WEEKEND BOX-OFFICE
Toy
Story 3 continues its romp…
Despite the release of 2 very high-profile new
summer movies this past weekend, it was Pixar’s TOY STORY 3 that
kept chugging along in the top spot, adding another $59M to its
total, which now stands at $227M after only two weeks of release.
It has already beat the entire box-office total for the
original TOY STORY ($191M) and will likely beat TOY STORY 2’s
total by next weekend ($246M). It will also surpass this year’s
other big animated movies like HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DRAGON ($215M)
and SHREK FOREVER AFTER ($229M) in the next few days. Pretty
friggin’ remarkable!
As for the other 2 high-profile movies, it was
Adam Sandler and his crew which managed a surprisingly great
opening in 2nd place with $41M, despite getting
laced by most critics as a ‘meh’ effort all around (although
in Sandler’s defense, none of his comedies have ever been critical
darlings). The film turned into Sandler’s 4th biggest opening of
all-time behind THE LONGEST YARD ($47M), ANGER MANAGEMENT ($42M)
and BIG DADDY ($41.5M).
On the other hand, Tom Cruise would have loved
that sort of opening for his film, KNIGHT & DAY, which
disappointed with a 3rd place finish and only $20M over the entire
weekend (since it was released on Wednesday, it managed another
$7M since then). The film is Cruise’s worst action movie opening
in 20 years! (in 1990, DAYS OF THUNDER opened with $15.5M)
Many suspect that audiences have grown
tired/annoyed by Cruise’s off-screen antics over the past few
years, although MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3 did open pretty nicely in
2006 ($48M), after much of his zaniest behavior. Since then
though, LIONS FOR LAMBS opened with $6M, VALKYRIE with $21M and
now KNIGHT & DAY with $20M. I personally don’t think that
Cameron Diaz helped as his co-star, since she’s not exactly the
"hottest thing in town" these days either. It will be
interesting to see how much KNIGHT ends up with when all is said
and done, since the film cost about $107M to put together. Maybe
international audiences still adore the star unconditionally?
Overall, summer box-office revenues are down 5%
compared to last summer’s record-breaking pace, while attendance
is down about 11%. I personally believe this drop is mostly been
due to a lack of quality films so far, but we’ll see how those
averages rise next weekend as the Twi-Hards hit theaters.
Next weekend is usually the "biggest weekend
of the summer" (and subsequently, the biggest weekend of the year!),
but I’m personally not too impressed with the two major releases
coming out. The first one isn’t targeted toward our readers, as
the third installment of that kooky vampire/romance franchise
TWILIGHT entitled ECLIPSE
hits theaters on Wednesday, and the next day, M. Night Shyamalan
releases his first "family movie" in THE
LAST AIRBENDER, which has been receiving decent notices so
far, but again, isn’t really targeted to our audience (read
JimmyO’s positive write-up about his viewing HERE).
Seeing as this might be the biggest week at the
box-office though, we figured that we’d ask specific $$$-related
questions for both new movies, so let us know HOW
MUCH YOU THINK "ECLIPSE" WILL MAKE NEXT WEEK
(5-day opening) and HOW
MUCH YOU THINK "THE LAST AIRBENDER" WILL MAKE NEXT WEEK
(4-day opening)? PS: Inception, Predators, Inception,
Predators, Inception, Predators…!!!
| 1. Toy Story 3 |
$ 59 Million |
$ 226.6 Million |
| 2. Grown Ups |
$ 41 Million |
|
| 3. Knight & Day |
$ 20.5 Million |
$ 27.8 Million |
| 4. The Karate Kid |
$ 15.4 Million |
$ 135.6 Million |
| 5. The A-Team |
$ 6 Million |
$ 62.8 Million |
| 6. Get Him to the Greek |
$ 3 Million |
$ 54.5 Million |
| 7. Shrek Forever After |
$ 2.9 Million |
$ 229.3 Million |
| 8. Prince of Persia:… |
$ 2.8 Million |
$ 86.2 Million |
| 9. Killers |
$ 2 Million |
$ 44 Million |
| 10. Jonah Hex |
$ 1.6 Million |
$ 9.1 Million |
ACCESS
BOX-OFFICE ARCHIVES HERE
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