AWE was excellent. Not here, but in mainstream circles. I do think pile up is at play, along with sequel fatigue. And Pirates 3 is hurt by being so soon after the hugely performing DMC.

 

[Tim Glover]

Well, I was just basing that on the possible 70% drop from week one. In my non-HTF mainstream circle, no one has much praise for it. Sequel fatigue certainly is among the factors but that never hurt Lord Of The Rings which were released in 2001, 2002, & 2003. I realize the story in those films is far different but the point is valid. Sequel or no sequel, a real solid film, especially coming off the mega hit Dead Man's Chest, should be tearing it up. Pirates had everything going for it.

Mainstream people and us here LOVE these characters. The final entry etc....It's certaily not an awful film by any means but with so much behind it, I'm sticking to the quality issue as issue #1 for the lack of box office gang busters.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

LOTR is a bad example. Those were one year apart, NOT IN THE SUMMER, and each film was it's own thing. And they weren't really sequels. Even the public got that concept.

BTTF 3, Revolutions, and Pirates 3 - all came very soon after 2, and none did the business of their predecessor. Certainly, fatigue isn't the only reason, but it's certainly part of it. A big part.

 

[TerryRL]

Friday Estimates

#1 "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" $13.5 million ($186.8 million) 68% Friday-to-Friday drop
#2 "Knocked Up" $9.8 million
#3 "Shrek the Third" $7.4 million ($235.3 million) 48% Friday-to-Friday drop
#4 "Mr. Brooks" $3.0 million
#5 "Spider-Man 3" $2.0 million ($312.8 million) 47% Friday-to-Friday drop
#6 "Waitress" $570K ($8.0 million) 25% Friday-to-Friday drop
#7 "Gracie" $425K
#8 "Bug" $400K ($5.3 million) 63% Friday-to-Friday drop
#9 "28 Weeks Later" $365K ($25.7 million) 48% Friday-to-Friday drop
#10 "Disturbia" $355K ($75.9 million) 35% Friday-to-Friday drop

Despite its steep 68% hit in its Friday-to-Friday numbers, Pirates 3 still managed to hold on to the top spot. The movie should pull in between $43-$47 million this weekend giving it a 10.5 day haul of $216-$220 million.

"Knocked Up" got out of the gates with a very strong $9.8 million haul and looks headed for a debut mark of about $27-$31 million. "Shrek the Third" will finish close behind with about $25 million. "Mr. Brooks" will pull in between $8-$10 million. Spidey 3 rounds out the top five as it looks to pull in about $6 million this weekend.

 

[Tim Glover]

Chuck do you not believe if At Worlds End would have really been stellar it would be tearing it up at the box office? I agree on the sequel fatigue issue a little but a true quality film (especially one with so much going for it) will bring em in. DMC obliterated everthing last summer and make chump change out of Superman Returns. Audiences couldn't get enough of it. Then the dvd arrived and it also sold like gangbusters. People were anxiously awaiting to see what happens to Jack, Will, & Elizabeth. That enthusiam didn't just die out because of the sequels that have hit the screen this summer.

Not trying to be arguementative....I just don't think you're giving the film quality issue enough validity.

 

[TerryRL]

I know its easy to play Monday morning quarterback right now, but I maintain that Disney should've waited at least a year to release Pirates 3. As Chuck pointed out BTTF 3 and 'Revolutions' both came too soon following their predecessors and didn't fare as well at the box office.

Pirates 3 still has a shot at ultimately topping the triple-century mark and is making a killing overseas, but had Disney opted to release it next summer or even the summer of '09 than they would've been able to build more anticipation for it. 'Dead Man's Chest' had a ton of excitement for it when it came. There was excitement for Pirates 3, but not on the level of Pirates 2. Plus, 3 scored a very high A- grade with exit pollers, meaning the mass majority of those that saw it really dug it.

I also think waiting would've helped both BTTF 3 and 'Revolutions' at the box office as well. The three LOTR movies are obviously the exception to the rule. Again as Chuck pointed out, none were summer releases.

Most studios would kill to have a movie "only" earn about $290-$310 million, but had Disney waited I think Pirates 3 could've been as successful (if not more) than Pirates 2 was domestically, but that's just me.

All three of the major May releases (Spidey, Shrek, Pirates) are expected to hit DVD in September/October.

 

[Pete-D]

I think Knocked Up also played a huge role in Pirates' drop ... people are just getting tired of all the "cartoon" movies as someone mentioned above and I think the 20-something demographic, especailly couples -- the movie to see this weekend is Knocked Up, not Pirates III.

Pirates III isn't a bad movie, relative to Pirates II, but I think pacing is becoming a bigger and bigger issue with these type of movies. People shouldn't be coming out of the theater exhausted. Even if the movie is getting strong exit poll scores, that doesn't neccessarily mean people want to invest another 3 hours to watch it again.

 

[Malcolm R]

There are a lot of underperforming "quality" films that would beg to differ.

Quality does not guarantee big box office. With AWE, I think it's just too soon. As Terry noted, the audiences POTC appetite was sated just 9 months ago. They really should have waited at least another year to let the audience get excited and hungry for another POTC adventure. Sequels released in rapid succession (less than a year apart) have never been hugely successful at the box office.

 

[Pete-D]

The irony is next year's summer slate isn't nearly as crowded and Pirates III would've been a fine fit there.

 

[DavidPla]

With what's happened with the May movies, I have a feeling "Transformers" might be the real winner this summer.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Was that polling for the entire weekend or the opening night? I think I first saw mention of the A- polling on Friday last week which lead me to believe that it was based on those who attended Thursday evening shows which would be about the most biased and unrepresentative sample of mainstream tastes that you could get.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

Tim,
DMC was on a par quality wise with AWE. But it destroyed records. What's the difference? 3 year wait vs. 10 month wait??? That's part of it. Pirates 3 was also third in a line of massively hyped blockbusters. Spidey 3 was first. It'll make the most. Shrek was second...it'll make the second most. Pirates is third...it'll make the third most. Funny that. And I'd happily argue Pirates 3 is significantly better than Spidey 3, even with all of it's faults. I don't think quality has much to do with it. I think timing does.

 

[DavidPla]

I agree completely with that and I also agree that Pirates 3 is a better movie than Spidey 3 AND probably more crowd-pleasing... but as you said; one had a 3 year wait... the other 10 months.

Speaking of trilogies in film... was George Lucas the first to really employ it with Star Wars? I can't remember any films before it that really set out (at least when the first movie did well) to follow them up with two films that would finish the series.

 

[Marque D]

I had to buy a Pirates ticket to get into see Knocked Up. I don't hang out in this section often so I don't know if I'll get blasted for doing that. They really should be kicking themselves for not having this on enough screens. But it was a rated R movie and that may have made it a lot harder to gauge. But it was great, one of the funniest movies I've seen. Even with it's crude parts it was funny because of jokes not because of it being stupid or some bit.

 

[Tim Glover]

Oh I TOTALLY agree with that. Absolutely agree. We can name a zillion recent films that were good but tanked at the b/o. Serenity in 05, The Fountain in 06. That's NOT my whole point. What I am saying is that I do understand the sequel fatigue. Got it. I do. It's a factor for sure. I think I'm on record agreeing that. But I just won't be convinced that if AWE would have better that it wouldn't have mattered. That's just not the case. A film or sequel that has a large fan base and passion going for it and strong momentum etc...doesn't make $100 milllion less without a big part of that factor being whats on the screen.

We can discuss this all day and don't want to hog the discussion but there's been many people at my work who haven't seen AWE because of word of mouth and are going to now wait until the dvd. With the declining box office for it, I don't think that scenario is limited to where I live.

 

[Pete-D]

The thing is Pirates II and III are pretty damn even quality-wise. They both pretty much have the same strengths and same faults, the same tone, the same style, the same style of action scenes, etc.

It's not like there's some huge new addition of controversey here ala a Jar-Jar Binks or some type of plot twist that's turning people off.

The other issue is it hasn't even been a full year since the last PoTC film. Maybe they would have been better off waiting until July, which would've then scared The Transformers guys out of that slot. These studios all wanting the May slot got too greedy anticipating leggy box office all through the summer and oversaturated the market.

That said, 4 years ago, a movie doing this type of business in May would be thought of as pretty damn good. So how much of this is simply just expectation? When you have a trilogy, one of the three films has to make more than the other two, and it isn't always a quality issue. Pirates II had far less competetion and I think Spidey 3 and Shrek 3 also put a bad taste in some people's mouthes.

 

[Tim Glover]

I agree there's not any offensive plot twists as much as unresolved plot twists.

Terry, what's Warner expecting from Ocean's 13? Moreso than any other sequel this summer this one had me scratching my head thinking..."another one!" but I will admit the trailers look pretty cool.