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SUNDAY AM: Showing just how fiercely competitive the summer box office is right now, rival Hollywood movie studios are complaining to me they don’t believe Warner Bros’ domestic gross numbers released today. Those claim its disastrous Speed Racer came in 2nd behind Marvel’s Iron Man in the weekend’s Top 10 contest. All the other majors — Fox, Sony, Paramount, Universal, Disney, and MGM – have the anime actioner opening only 3rd. And rivals dispute WB’s reporting that Speed Racer made $20.2 million for Fri-Sat-Sun because its projected Sunday number isn’t seen as possible. “That’s a very aggressive Sunday estimate to try and claim 2nd,” one studio’s top marketing and distribution mogul complained to me this morning, echoing the disbelief of most of his colleagues. “Warners is hoping moms want to go to Speed Racer for Mothers Day.” (To give Warner Bros the benefit of the doubt, it’s true that family pics do well on Mothers Day.) But all the other studios have Fox’s romantic comedy What Happens In Vegas in 2nd place with $20 million, and Speed Racer only 3rd with $19.7 million. 
And the rival execs say that, since Speed Racer‘s gross was even softer than anyone thought, up only 18% on Saturday because of kiddie matinees compared to Friday, the Warner Bros film couldn’t possibly get to $20 million for the weekend barring a box office miracle on Sunday. “Their estimate is utterly laughable!,” a top exec at a rival major told me this AM. “That being said, from what I’ve heard, they are not trying to dress up the pig. They’re resigned to it being a disaster… just not enough to stop them from fabricating a number to jump Fox for the #2 position.” These kind of controversies don’t develop often in Hollywood, but when they do, they can be ugly. That’s because there is a certain code of honor among thieves, if you will — a tacit agreement that every Hollywood studio will try to report weekend box office numbers as accurately as possible, even though there’s a significant PR advantage to artifically moving a disappointing film up a slot in the Top 10 by inflating numbers. The irony is that these controversies get settled quickly, as soon as tomorrow when the actual theater by theater grosses for Sunday come in Monday and then determine the ”actual” figures as opposed to the Sunday “estimates”…
Nobody is disputing distributor Paramount’s figures that Marvel’s summer blockbuster Iron Man made a platinum $15 million on Friday from 4,111 venues, and $21.6 million on Saturday, giving it an estimated FSS total of $50.5 million, or more than double the domestic box office gross of its nearest weekend competitor, to stay No. 1 again. Its new cume is a monster $177.1M. But Warner Bros’ Speed Racer, whether its weekend total is $19.7 million or $20.2 million from 3,606 plays, made only half what the studio hoped, even with lowered expectations because of bad buzz and poor tracking. Not only is the anime actioner this summer’s first summer bomb, but it’s also doing dismally in key areas of its 30+ day and date opening foreign territories. The pic has gone bust in many international markets, with some disastrous openings in Europe in particular. Besides a too-long running time and a too-small audience of younger boys, the Wachowski siblings spent at least $160M making the pic, whereas Fox’s What Happens in Vegas cost only $35 million. Hollywood is convinced Warner Bros has a major writedown on its hands. Vegas took in $7.1 million Friday and $7.5 million Saturday from 3,215 runs for a $20 million weekend. For much more analysis, see my ‘Speed Racer’ Crashes & Burns To Become First Summer Bomb and Weekend Prediction.
The rest of the Top 10 were holdovers: #4 Sony’s Made Of Honor took in $7.6M for a new cume of $26.2M; #5 Universal’s Baby Mama, $5.7M weekend, $40.3M cume; #6 Universal’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, $3.7M weekend, $50.7M cume; #7 Warner Bros’ Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay, $3.1M weekend, $30.7M cume; #8 Lionsgate/The Weinstein Co’s The Forbidden Kingdom, $1.9M weekend, $48.2M cume; #9 Fox’s Nim’s Island, $1.3M weekend, $44.2M cume; #10 Sony Classics’ Redbelt, $1.1M weekend, $1.2M cume.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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I’ve got ten words for Jeff Bewkes and Alan Horn…
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Hi, Nikki. I find somehow disturbing the glee that the much-anticipated and hoped-for “failure” of SPEED RACER inspires in you and others. What is so good about seeing the “siblings” (as you like to point) fail? So many people seem to share that feeling. I generally like and enjoy the comments and information in this page, and thank you for the time and courage to offer some real insight into matters that are never discussed honestly, but this wachowski witch hunt fever doesn´t become you, and I feel you’re much better than that. Don´t become a wanna be hater. Your voice is much too important as an observer of the realitities of the desert of the real, as the “siblings” would say. Thanks for your page.
This weekend probably locks a $40 million TOTAL N.A. gross for Speed Racer. Exhibitors aren’t going to be letting this one hang around past its initial expiration date.
Some will never learn.
For further evidence, I submit “The Incredible Hulk.” It’s a lock for a stinker.
The only thing incredible about it is that they think a second try in five years will be any different from the first time.
That’s incredibly stupid.
Could be that the PRISM boycott is actually having a bit of an effect? Or perhaps maybe it’s just that bad of a film….
So very happy for Iron Man and Robert Downey Jr. What an awesome movie and awesome actor.
Emile Hirsch is not a star. He is an indie character actor. He certainly shouldn’t be headlining an action film. Much like James McAvoy. Every cent that Wanted pulls will be due to whatever appeal Angelina Jolie still has.
If by some miracle Wanted avoids being the bomb it now looks to be, we’ll get a deluge of fawning articles about how McAvoy has now “arrived” and his “universal appeal”. When that happens, every woman in the nation then needs to go on a rampage against this sexism. That movie is being sold 100% on Jolie. She damn well better get 100% of any credit.
Not surprised in the least. You make a 129 minute-long kiddie movie that makes for a noisy, headache-bright, computer-degenerated mess of a trailer based on a property whose appeal is only entrenched in the hearts of a petite group of overaged hipsters and expect boffo BO? Those brothers are being exposed as hacks who owe their careers to a couple of cutting-edge-circa-1999 special effect technologies.
The Wachowski bloom is off the rose.
They lucked into the Matrix, virtually destroyed the franchise with the two sequels, and have done nothing of consequence since then.
Since they love high concept, big budget projects, I can only see them attached as hired-guns for some sort of Americanized anime film or sequel…and not for a couple of years as “penance” for costing the studio millions.
What surprises me is how poorly that Speed Racer performed this weekend. Anything that Joel Silver and the Wachovisky Brothers has done remarkable in the box office. Bot a less 20mil domestic gross? Something wrong with this picture. I saw the trailors to Speed Racer and it blew me away.
Well other economic factors could be in play.
High gas prices.
Subprime mortgage could really pulling on the consumer to affect the box office. Coupled by high ticket prices. But high gas prices,subprime and foreclosures are pulling on the customer. Consider the bigger picture and Warner Execs need to rexamine the market on this one.
Making “Speed Racer”, while it seemed to make some sense, based on the fact that the show came here a long time ago, really wasn’t the smartest idea. The property is considered extremely forgettable by the Japanese. There are oodles of incredibly popular animes and mangas with very empathetic characters and cinematic settings and huge worldwide followings, like for instance “Berserk”, “Grappler Baki” and the have made $billions already. Why pick a minor one with paper thin characteers? Maybe because the racing setting is good…then the challenge would be to develop a great script out of it. Rumor is, the script was very good at an earlier point, but got emasculated. It gets back to the basic rule: you need a great tentpole premise and a great script followed by terrific direction and performance. Easier said than done! But this failure in letting the W-Brothers get by without developing their characters should not be used to hold against anime and manga properties, far from it. The bedrock of the great mangas and animes is terrific character development. And it should rock on DVD, as another person said.
Looks like WB will be banking on The Dark Knight to save the summer!
Wachowskis should have either made it more real human or all animation. Combining the two was the deathnill for a movie based on a lightly seen cartoon. IronMan has a higher recognition rate than Speedracer.
I hate to say it but movies like these are why studio suits demand more say. M. Shyamalan and Tim Burton are others that could use some additional studio direction or stop making movies.
This should come as no surprise to anyone. From the trailers it was obviously a bomb. FX do not make a movie; Poor acting and fake looking FX = flop.
Surprising. I saw it Saturday night and enjoyed it. But by the time it was done, I felt like I had eaten too much candy.
they can’t all make money
happy mothers day warners
A Movie based on a Cartoon?…Beyond, Oxymoron..
Superman, I. II. III, IV, ReDo
SpiderMan, I.II.III..etc.etc.
And There was a “writer’s” Strike ?? What, ??, they weren’t being paid enough for Comic book re-Hash?
Crap Movies
REHASHED PLOTS
Animation in lieu of acting..
Agenda Driven, re-written “History”
“Star Wars” became a cartoon based on a movie..
Wonder why Casablanca and Titanic are Great//..and “SpeedRacer” is paper lining the bottom of the bird cage??
Even if Speed Racer were a very good movie, nobody would show up. It shouldn’t have been made, and the design and style by which it was made is all the worse.
Look for Indiana Jones to not be in the top two Summer pictures. It’s Wall-E and The Dark Knight this summer.
Another rip-off of a baby-boom concept destined for the shitpile along with “The Flintstones”, “Rocky and Bullwinkle”, “The Little Rascals”, “McHale’s Navy”, “Sgt. Bilko”, “The Beverly Hillbillies”, ad nauseum. And what of the endless remakes that also, are NEVER as good as the originals were (“Ocean’s Eleven”, “The Longest Yard”, “Psycho”, “The Manchurian Candidate”, “All the King’s Men”)? Where is the ORIGINALITY in Hollywood? When they’re not ripping off past generations (and doing a terrible job of it), they seem preoccupied with murderers, social deviants, dumb teen comedies, “gangsta” tripe and PC dramas about the downtrodden and the sexually “misunderstood”.
Have they no clue as to why so many people don’t bother attending movies anymore? The last Oscar telecast proved how far Hollywood has fallen. Half the presenters were not stars by any definition but Hollywood’s! Most were little more than watered-down celebrities with thin credentials and relatively few people bothered to pay to see these nominated films at all. Hollywood is experiencing a tailspin in prestige, the new celebrities are simply not too talented, nor are the alleged “writers”, and the public knows it. But I guess there’s always room for “Ocean’s 26″.
I sure do miss the real Hollywood and the wonderful experience of going to the movies. But to pay exorbitant prices for B-movies made on A-list budgets with few, if any legitimate stars, is no great pleasure. Sad, really. Anyone agree?
Not surprising. A truly horrible movie.
The brothers just messed this one up, that’s all. It doesn’t look like the much loved for generations now cartoon. It looks ridiculous. Poor Emile Hirsch, like Vincent Chase being pushed to do Aquaman, has ended up in an ugly film to look at, and in such an unbelievable world, people will have trouble believing in the characters, no matter how well played. This one is a bomb for a reason. Warner Brothers should have known.
All the advance reviews on Speed Racer, except for one by Richard Corliss in Time mag, said that it was basically boring…….so who wants to take their kid to that? Son, when the dvd comes out I’ll get it for you. That’s what this movie has been reduced to…
Wonder when tinsle town will figure out it cannot expect good attendance numbers when it produces so many films with political statements in them that half of America does no agree with? Oh well, they can keep telling us how stupid we are.
Yeah because its still hard to figure out what this movie is supposted to be about.
And yet WB refuses to greenlight Wonder Woman, a far more widely recognizable and beloved pop icon from their own (largely untapped) DC stable. Speed Racer is from the get-go a thematically shallow and generationally challenged property by comparison.
When will the studios learn that kids aren’t afraid of traditional superhero material or female leads. Audiences don’t need contrived flash and reinvention in their movies, so much as a good story well told with truth and directness (by a director with an emotional commitment to the material).
Iron Man points the way.
I mean, given the choice, who would make Speed Racer over Wonder Woman?
Why is Hollywood surprised? People are hurting out there with rising gas & food prices — not to mention millions of people losing their homes. Why should we go out and pay almost $10 a ticket to watch a movie?