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SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM: Warner Bros didn’t know what to expect on such a unique project as Spike Jonze’s Where The Wild Things Are. Certainly not a $32.4M weekend performing strongly across the country. Or a Cinemascore of B+ where 55% of the audience was under age 25 and rated the film A-. Here was a famous director with an infamous imagination making a PG movie for adults out of Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s book. As a result, the studio decided not to position Wild Things as a kids film. The marketing department brought it to Comicon, and then spent 70% of the media for it on broad based and adult driven buys. The P&A stressed Spike’s pedigree, but not the fact that Jones took forever in post-production on his CGI + puppetry adaptation. “He’s a perfectionist and just kept working on it,” a WB exec told me Friday night. “But now we know that at the end of the day he nailed it.” Thursday midnight shows went way over the expected $150K grosses and came close to $660K. By Friday noon in Manhattan, the expected $12K take turned into $100K. Grosses came in at $11.9M Friday and $13M Saturday from 3,735 locations (including 145 Imax theaters which made $3.1M F-S-S). 
Friday’s revenues were unusually boosted by the “Spikers” as well as by adults attracted by the older focused marketing campaign. So Saturday grosses were only 10% higher than Friday’s, not the usual 60% higher of most matinee driven kiddie films.
At a surprise #2, Overture’s Law Abiding Citizen starring Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler did a better than expected with $7.5M Friday and $8.3M Saturday for a $21.2M weekend from 2,889 venues. Paramount’s pre Halloween hyped Paranormal Activity made $6.25M Friday and $7.6M Saturday from a wider release onto 760 screens for #3 and a $20.1M weekend and new $33.7M cume. Universal’s holdover comedy Couples Retreat sank to #4 with $6M Friday (-50%) and $8M Saturday for a $17.9M weekend from 3,009 plays for a $63.3M cume. That leaves Screen Gems/Sony’s low budget reboot Stepfather #5 on 2,734 dates to debut with only $4.3M Friday and $4.7M Saturday for a $12.3M weekend.
The rest are holdovers:
6. Cloudy/Meatballs (Sony) Week 5 [3,037] $8.1M Wkd, Cume $108.2M
7. Zombieland (Sony) Week 3 [3,171 theaters] $7.8M Wkd, Cume $60.8M
8. Toy Story 3-D (Disney) Week 3 [1,467] $900K Fri, $3 Wkd
9. Surrogates (Disney) Week 4 [2,326] $700K Fri, Est $2.3M Wkd
10. Invention Of Lying (WB) Week 3 [1,624] $675K Fri, Est $2.2M Wkd
It’s turning into a huge weekend: $130+M, or +35% from last year.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Did someone really say this is the worst movie they have ever seen? ROFL! Taste is subjective, however this type of hyperbole deserves a special mention. You are an idiot and I feel for your children to have a tard as a parent. I feel sorry for someone like you….whatever.
Personally, to me, it is an adult version of E.T. A childs mmovie for adults told by a child.
To the other tards saying this movie should be making 50 million – another LOL. I love it when people comment on things they haven’t seen. This movie is absolutely a movie that will fly so far over childrens (and most adults) heads that I am surprised it is making as much as it is. This is far from a mainstream film, and as people who “follow” film you SHOULD be aware of that.
All I ever hear from Miley haters is “She’s not being the best role model” and then they pick out some piddling little thing she does. Well now it’s MY turn. This kid in this movie is NOT a role model. Why would you take a kid to see this film? If older teenagers and adults like it then fine.
Sounds like it’s time for the L.A. or New York Times to write another article about the death of the movie business. People obviously hate going to the movies.
I kept waiting for Gandolfini to say, “EY, quit bustin’ my balls!”
That’s because you’re an idiot with very limited imagination and wouldn’t know a talented actor with a fantastic voice when you hear one.
“Spikers” are people who love movies directed by Spike Jonze, for example, “Being John Malkovich,” “Adaptation,” etc.
For people saying “toddlers and young children were bored,” of course they were! The marketing for the the film and all the reviews have said it is NOT directed at young children. Isn’t it rated PG? There is a reason for that, people!
It’s not a movie for young children. It’s a movie for hipsters who love Jonze and adults who love the book. Yesterday in NY it was totally sold out after 5 pm. I’m not even going to try to see it until sometime in the middle of the week.
“Denise Richards film Wild Things that John McNaughton directed”
One of my favorite movies of all time! Love the post credits stuff.
I’m glad the film did well. I liked it. Didn’t love it. There’s NO story to speak of and it lacts the elements that make a film like the Wizard of Oz classics. I think when you’re making a film essentially about a missing father figure. You should give us a little more to feel the abscence than a couple shots of a globe.
It’s a pleasure to look at in IMAX. Spike Jonze and Lance Accord are visual gods. I don’t think it’s for kids either, but I think Warner Brothers dropped the ball by not marketing it that way. They really can’t take credit for $40m from a book that already has a built in adult audience…but I’m sure they will.
“I think when you’re making a film essentially about a missing father figure. You should give us a little more to feel the abscence than a couple shots of a globe.”
I don’t think for a second that the film is ABOUT a missing father figure – it just so happens that it’s one cause of Max’s uncertain feelings and fears, but not the root — that would be simply being a 9 year-old child in the modern world, period. When he finally says to KW (voiced by Lauren Ambrose) that he wishes they could have a mother, he’s actually coming around to realize that he misses her and wants the shelter of home along with the unconditional love she provides despite the frustrations parenting brings….it doesn’t matter where the dad is in the overall plot of the movie, so why should they bog it down with “waaah, my daddy split up with my mom/died in Iraq/got hit by a bus and now I’m all alone” sentimentality?
To all the whiny parents, please SHUT UP.
You took your kids to see the movie without finding out what Jonze’s vision is about. You have failed as parents.
Thankfully Wild Things wasn’t a bastardized interpretation of the source material. It seems unimaginable in this day and age that a beloved Children’s book could be actualized on the big screen without CGI creatures, pop culture references or poopy jokes. While Warner Bros. should be commended for having loftier artistic standards for the project, they should also be taken to task for letting Spike Jonze bring too much of his personal baggage to the project. It’s apparent after seeing the film that Jonze, he himself a child of divorce, felt compelled to turn what was in literary form a subversive romp into a drab meditation on childhood angst. I’m sorry, but I can’t give the film a pass on the basis that it’s not as dumbed down or panderous as the bulk of released stuff that doesn’t have age-restrictive MPAA classifications. The film is pretentious, bleak, inaccessible, plotless, and annoyingly dependent on that damned shaky camera. If noble intentions were the foremost measure of cinematic worth it truly would be an instant classic, though.
Wild Things was lousy. The furry suits looked unpleasant and fake, with none of the charm of the drawings. The movie was slloooowww and BORING. Kids were restless as hell and people around me were muttering a lot. Wouldn’t count on this having legs. 3/10.
I would expect the final weekend gross to end up around 31 million. I think the B+ Cinemascore will be reflected. I saw it and was not particularly impressed. I found it to be disjointed as someone else said earlier, visually it was quite beautiful, but in the end there really isn’t much reason to care about it. Also I found most of the musical selections on the soundtrack to be wildly inappropriate for the type of movie it was. While I have liked Spike Jonze movies I have seen in the past, I found WWTA to be self indulgent and unnecessary.
I think the gross will be hurt by the fact that it truly isn’t a movie for kids and was unnecessarily scary at several points. If kids do not go in large numbers then it will probably follow the pattern of other adult dramas out this year (which is to say not very high grosses.
Where the Wild Things are was pretty damn tense. I really think it would have worked better freed of its children’s book trappings altogether and if Jonze had gone all out horror. Like, instead of being essentially good but ‘just scared’, Carol is really a dark, evil thing inside the boy’s mind. I feel like it could have gone off in a much different– darker and more interesting direction, but the strictures of the brand pulled it back from the brink.
Law Abiding citizen was real entertaining. I strongly recommend it. A game of witts. Is the best way I would describe it.
I saw the movie yesterday in Imax. I decided to pay for Imax because i like Spike Jonze’s eye for visuals. It was a good movie, but i was expecting more. If i could have done it again i would have seen it in a regular theatre. A couple walked out of the movie in the middle. It was a sweet movie. Yes, there were parts that were scary where the boy’s life is literally in danger and the plot was thin. I guess the moral was that in a family you sometimes hurt each other and even hate each other at times, but in the end you are still a family and you love each other. I’m still trying to figure out the monsters and what they represent. Whether they represent cliche members of a typical family or parts of a person’s individual personality??? Maybe i’m reading too much into it. It goes without saying but Spike Jonze is talented and has a director’s eye. Put him in charge of a big time action movie already. Maybe he’s not attracted to that type of material.
People are starved to see a good movie. This is why box office is up 40%. I haven’t been to the movies in a while. I might actually go and see “Law Abiding Citizen” on Thursday. I think “Saw 6″ will be big. I’m definitely going to see that. What else is coming up?? “Twilight”, “Saw”, ??? I would have gone to see “Shutter Island”.
I loved ‘Where the Wild Things Are’ as a book, a genuine classic child’s story, but to see it as a movie… definitely not interested in watching. WTWTA is a pass for me.
This film IS for children. Both my sons instantly “got it”, and loved that someone understood how they feel when they are scared, angry, and confused. They feel powerless, and they use their imaginations as a way to feel and think through what can be overpowering. No one mucked up the film with false yucks (what kid laughs when they are stressed out and lonely?), tried too hard to point things out (goodonya for subtlety- us adults get the single lines about separated parents, etc), and kept the shifting meaningfulness of the wild things- as it can be in a child’s mind. The photography, costuming, music, and the rest were perfect accompaniments to the tale/narrative- not overwhelming it but complementing and transporting it. This is a work of art, and art at it’s best- layered, and work that can speak to many different ages and sorts of people.
The film was very different. It made me feel like I wanted to be a kid again. Remener when you acted out as a child and you’d wanna run away? That’s how I felt. I was drawn by the emotion because a child, I felt that way sometimes. Great film. Not for the toddlers!
I was at a fast food place yesterday and the 17-23 year olds who work there were all talking about going to see Wild Things. Some had never heard of the book and were planning to see the film. Big buzz. You can’t fake that. Turbobard
Look, people, the movie is what it is, which is a very good thing. It’s, as someone else said, a movie about being a kid, for adults. It didn’t bother me terribly that there’s no traditional three-act structure; it was an emotionally honest and deeply philosophical look at the growing pains we all go through learning to deal with each other.
And it struck me as very emotionally true to the book, which is itself pretty dark and brooding.
Great work; I was delighted with it.
At least Paranormal Activity is doing great. Finally saw it last night at the Regal Fox Run Stadium, and it sold out four consecutive shows. Excellent film; nearly had me screaming out loud in some parts.
I find it funny people complaining about toddlers being brought to Where the Wild Things Are.. It has been marketed to children and based on a children’s book. I wanted to love the movie but I also found it to be dull and dreary. At the screening i was at there were LOTS of restless children. I think the movie is going to drop like a rock next weekend now that the curiosity factor is out of the way. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Including people that didn’t like or hated the film.
I predict this movie drops off like no other in the 2nd week once word of mouth spreads. Visually beautiful, little kid is great – but boring, depressing and too scary for kids.
a scene where children might get eaten by wild things is inappropriate for children? like red riding hood, hansel & gretel etc etc? hey guy, children love to be scared–and then they want rescue,justice and safety, roughly in that order.
read any classic kid’s tale or see any kids’ movie–it’s all there, honest.
People keep crowing that “WTWTA” isn’t marketed as a kids movie” as if unsuspecting parents are at fault for taking their kids to see a movie based on a book that would bore any kid over the age of four.
People don’t pay that much attention to the marketing campaign, folks. they see the title, they just make the assumption it’s kid appropriate.
This is basically bait-and-switch. Like taking your kid to see a “Curious George” live action feature and discovering it was directed by Abel Ferrara.
We’re going to see AstroBoy next weekend. Let me guess, inappropriate for kids as well?