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SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM: It’s yet another disappointing result for 2010 summer box office following such a weak Memorial Weekend, with this first June weekend’s total domestic grosses looking down -19% compared to last year’s. DreamWorks Animation’s Shrek Forever After distributed by Paramount was #1 for the weekend with the fourquel’s strong hold (thanks to more runs and higher 3D ticket prices than any newcomer). Universal’s R-rated Get Him To The Greek debuted #2 ahead of Lionsgate’s Killers, though both received only “B” Cinemascores. But the buzz on Greek was so much better than Killers, not to mention the star power: Jonah Hill and Russell Brand under mogul Judd Apatow’s production banner seemed a fresher combination than the played-out duo of Katherine Heigl and Ashton Kutcher. As a result, I thought Greek would finish the weekend with more — not less – than the $17.7M grosses from Forgetting Sarah Marshall where Brand’s rock star character first appeared.
Fox’s Marmaduke opened on the most theaters this weekend among newcomers but performed poorly even with the Saturday kiddie matinee bounce. The Vincenzo Natali-directed Splice debuted with a terrible ”D” Cinemascore — and the distinction of being arguably the biggest acquisition to ever emerge from the Sundance Film Festival, based on Dark Castle’s $35 million P&A commitment. But the movie bombed. Still, it overcame cease and desist letters from Fox lawyers worried about the genetically-manufactured creature’s similarity to the Na’vi creatures of Avatar, and then survived nearly being dumped into a SciFi Channel premiere. Warner Bros is quick to point out it’s only distributing this negative pickup by Joel Silver in the U.S. and has zero financial interest. (For background, see Mike Fleming’s The Life of ‘Splice,’ The Unlikeliest Major Studio Summer Release.)
Sex And The City 2 and Prince Of Persia sank -53% and -54% respectively their second weekend out. But Persia grossed another $37.6M overseas, putting its international cume now at $156.4m and its worldwide cume at $215.9M.
Here’s the Top Ten:
1. Shrek Forever After 3D (DWA/Par) Week 3 [4,386 Theaters]
Friday $6.5M, Saturday $10.7M, Weekend $24.3M, Estimated Cume $183M
2. Get Him To The Greek (Universal) NEW [2,697]
Friday $6.3M, Saturday $6.4M, Weekend $17.4M
3. Killers (Lionsgate) NEW [2,859]
Friday $5.6M, Saturday $6.2M, Weekend $16.1M
4. Prince of Persia (Disney) Week 2 [3,646]
Friday $4.2M, Saturday $5.7M, Weekend $13.9M (-54%), Cume $59.5M
5. Sex And The City 2 (NL/Warner Bros) Week 2 [3,445]
Friday $4.4M, Saturday $4.7M, Weekend $12.6M (-53%), Cume $73.4M
6. Marmaduke (Fox) NEW [3,213]
Friday $3.4M, Saturday $4.5M, Weekend $11.3M
7. Iron Man 2 (Marvel/Paramount) Week 5 [3,007]
Friday $2.1M, Saturday $3.4M, Weekend $7.7M, Cume $291.2M
8. Splice (Dark Castle/WB) NEW [2,450]
Friday $2.7M, Saturday $2.7M, Weekend $7.4M
9. Robin Hood (Universal) Week 4 [2,599]
Friday $1.5M, Saturday $2.3M, Weekend $5.1M, Cume $94.3M
10. Letters To Juliet (Summit) Week 4 [1,962]
Friday $954K, Saturday $1.3M, Weekend $3M, Cume $43.3M
UPDATE: By the way, Rentrak has sent out a note saying grosses were fixed now. “I think it was just a rumor from all the folks who have movies opening that wont do $20M wanting to delay the pain,” another studio exec snarked to me.
6:15 PM: I’m hearing that Rentrak suffered a hardware failure. “They are completely behind in loading data for box office grosses today,” one studio exec informs me. That means we can all go to sleep early.
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Saw Splice last night. It’s definitely a quality film, the first one to actually leave me thinking in a very long while, but it never had a chance of being a box office smash. Warner Bros. had no choice but to lie like a rug with this one, advertising it as Cujo when it bears a much stronger resemblance to Bug, another quality movie that got dumped in the summer because the distributor had no clue what to do with it. If it was going to make any money, it would have done so last night, and though I really liked the film, that Cinemascore grade is not at all surprising.
Thats too bad about the “Splice” Cinema Score rating. (This probably has to do with its bizarre climax) I saw an advanced screening and found it to be terrifying and wildly original. What a misunderstood, mismarketed film. I hope it finds an audience.
“Bizarre climax.”
I see what you did there.
Marmaduke,
What a joke. The trailer was pathetic to say the least. That with great effects so available to these filmmakers, they choose to use what appears to be the most outdated ones available. Was there a story there. Why do they work so hard to make crap. Well lets move on.
Because it’s made by FOX who if you didn’t know already has KRAFT CHEESE as their main sponsor this summer. Get ready for cheestastic A-Team and Knight and Day!!
Shame about SPLICE. Finally, a good creepy horror film that’s NOT A REMAKE and people don’t go. And people wonder why Hollywood keeps remaking horror films. Such a shame.
When is Hollywood going to start making quality product? Audiences are staying away in droves and I don’t blame them at all. This summer has been a borderline disaster not just with receipts but in the general tone of the films themselves.
I saw GET HIM TO THE GREEK and it was quite funny, but I’m not surprised it didn’t open huge. Russell Brand is not exactly a “star” and they didn’t even bother selling the fact that it was a sequel of sorts to FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL. Hell I thought he was just playing another drunk until I realized, yeah, it WAS the same character (and Kristen Bell showed up for a brief second).
Agreed. It’s the same formulaic “bromance” flick Apatow continues to put out. And with the same players no less. This guy is a one-trick pony.
Agreed, and now Russel Brand is going to be “Arthur” and play the same bumbling drunk that audiences have already declared they don’t want to see. Wake up Hollywood.
Yeah, if there’s anyone who should be concerned by the opening weekend of “Get Him to the Greek”, it’s the “Arthur” people. I’m a Russell Brand fan, but I’ve always questioned what his broader appeal is.
If Brand can’t open “Greek” along with the already established Jonah Hill, how do they expect “Arthur” to perform any better with Brand and (other) unknowns? Particularly with Brand playing the THIRD identical version of HIMSELF after “Sarah Marshall” and now “Greek”.
Russell Brand is star within the tiny comedy inner circle of Hollywood – aka the people who don’t go to movies in Middle America. No one outside of this crowd actually knows who Brand is. Or cares.
He is a niche performer who was great in a supporting role in “Sarah Marshall” but is not sustainable as the lead guy, in virtually every scene, over 2 hours.
And now they’re going to roll him out in an “Arthur” remake, trying to fill the shoes of the venerable Dudley Moore? Fairly or not, he’ll be savaged for remaking a movie that doesn’t need to be remade.
This will not end well for the “Arthur” remake.
Weren’t TPTB trying to get him into the next “Pirates”? Studio heads need to stop cramming him down the throats of U.S. fans.
Wake up Hollywood indeed! People are tired of the same old regurgitated crap. It’s no use bemoaning the economy or piracy – this year saw the highest grossing movie of all time. People still want to go to the movies and they are willing to pay for quality product – they just ain’t getting it. All the execs sitting in their offices, scared to make a move, should suck it up and take a gamble. Life’s too short to play it safe all the time. Playing it safe doesn’t mean you don’t die – you just die more slowly.
Their all a lot of shit movies .why would any studio think there would be big box office . Time to start hiring writers with stories to tell . A 5 year old must have come up with these
Poor Fox can’t do anything right. Hope they didn’t screw up too badly with The Retin-A Team and those hideous billboards. They should just turn that studio over to James Cameron.
Poor fox can’t do anything right? Umm, except for maybe Avatar. which grossed 2.7 billion. you’re an idiot.
Avatar like Lord Of The Rings and even in some ways SITC2 and Date Night didn’t need real marketing, the movies that do like Marmaduke, Robin Hood, Killers, Splice, DayBreakers, Get Him To The Greek, Valentine’s Day, Hot Tub Time Machine, they’re the ones that test your marketing skills and chops.
My point exactly. Despite Fox’s botched teaser and debacle called Avatar Day, Cameron’s simple, manipulative insult to intelligence was a smash. And they still gave away a ton of upside to hedge their risks. Every movie that’s not from Cameron underperforms or is unwatchable.
Yeah right, because Avatar was so stupid, get this: it was about this greedy corporation of know-nothings who are drilling into a luscious, beautiful environment and wrecking its natural beauty and disrupting the native species. Pfft…when the hell will that ever happen? Oh wait…
So the movie was a “manipulative, insult to intelligence”, huh?. Quit being a huge pretentious asshole. Which you are. I and several of my friends would consider themselves well-educated and intelligent and still enjoyed Avatar immensely. It’s not the greatest film ever made by a mile, but quite well-made. It’s just a movie. Roger Ebert is probably one of the smartest people on the internet blog-o-sphere, and he rewarded it 4 stars.
Whatever helps you Avatards sleep at night…try seeing a movie for adults once in a while. The dumbing down of America continues unabated.
The movie was simplistic and cliched because noble savages are savage, but not noble. Slash-and-burn agriculture, constant manipulation of the environment, constant murder over women and inter-tribal raiding and slavery and ritual human sacrifice and cannibalism and head-hunting?
All these and more including a 4% annual murder rate characterize primitives.
Avatar is also the product of huge hypocrisy. The amount of oil and coal and energy and mining needed to make the movie are staggering — enough to feed a village in Ethiopa for twenty years. Cameron lives a life of luxury and privilege, and would deny ordinary people around the world things like clean water, affordable food, education, to “preserve” places for primitive peoples who have their own version of barbarism.
Ebert is hardly smart. People feel sorry for his health problems, and liked him because he was part of tradition, but his picks are uniformly stupid, tragic-hipness.
—————–
AVATAR like other big budget movies don’t make much net for the studio, because the cost and risk are so much co-financers who put up the bulk of the movie take most of the upside.
That’s terrible — studios should be able to fund their own movies out of operations, cash generated by what they do. That say, DRAGON made most of its money from licensing/toys not ticket sales is scary.
I wouldn’t cite Roger Ebert if you’re going for critical acumen. Try Manohla Dargis’ rave for ‘Avatar’ in the NYT.
Uh…you are a idiot. Avatar was a stupid movie made by and for the lowest common denominator. You. Ebert is a fat fuck who is overdue to die a slow painful death, counting down. 3.2.1. is he dead yet? No, oh well soon enough. Ever been to the gulf of mexico? Its great except its full of Mexicans.
Jonah Hill is NOT a box-office draw.
John Candy spent years earning his stripes on SCTV and doing bit parts before he ever headlined a film. And Candy had charisma. Chris Farley became well known on SNL before he ever was given star billing. Jonah Hill is an overweight character actor, nothing more. Build a movie around Hill or Seth Rogen at your own risk.
Steve is right — to be a bankable star, a fat guy has to be funny and have a high likability factor.
Jonah Hill is merely an obese young guy with the personality of a lump of coral. Get Him To The Geek is more like it.
Sean Combs should have been highlighted on the poster instead of having the massive Jonah fathead with a monstrous-looking Russell Brand looming over it making the devil’s-horns sign.
It will not have a good hold in weeks to come.
Jonah Hill is built like Dr. Robotnik from Sonic The Hedgehog. His body is just weirdly shaped and he is not at all good looking. Why Universal thought he could headline a movie with the equally unattractive Russell Brand makes no sense.
Lucky thing they have Diddy selling those trailers… I never thought I’d ever say this, but he is really funny.
Just because Ashton has all these internet followers doesn’t mean we care about his movies. He’s done.
Love Ashton! The film was tired! I love to watch Ashton during his interviews & twitter. He is funny. He should consider primetime TV like HBO or Showtime where he would have more creative freedom.
“Get Him To The Greek” is rated R while “Killers” is rated PG-13. “Greek,” even though it got great reviews, doesn’t have any major star power. Jonah Hill & Russell Brand aren’t aren’t exactly big names to carry a Judd Apatow movie. And the trailers were, IMO, really bad.
And I’m glad “Killers” isn’t doing well. Maybe that’ll help deflate Heigl enormous head.
On Twitter trending:
Splice was trending on Twitter last night. And will gross under $10 million.
Hot Tub Time Machine also was trending when it opened. Then bombed.
Not sure trending on Twitter means all that much in reality.
Thank you.
The quicker the masses realize this, the better they’ll be for it. There have been numerous examples of internet entities that flame out badly in the mainstream. Just b/c someone is willing to talk about something succeeds on the internet does not mean it’ll carry over to other platforms.
Hot Tub Time Machine bombed? It made $50 million domestic on a $36 million budget. I know that’s not a huge success for the studio, but after DVD sales and such I’d hardly consider that a true bomb.
How can they release Splice as a summer movie?? What a waste of P&A? You don’t need to have a masters degree in marketing from USC Business School to know it’s so crowded in the summer that a fall or winter or ummmm, how about around Halloween time, release for a film that’s marketed as a horror is probably their best bet. Duh!
“Splice” is another example of how the internet hype just doesn’t translate to Box Office gross. Every site is screaming its praises (much like they did “Kick Ass”) and it’s just an overrated genre movie. And the ending left everyone booing and laughing at how ridiculous it all was. What a ridiculous movie. I can’t even get into what happens in the end because I’m sure this site will soon be invaded by the nerds who will get butthurt if I reveal it.
I thought it was fantastic – and so did everyone I saw it with in the theater. You should probably stop trying to judge a film based on its box office gross.
Poor Splice. A “D”? Gah
Splice is, at heart, about the ambivalence and fear of motherhood (as was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein book). Teenage boys just won’t respond to that, and that’s who the film has been marketed to.
Just saw Splice! Enjoyed it! You might want to wait for the DVD release.
Get Him to the Greek is basically a one quadrant movie. It may get a lot of buzz, but the numbers are modest just like Hot Tub and Kick Ass. The Killers has gotten some truly nasty reviews, (a Metacritic score of 18) and no doubt it’s a disaster, but it at least tries to appeal to both genders. They keep making comedies for dudes and expect the numbers to be huge but with the exception of The Hangover they show that cutting out women tends to depress box office.
You know, Nikki, as much as I like you (and I do), sometimes you seem to function a little less well than you should. And you forget things. Yeah.
Looking at the profitablity of “Get Me To The Greek” and you rely (it seems) hugely on Cinemascores Rating. BS. Are you forgetting WORD OF MOUTH? And your blowout rating on “How To Train Your Dragon”? It DID make a little more than you originally predicted. The point is, good word of mouth counts more than any dumb Cinemascore. Stats are good, but not always – especially in the long run. Stat-predictions ain’t 100%. Let’s see where “Greek” is 4 weeks from now. I’d bet the producers will be smiling…
Do you honestly believe that a film with a B Cinemascore rating is going to get good word of mouth? Or that a film that doesn’t open well is going to have a chance to capitalize on word of mouth? If we look at were Greek is four weeks from now, my guess is “no longer in theaters.”
CinemaScore is a way of predicting good word of mouth…
Did Killers really cost 80 million dollars?!? Carl Icahn’s tender offer for LGF sure sounds good about now…
-RnsW
Originally the production costs (before marketing) totaled $75M. After selling the foreign distribution rights, and a tax break, the prodution cost was reduced to $40M.
No reason to pay to see Kutcher, Heigl, Hill, Brand or that Splice chick.
On Twitter and trending:
“Splice” was trending on Twitter last night. And the film will open to less than $10 million.
“Hot Tub Time Machine” was trending on Twitter on it’s opening Friday night, and bombed.
For the last 24 hours, Ashton Kutcher (@aplusk) was Tweeting his arse off about “Killers” to his 5 MILLION followers. Let me repeat: 5 million followers! And “Killers” tanked as well.
The power of Twitter only means so much, kids. And Twitter trending is practically meaningless.
People aren’t stupid. If a film looks good and resonates, audiences will go see it. If a film like “Killers” looks like a miscast, retread, straight to DVD bomb, audiences won’t go see it.
And no amount of Kutcher tweeting or Twitter trending is going to change that.
Trending – only means ppl are talking about the film, there might be (see below) initial interest. It only means that…
you have to pay the minions to sort the tweets in Good Bad Neutral. Once they’re done evaluating, you got the gross figures, but then…. Figure in the numbers of the tweets your marketing dept. has paid for directly or that were done in order to win merchandise in that sweepstakes your “street team” dreamed up. Hope your staff are good at math and in control of your own figures…
Twitter might still put some butts in seats. Some films might trend on their own b/c people are genuinely interested or loved/hated the film with a passion – we will never know, right?
Agreed.
Didn’t AK tweet incessantly about “The Beautiful Life: TBL”? I believe being cancelled after 2 eps (by The CW no less!) quantifies the supposed “power” of Twitter.
MARMADUKE had no story. IT was just a talking dog. There were no stakes, very little humor, and absolutely no charm. It wasn’t a family film, and it wasn’t a teen film. So, who were they making it for? As a mother, I am looking for films to bring the whole family to. Make a day. We did it with Beverly Hills Chiuaua, with Hotel for Dogs. Sweet stories that have a message. When will Hollywood learn?
A bummer of a summer. Yikes.
After seeing the middling reaction to Splice at the premiere on Wednesday, it’s no surprise the film is a flop. Brody was a laughable joke. He needs to go back to obscure direct to dvd films. Predators looks terrible.
There is just way too much product out there. Hollywood needs to slow it down.
Splice was mismarketed. Probably unavoidable but to the general audience, it just looks like generic creature horror from the TV spots. Not a good summer release candidate.
Everything else is just disastrous on the merits. The money-losing is for once wholly justified. And Prince & Sex dropping 60-70% is “dog bites man” news, not really worth commentary. Sex is no good and Prince is mediocre summer product that didn’t open. The most remarkable thing about the two is their out-of-control budgets.
Splice wasn`t mismarketed, it was miscast and the creature was misdesigned. They wanted this to be a sexy horror in the way of Species but Brody and Polley don`t scream sex appeal at all. And the creature was too ugly in the body (especially legs) for sex scenes to produce anything but groans and unintentional laugh. bad idea all around.
Splice was mismarketed in that it’s a much more sophisticated horror and the TV spots made it look like SyFy slasher creature garbage. There was no hook at all in the TV ads. Generic creature kills people. People keep saying Species, but Species had much more tension in the marketing. It also opened to more than double this without adjusting for inflation since 1995. People would watch a Species.
Splice is somewhat difficult to watch, but that has jack to do with the opening weekend. That’s a marketing failure, plain and simple. It shouldn’t have done considerably worse than typical slasher horror.
“Splice” is like an early Cronenberg film – more about psychology and morality – a real science fiction film, and a very good one. Unfortunately, it’s been marketed as a “Species”-type sci-fi “actioner”, which it’s not. Teenagers will just be confused by it, and it intentionally makes people uncomfortable in the way Cronenberg’s early work did – while it won’t make much in the way of theater grosses, it will survive as a cult film in the way that movies like “Videodrome”, etc. do – true science fiction fans love it; it’s just not a wide audience “pleaser”; it deals with subjects too complex.
SPLICE did have a respectable $3,000 per screen average it’s opening weekend. The hold over to next weekend could be pretty good as well.
Will Sorcerer’s Apprentice bomb worse than Prince of Persia? Or will Bruckheimer finally turn it around and have a winner, that makes everyone forget the bombs of Prince of Persia, G-Force, and Shopaholic?
wouldn’t shopaholic a bomb…unless it’s budget was abnormally high (high for it’s genre that is).
Made about 110 million worldwide (45 domestic + 65 internationally)
G-Force has conflicting reports. the one on the-numbers.com(by Hollywood reporter) is 85 million and the one of BoxOfficeMojo.com is 150 million.
Either way it made about 290 million worldwide (120 + 170). So not a bomb really.
The combo of Cage and Turteltaub has come up aces so far. I don’t know if Sorcerer will be wildly successful and spawn a franchise, but I doubt it’ll crash and burn.
I’ve just seen the trailer for ‘Sorcerer’s Apprentice’. All I can say is that Cage looks awesome, the special effects look awesome – but that geek kid playing the ‘apprentice’ looks a big steaming pile of nothing. It’s amazing. That kid doesn’t just lack even a single shred of charisma or charm, he totally lacks looks. I mean, it’s not just that he’s not even the least bit good looking – this kid has that annoying geeky look of that idiot from high school who always tried to trip you on the stairs or threw spitballs at the back of your head during study hall. In fact, this ‘apprentice’ kid looks so damned annoying that the only way I’ll see this film is if the producer swears this kid will end up dead at the end of it. Better yet – let him die in the first 15 seconds so I can enjoy the rest of the film.
Um… G-Force was a bomb? Really? I thought it did $30M in its opening weekend and grossed $300M worldwide. Nice bomb.
PERSIA is doing VERY well over seas and SHOPAHOLIC and G-FORCE both made a big chunk of change. If those are bombs, what was AVATAR…a mild success?
star power OF Jonah Hill and Russell Brand, LMAO
larva, the usually insightful Nikki’s comment about Jonah Hill and Russell Brand having high starpower is possibly the oddest thing she has ever said.
Hill and Brand combined have less starpower than Scott Baio.