Weekend Box-Office 5/14: A Sinking Ship Indeed

[AndyDursin]

FRIDAY estimates -- and they're not pretty Is POSEIDON on track to be this year's version of KINGDOM OF HEAVEN? Given its budget, bad reviews, and what looks like a tepid opening, I'd say it's bad news all the way around.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3 - MI3 7.6
POSEIDON 7.2
RV 2.3
JUST MY LUCK 2.0
AMERICAN HAUNTING, AN 1.2
STICK IT 1.1
UNITED 93 1.0
SILENT HILL .7
GOAL!: THE DREAM BEGINS .6
ICE AGE 2: THE MELTDOWN .6

[Eric W.]

FRIDAY estimates -- and they're not pretty Is POSEIDON on track to be this year's version of KINGDOM OF HEAVEN? Given its budget, bad reviews, and what looks like a tepid opening, I'd say it's bad news all the way around.

MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE 3 - MI3 7.6
POSEIDON 7.2
RV 2.3
JUST MY LUCK 2.0
AMERICAN HAUNTING, AN 1.2
STICK IT 1.1
UNITED 93 1.0
SILENT HILL .7
GOAL!: THE DREAM BEGINS .6
ICE AGE 2: THE MELTDOWN .6

Amazing.

Among other things, I think it's obvious by now that Tom Cruise did indeed help to shoot his movie in the foot with his crazy antics over the past year. How can anyone come to any other conclusions? He turned people off, and rightly so. I think his worst moment was with the load of BS he shoveled Brooke Shields' way.

I don't think that's necessarily the only reason MI:3 may be underperforming, but I do think it's the predominant reason.


In its own right, MI:3 is a fun romp and pretty much what you'd hope for in a fun summer action flick. By all rights, it really should be performing better than this.

[Carlson2005]

I think Warners would love to have this year's Kingdom of Heaven - that took $220m. And considering some people were predicting a $12m opening weekend for Poseidon, this is doing very, very slightly better than expected.

As for Cruise, the most common thing I've heard about MI3 is that it's just like watching an episode of Alias without Jennifer Garner in the sexy underwear. His antics may have hurt the opening slightly (and only fairly slightly), but the film is doing the best job of self-destructing the franchise on its own. The fact that today I got an email alert from Amazon annoucing its available for pre-order (!!!) implies that Paramount aren't looking to make a killing theatrically even if they do cover their cost.

[AndyDursin]

I think Warners would love to have this year's Kingdom of Heaven - that took $220m. And considering some people were predicting a $12m opening weekend for Poseidon, this is doing very, very slightly better than expected.

True enough but that's $220 mil worldwide, on a movie with a $130 million budget...with the amount of effort that went into making it I can't imagine they did cartwheels over the results of the finished product (though maybe the 3-hour version will keep me awake -- I've yet to try it! ) Then again, I'm guessing POSEIDON is so bad they'd be thrilled with those results

Speaking of which, someone actually expected it to make $12 million this weekend?? I think that's what most analysts had the Lindsay Lohan movie pegged at. Most everything I saw had it around $25 million and those were the conservative estimates.

[Carlson2005]

As far as POSEIDON goes, a $12 million opening weekend was expected? I think that's what most analysts had the Lindsay Lohan movie pegged at. Most everything I saw had it around $25 million and those were the conservative estimates.

No-one had been predicting a $25m figure for Poseidon for a long time - Variety thought it would struggle to get past $20m.

Will the ship hit the fans?
'MI3' looking to float past 'Poseidon'

By Gabriel Snyder, Dave McNary

Warner Bros. hopes to avert that sinking feeling this weekend as its pricey "Poseidon" remake bows.

Studio aud tracking on the Wolfgang Petersen-helmed pic has been weak, leading to industry expectations that the film will have trouble opening past $20 million and will likely cede the weekend crown to "Mission: Impossible III" in its soph sesh.

Warner maintains "Poseidon" cost north of $150 million, but the budget was reportedly closer to $200 million.

All told, studios are girding for a weekend that will likely be well behind the comparable frame a year ago. If B.O. trails last year, it would be the first time in eight weeks; the March 17 frame, led by the $25.7 million "V for Vendetta" opening, trailed '05 by 9%. Nonetheless, the year's lead over last, currently 6%, isn't in any danger this frame.

Warners is holding out the possibility that "Poseidon" could play better than expected. "The tracking is not up to our expectations," said distrib prexy Dan Fellman, "but there certainly have been times in our past where the tracking has not indicated the true results of our films. Wolfgang has made a good movie, and I'm hoping for a good box office this weekend."

As for "Mission's" second week, a drop of over 50% would be in keeping with the sort of numbers posted by both previous entries in the spy franchise. Last summer, "War of the Worlds," also starring Tom Cruise, saw biz drop 53% on its second weekend, making it likely that "MI3" will finish in the low 20s.

Warners will launch "Poseidon" at 3,555 theaters this weekend, while the other new wide releases include 20th Century Fox and Regency's Lindsay Lohan vehicle "Just My Luck," which opens at 2,541 locations.

That pic was expected to counterprogram "Poseidon" by appealing to younger femmes turned off by disaster pics; ironically, the strongest quadrant on "Poseidon" in the most recent tracking results is women under 25

It had been suggested that Warners were doing a T3 and doing a bit of 'expectation management' - by predicting a more disastrous result so that when the real box-office figure came out, it would actually look better than expectations. That may be why Variety upgraded their estimate on Poseidon to around $20m, but everyone else had it around $12m - if it was lucky.

[AndyDursin]

Good stuff as always Trevor. I totally buy the PR-spinning to reduce expectations there...let's face it ANY film can open with $12 million. That they'd actually expect a movie with that kind of budget, the amount of screens it's on and publicity they've done to open with $12 million in this climate is a bit ridiculous. It's not as if it looked like STEALTH, lol...

Either way, $12 mil, $25 mil...if that movie cost $200 mil and it performs badly, they're in for a disaster no matter what happens.

The only movie with equally bad word of mouth going around at the moment is X-MEN 3...not sure why people are so down on this movie but when you turn on the TV and even the publicity machine shows are wondering "why Brett Rattner ruined X-MEN" there has to be some kind of reason for it. (To say nothing of every "fanboy" corner of the internet who likewise are relentlessly, totally negative on it...and I thought the trailer looked OK, too! I'm not a huge Rattner believer, and I guess others aren't, either...

[Carlson2005]

The only movie with equally bad word of mouth going around at the moment is X-MEN 3...not sure why people are so down on this movie but when you turn on the TV and even the publicity machine shows are wondering "why Brett Rattner ruined X-MEN" there has to be some kind of reason for it. (To say nothing of every "fanboy" corner of the internet who likewise are relentlessly, totally negative on it...and I thought the trailer looked OK, too! I'm not a huge Rattner believer, and I guess others aren't, either...

That one I can understand. I loved the original Rush Hour, but everything Rattner's done since has been incredibly lazy: he's not even the kind of hack who, if you give him enough resources and surround him with talented people, can churn out a watchable movie anymore. The trailer I've seen was pretty poor, but the biggest problem wasn't so much the plot as the look of the film - the overcast colour tone looked like those old 60s comics on cheap paper with huge dot matrix typesetting, and the staging looked typically unimaginative (remember how he even managed to screw up Philip Seymour Hoffman in the burning wheelchair in Red Dragon?).

That at least is guaranteed a $38m+ opening, but I do think they may have hired their own Schumacher this time. There's a great slip from Richard Donner in an interview in Empire where he talks about how delighted he was with Singer taking over Superman because the guy they had before was just an untalented 'shooter' rather than a visionary - only to be reminded that his wife had hired that 'shooter' on X3!

[romanD]

hm... I really like the x3 trailer.. gives me goosebumps actually! the score being so good now makes me really believe in the movie, even if Rattner hasn't really made a movie I like.
I also like about the trailer that it doesn't give anything away... like the Sentinels are nowhere to be seen in it!

so far no one has really seen it and posted a review, so I don't know why everybody complains about x3. Honestly, in the theaters nothing gets a bigger yawn out of the audience than the Superman trailers... but that has maybe more to do with Sueprman itself and that he is not popular AT ALL in Germany. Im sure the results will be very different here to what the movie will make in the US.
But everybody seems not able to wait for x3!

[AndyDursin]

Weekend Box Office Estimates (U.S.)
May 12 - 14 weekend

Archived Charts:
This Wk Last Wk Title Dist. Weekend Gross Cumulative
Gross Rlse
Wks # of
Theaters
1 1 Mission: Impossible III Paramount Pictures $24,514,000 $84,635,000 2 4059
2 - Poseidon Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution $20,325,000 $20,325,000 1 3555
3 2 RV Sony Pictures Releasing $9,500,000 $42,821,000 3 3536
4 - Just My Luck 20th Century Fox Distribution $5,500,000 $5,500,000 1 2541
5 3 An American Haunting Freestyle Releasing $3,689,000 $10,938,000 2 1703
6 5 United 93 N/A $3,583,000 $25,630,000 3 1871
7 4 Stick It Buena Vista Pictures Distribution $3,239,000 $22,218,000 3 2009
8 6 Ice Age: The Meltdown 20th Century Fox $2,975,000 $187,395,000 7 1879
9 7 Silent Hill TriStar Pictures $2,200,000 $44,507,000 4 1888
10 10 Hoot New Line Cinema $2,125,000 $6,213,000 2 3018

[AndyDursin]

"Poseidon" sinks at North American box office
Sunday May 14 2:11 PM ET Reuters

The $160 million disaster film "Poseidon" capsized on its maiden voyage in North America, allowing Tom Cruise's struggling sequel "Mission: Impossible III" to retain the weekend box office crown.

According to studio estimates issued on Sunday, "Poseidon" opened at No. 2 after selling just $20.3 million worth of tickets for the three days beginning May 12. The third installment in Cruise's action franchise earned $24.5 million.

The soggy opening for German director Wolfgang Petersen's costly remake of the 1972 epic "The Poseidon Adventure" was not unexpected. Surveys of moviegoers in the weeks before its release had indicated a distinct lack of enthusiasm.

"While we had hoped for a slightly stronger opening, it's a little premature to assess the financial viability of the movie," said Dan Fellman, president of domestic theatrical distribution at Warner Bros. Pictures, a unit of Time Warner Inc.

"Poseidon" also earned $4.4 million after opening in six Asian markets, No. 1 in four of them -- Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines.

After 10 days, the total for "Mission: Impossible III" stands at $84.6 million. Its drop from last weekend was a modest 49 percent. Most big films usually drop between 50 percent and 60 percent in their second weekends.

The spy thriller also held up well overseas, where the total rose to $129.2 million.

UNDERWHELMING BOW

Those were some rare pieces of good news for Cruise, whose bizarre antics in the past year were blamed for the movie's underwhelming $47 million bow in North America last weekend.

The film is clearly trailing its predecessors, although exact comparisons are difficult because they both opened on the Wednesday before the busy Memorial Day holiday weekend at the end of May, while the latest one opened on a regular Friday. After 12 days, 1996's "Mission: Impossible" had earned $107.2 million, and the 2000 sequel $130.7 million.

Industry observers expect the new film to finish up somewhere between $150 million and $185 million. The first one made $181 million and the second one $215 million.

The movies were released by Paramount Pictures, a unit of Viacom Inc.

It has been a rough start to the summer for effects-laden Hollywood extravaganzas. But hopes are high for Sony Corp .'s adaptation of the controversial Vatican bestseller "The Da Vinci Code," which opens worldwide next weekend.

Also new this weekend was the Lindsay Lohan teen romance "Just My Luck," which opened at No. 4 with a modest $5.5 million. Not surprisingly, 80 percent of the audience was female and 70 percent aged under 25, said distributor Twentieth Century Fox, a unit of News Corp.

The No. 3 slot went to former chart-topper "RV," which earned $9.5 million in its third weekend -- a drop of just 14 percent, the lowest in the top 10. Sony's Robin Williams comedy has earned $42.8 million to date, and is playing strongest in the U.S. heartland and suburban markets, the studio said.

http://movies.yahoo.com/mv/news/va/2006 ... 9200p.html

[MarkB]

I'm wondering if it's a mistake for studios to be starting the summer season in early May (as alluded to in the article Andy posted above). I used to think that a good movie could earn money any time of the year, but maybe it's unrealistic to expect $80-100 million openings before schools are out for the summer.

It's obvious that MI:3 will end up making money, but maybe it would have done better if they had held it back for a few more weeks (the "Cruise factor" notwithstanding). Then again, maybe it will continue to do relatively modest business for a while, earning its money over the course of a month or two instead of just the opening weekend. This wouldn't surprise me, since the reviews are good and the word-of-mouth that I've heard has been positive. (Personally, I liked it and would recommend it.)

Mark

[Carlson2005]

I'm wondering if it's a mistake for studios to be starting the summer season in early May (as alluded to in the article Andy posted above). I used to think that a good movie could earn money any time of the year, but maybe it's unrealistic to expect $80-100 million openings before schools are out for the summer.

A lot of the overseas markets feel the same way, especially now day-and-date worldwide releases are becoming more common to avoid piracy. Both German and Italian exhibtors feel that The Da Vinci Code will do poorly in their territories because Summer is traditionally the worst time for movie attendance over there, but the studio is unwilling to wait until Autumn to release them there.

[AndyDursin]

A lot of the overseas markets feel the same way, especially now day-and-date worldwide releases are becoming more common to avoid piracy. Both German and Italian exhibtors feel that The Da Vinci Code will do poorly in their territories because Summer is traditionally the worst time for movie attendance over there, but the studio is unwilling to wait until Autumn to release them there.

I guess I missed the bandwagon because I have no interest in seeing DA VINCI right now. The topic doesn't interest me, I've heard it beaten to death on news shows for months, and top it off we have Tom Hanks and his ridiculous looking hair...I dunno, just doesn't make me want to rush out and see it, but there are millions who read the book who will (I usually trust my dad's read on books, because he devours them, and he thought DA VINCI was one of the most poorly-written novels he'd read in years).

[Carlson2005]

I've got no interest in it either, despite Jean Reno and Paul Bettany, who I'll usually watch in just about anything (that said, Reno or no, I still haven't seen The Pink Panther, but hey, that had Clive 'Mr Monotone' Owen in it). The trailers just killed stone dead any interest I might have had. Personally, I'm not so sure it will do that well - bestsellers are no guarantee of box-office these days, and the disappointment factor for the fans of the book and the sick-of-hearing-about-it factor for those who aren't could prevent it from doing the kind of business people are expecting.

That said, I was immensely bemused by my mother giving a copy as a gift to a very devout Catholic last week - she thought it was along the lines of Enigma or a puzzle book! I'd love to have been there to see that one!

[Carlson2005]

Well, it turned out that Poseidon didn't do quite that badly after all - it actualy took about $2m more than estimates. But since that's still just a $22m opening, I don't hink they're popping the champagne corks over at Warners just yet...

Of course, the fact that we live in an era when a $22m opening is considered bad shows just how bad things have got in the business these days.