Will I take my projected victory? You betcha. I was three million down on Friday night and it was not looking good. But I’m happy for The Hangover too. It crushed expectations, it’s a funny movie, and worth of mouth should be fantastic. I saw it again on Friday night down here in Florida with friends, it’s still solid the second time through. But enough critiquing, let’s break this weekend down!
#1 movie predicted correctly: 2 Weeks In A Row
1. Up
Does anyone know the last time a film came back from a $3m Friday deficit to win the weekend? A commenter named Quazyflip had Up at $44m, but not until late Friday night, when plenty of information was out there. So I’m giving him partial credit. Up is at $137m cume, but that’s with very few international dollars counted. So it’s going to be big, you may recall that Wall-E did better internationally than domestically.
Result: 44.2 million (My rank: #1, $6.4m off)
2. The Hangover
Wow. This one certainly caught fire this weekend. It actually was 99th among all films in history for a Friday opening, though that’s not factoring in inflation. It also opened significantly higher than Wedding Crashers and Old School. It’s starting to look like there’s a market for higher level R-rated comedy.
Result: 43.2 million (My rank: #3, $15.0m off)
I know The Hangover wasn’t a completely original idea, Very Bad Things was a bachelor party weekend gone wrong, but it was certainly more innovative than rehashing a campy show. The marketplace really punished Land of the Lost this weekend. Weigh in with your theories in the comments section.
Result: 19.5 million (My rank: #2, $14.5m off)
It eased the bleeding this weekend, falling less than 40%, but it’s still got a long way to go to make up that $150m budget. Generally the formula is around 2.5x box office is needed to break even on a production budget. This one isn’t close to that.
Result: 14.6 million (My rank: #4, $1.8m off)
5. Star Trek
Star Trek continues to rake it in. $324m worldwide cume; and J.J. Abrams knows how to deliver a product with a smaller budget.
Result: 8.4 million (My rank: #7, $2.3m off)
As of this writing it’s about $400 million away from turning a profit. That seems like a big number, no?
Result: 8.1 million (My rank: #5, $.5m off)
It was the fifth biggest box-office weekend of the summer, and right on the heels of last weekend’s fourth place slot.
Result: 7.3 million (My rank: #6, $.2m off)
The international box office has really come through here, comprising $252m of the $368m total. So things aren’t terribly bleak for this title, and we’ll definitely being seeing more Dan Brown adaptations. The world has spoken, evidently.
Result: 6.5 million (My rank: #8, $0.7m off)
Wow. A good prediction on what’s rumored to be a very bad film. Did anyone catch it this weekend? I’d like a witness if at all possible.
Result: 3.2 million (My rank: #9, $0.2m off)
Who you got next weekend? The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 has to be the favorite, I’d put it somewhere in the $30s. We can expect Up and Hangover to remain strong. Gimme some intel, Lord knows I didn’t see the Hangover domination coming.
