DELLAMORTE'S BOX OFFICE WRAP UP 5/8/09

    
This just in: KHAAAAAN! (khaaaan! khaaan!)

Star Trek opened. There was talk Paramount was thinking 50’s-60’s and this is bigger. I was about a million off, though you could say I was five if you include the 7pm Thursday sneaks. I don’t though, cause I like being right. Make no mistake, this is an “exceeds expectations” opening, but the film is one of the best reviewed of the year, and the word coming back from Trekkie and non-Trekkie alike is “yeah, that was good.” The question is: does this translate to longplay? The budget for this one has long been rumored to be around $200, and Paramount sold the shit out of it, which means that they spent even more (a big budget film like this can spend into nine digits just in the selling). I don’t want to sound like David Poland, but if the film does more than three times its opening weekend, not only would that be a tremendous triumph, it would be odd for a summer film. Yet that still says nothing of being profitable. Fast and Furious opened to $70, and it just crossed the $150 mark. Wolverine opened to $85 Million, and $200 is going to be a struggle (if not impossible). Perhaps Paramount makes their coins with all the cross-promotional material, or at least that greases the wheels as they’re about to put out the films again (at least the first six), though this may have strong international. Paramount is right to start working on the sequel, and I suspect that even if the picture tops out anywhere from $200 to $250, it will be a popular DVD/Blu-ray/Etc. The drop-off next week won’t be as terrible as Wolverine’s I’m sure. But when did 55% become an acceptable drop?

Yeah, Wolverine opened, all right, and then it may not have shit the bed, per se, but I would argue there was some garbage farts throughout the night. I don’t want to check the underwear if you know what I mean. For comparison, it currently has a $13 Million dollar lead on Fast and Furious’s second weekend total, but they did the same amount of business for their second weekends. Furious capped out at $150, Wolverine should do a bit more than that (and Fox will probably sell it a little harder), and the international should be that much more bounteous. Again, how piracy effected this is anyone’s guess. But the piracy, and the fact that the film is not well liked makes this something of a triumph. The film probably should have done Last Stand numbers ($230 Million), but as much as some people hated that film, it was not as trashed as this one. It’s not really a triumph, but it is something.

Being the only rom-com on the market helped Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, for sure, which managed to fall less than 1/3rd of its opening weekend. Angels and Demons may kill it as the better date movie, though. Perhaps there is long play, or if not longplay, than an eeke-out that gets the picture near or over $50 million. That’s not the numbers McConaughey can do in off season (generally about twice that), but Fool’s Gold barely got over $70, so maybe it’s just falloff. Often with films like this it’s just about timing because quality tends to be the same, or the film seem marginally different in that even though the narratives diverge wildly, you know exactly what you’re going to get. Made of Honor got to $46 million. This could do more. But that’s about right. 

Obssessed will make it to over $60 and probably sputter, though $70 is not out of the question. It’ll start losing prints and fast. But that’s how you do it. Especially compared to the warmed-over looking Next Day Air which barely got to $4, though Wood Harris has the most impossibly photoshopped body for the film’s poster. 17 Again should be able to limp to $60, and Monsters Vs. Aliens is probably going to have to settle for $190.

Y’all seen Blue Velvet? Toward the end there’s a man who’s been killed but is still on his feet. That’s The Soloist. At this point everything in the lower 5 is just hanging out waiting to go off screen. Angels and Demons should be huge, but the target demo for that film is out of my normals, so I don’t have the feelers on it that I have for the geekier-looking titles. The books are big, I assume the film will be too. Even though the last film was so, so terrible.