2008 at the Box Office (1 Viewer)

[DavidPla]

To be fair, the first Shrek is actually a pretty great movie with some real heart.

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I'd counter that it's a good film with some heart, lots of snark, and very little in the way of repeat viewing. It would easily be the very worst Pixar film, and it's the best of the Shreks by far, from what I've heard.

 

[Chris Atkins]

Cars 2 will, I bet, get over the $300M hump...maybe that will placate Disney execs who apparently want to trade the delights of The Incredibles or Ratatouille for the cheap (and forgetable--agree with Chuck here) thrills of the Shrek films.

 

[Steve Christou]

Whats with the Shrek hatred? They're just harmless cartoons aren't they? I liked the first one. My favorite Pixar remains Toy Story and it was downhill from there. Tell truth I'd rather watch Shrek 3 than Cars, but thankfully Ratatouille was a step up from that. As for Wall-ee or whatever its called there was nothing in the trailer to make me go "wow".

 

[Chuck Mayer]

I never said I hated it. I said it was a good film. But when I tried to watch it a second time, it basically fell apart. I've seen Cars dozens of times (4 year old son), and it's still very solid craftsmanship. And it's probably the weakest of the Pixar films.

As for WALL*E, it's your choice to trust trailers, Steve. That doesn't often pay off.

 

[LynxFX]

SATC is showing very strong weekday numbers. $5.5 on monday, $5.51 on tuesday. This one could end up having legs. We'll see what the weekend holds.

 

[TerryRL]

Even if it suffers a steep decline this weekend, SATC will still become the fifth flick of the year to pass the century mark. It will also in all likelihood end up earning north of the $150 million mark domestically. Not a lot of people expected it to perform as well as it has.

 

[Malcolm R]

Nope, everyone I've talked to about the film has made note of the close resemblance, especially to the "Short Circuit" robot. Apparently the only ones who weren't aware of it are those at Pixar.

 

[SilverWook]

His eyes look they they are based on an old Viewmaster viewer.

 

[Pete-D]

I think Shrek 2 was successful in bringing over more of the teenage/20-something audience that was eating up the Austin Powers movies in addition to the usual family audience.

 

[Shad R]

Saw Kung Fu Panda. It is a really solid movie. Very cool, funny and enjoyable to watch. Never a "slow" moment. I hope this does well. It was better than the 20 or so minutes of Zohan I saw. I didn't laugh once, and I'm an Adam Sandler fan! I hope KFP does well, it deserves it. My ranking of Dreamworks so far is Shrek, then Kung Fu Panda and Over the Hedge. Didn't really like any of the other Dreamworks movies. As far as Pixar, it goes Toy Story 2, Incredibles, Toy Story, Nemo. I thought all the others were a bit overrated. I must be the only one who didn't like Ratatoullie!

 

[TerryRL]

The early numbers are in and Friday proved to be a big one for the studios. "Kung Fu Panda" looks to have pulled in between $17-$18 million, suggesting that it will become the first non-'Shrek' title for DreamWorks Animation to open north of the $50 million mark. KFP's Friday mark indicates that it will debut in the neighborhood of $55-$60 million.

"You Don't Mess with the Zohan" posted a strong second place finish as it earned a Friday mark of about $13 million. Look for the film to open in the area of $34-$38 million. "Sex and the City" looks to have earned between $7-$8 million, just ahead of the more than $6 million Friday mark of Indy IV. Many are now predicting a very close race for the third slot between the two movies (Indy IV will likely pass SATC with its numbers for Saturday and Sunday). "The Strangers" rounds out the top five with its $3 million haul.

For the first time since the third week in July, the top four films will all earn more than $20 million during this weekend. That frame of business also saw an Adam Sandler movie sitting at the top of the box office as "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" earned $34.2 million, edging out the $32.5 million performance of Harry Potter 5 (its second week in theaters), "Hairspray" opened with $27.5 million, and "Transformers" pulled in $20.5 million (its third week in theaters).

Based on the early Friday numbers, the predictions for this weekend's top five flicks are...
#1 "Kung Fu Panda" $55-$60 million
#2 "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" $34-$38 million
#3 "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" $24 million
#4 "Sex and the City" $23 million
#5 "The Strangers" $8-$9 million

The top twelve looks to pull in more than $165 million, which would represent one of the five best June weekends in the history of the industry. This is exactly the kind of start to the month that the studios were hoping for.

 

[Shawn_KE]

Terry, do you know what the total budget is for The Dark Knight? It's prolly a $200 mil production for the movie itself, but the advertising they've done had to cost them some change.

 

[TerryRL]

WB gave Nolan $200 million to make TDK and I hear that every cent of it can be seen on screen. WB will likely spend as much as $100 million promoting the movie. The studio is probably going to cop to a total budget of $225-$250 million (counting advertising). when all is said and done.

 

[TerryRL]

Friday Estimates

#1 "Kung Fu Panda" $20.0 million
#2 "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" $14.9 million
#3 "Sex and the City" $7.3 million ($85.3 million) 73% Friday-to-Friday drop (Ouch!)
#4 "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" $6.5 million ($236.8 million) 47% Friday-to-Friday drop
#5 "The Strangers" $3.1 million ($31.5 million) 60% Friday-to-Friday drop
#6 "Iron Man" $2.2 million ($283.5 million) 43% Friday-to-Friday drop
#7 "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian" $1.7 million ($122.0 million) 52% Friday-to-Friday drop
#8 "What Happens in Vegas" $1.1 million ($70.0 million) 48% Friday-to-Friday drop
#9 "Baby Mama" $267K ($57.4 million) 63% Friday-to-Friday drop
#10 "Made of Honor" $263K ($44.1 million) 60% Friday-to-Friday drop

Looks like the tracking was right on the mark with "Kung Fu Panda". On the other hand, "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" looks at though its going to perform a bit stronger than its tracking indicated. 'Panda' pulled in a stellar $20 million yesterday, indicating that it should open north of the $60 million mark this weekend, while 'Zohan' will flirt with a $40 million debut.

"Sex and the City" took a steep hit in its Friday-to-Friday numbers and will probably finish the weekend behind Indy IV, which had a more moderate Friday-to-Friday decline. "The Strangers" also took a sizeable hit, but at a budget of only $9 million, the movie has turned into a very profitable hit for Rogue Pictures.

As reported earlier, this is going to be a very fat weekend for the studios and June has gotten off to a fantastic start.

EDIT: This was just brought to my attention, but this will mark the sixth consecutive weekend where the #1 film opened with more than $50 million. The record had been four-in-a-row which was set last year. If 'Hulk' does the trick next weekend, that it would be an astonishing seven consecutive weeks with at $50 million-plus earner sitting in the top spot.

 

[TerryRL]

Steve Mason at the Fantasy Moguls site now reports that Paramount is going to become the first studio to release back-to-back-back $200 million-plus domestic hits with "Iron Man" (through Marvel), Indy IV (through Lucasfilm), and now "Kung Fu Panda" (through DreamWorks). What's funny is that Paramount is only receiving a distribution fee for the three films.

With DreamWorks, Paramount only receives distribution fees for any movie made by DreamWorks Animation Studios since Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen wisely kept total control of this aspect of the company during the contract negotiations. The live-action films are where Paramount share a more traditional co-producing/co-financing deal with DreamWorks.

 

[Patrick Sun]

It makes you wonder if spacing out the releases retards the "legs" of films, but does make for a nice opening splash for those films whose marketing campiagn got them butts in the seats on opening weekend.

 

[Tim Glover]

Excellent work Terry. Excellent.

Agree with Mr. Mayer regarding the least of the Pixar films is not only better than Shrek but better than most of the films released nowadays.

Strong numbers for KFu Panda. Zero interest from me but in the films I've seen lately that had the trailer; it drew alot of laughs.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

The thing about not being Disney or Pixar is you don't have that esteemed legacy to live up to. Other companies like Dreamworks can crank out these fun, harmless little confections without the burden of comparison. And I think that's a good thing; there's room for both.

 

[TerryRL]

Thank you Tim.

I agree that DreamWorks' animated films are fun and I really have enjoyed most of them. "Cars" is the only Disney/Pixar flick I didn't love, but its still enjoyable. "Toy Story 2" and "The Incredibles" rank as my fave of the Pixar series, while "Shrek" and "The Prince of Egypt" rank as my favorite of the DreamWorks films.

The early word on the Saturday numbers is that "Kung Fu Panda" enjoyed a Friday-to-Saturday increase of about 17-18%. The film earned about $23-$24 million for the day so expect a $60 million-plus opening. "You Don't Mess with the Zohan" looks to have taken a 3% Friday-to-Saturday dip in business, but the movie still looks headed for a debut of about $40 million.

Indy IV enjoyed a stellar 51% Friday-to-Saturday surge earning just under $10 million. SATC had a bump of about 11%, earning $8 mil during the day.