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SUNDAY AM: It was a great weekend at the box office with the total tally $202M, up an impressive +41.4% from last year. And that doesn’t factor in next week which features the most anticipated movie of the summer, Chris Nolan’s Inception. Year to date, 2010 revenues are running $5.9M, that up 5.06% over last year. But attendance is down 1.42%. Summer 2010′s grosses are even more important internationally than domestic for a lot of motion pictures. So in this extended report I’ve included additional detail on the overseas releases all heavily impacted by World Cup play:
1. North American box office numbers show that Universal Pictures is enjoying something it hasn’t had in a very long time: a big fat hit film. That’s because weeks of great parent-kid family tracking for Despicable Me 3D translated into what even rival studios told me was ”amazing” attendance of Friday’s $21.7 million and Saturday’s $21.3M for a $60.1M weekend opening despite having two other 3D family films in the marketplace. Still, Despicable Me found 3,476 theaters, of which 1,551 locations were in 3D, and managed to double Universal’s expectations of opening domestic grosses. Exit polling data showed the film received an “A” Cinemascore and the audience was 55% kids 12 years and under and parents.
You’ve got to credit those wonderful movie trailers and TV ads that communicated the movie’s bold originality. (Who doesn’t want minions trailing them!) Despicable Me is the first 3D CGI film from Universal’s animated/family-film production company partner, Illumination Entertainment, whose founder Chris Meledandri is one of the foremost names in family animation and helped build Fox’s animation division and Blue Sky Studios, where he executive produced the first two Ice Age films and Horton Hears A Who! This will be the start of a big new business for Uni, not to mention a big new franchise. Most amazing is that the budget for the film is only $69 million considering how visually accomplished it is.
Internationally, Despicable Me will roll out over the next few months but kicked off with openings in 4 markets: Russia, Indonesia (No. 1), Malaysia, Singapore (No. 1) and grossed an estimated $5M at 736 dates this weekend. More dates overseas will roll out over the next few months with the pic’s next releases in Thailand, Ukraine and U.A.E. on July 15th. Mexico opens July 30th, Brazil August 6th.
2. It was a $33.4M second weekend for Summit Entertainment’s holdover Eclipse after the Twilight Saga threequel made $11.1 million Friday and another $12.4M Saturday from its record-setting wide release of 4,468 locations. That down -49% from a week ago. New cume after 12 days in theaters is a gigantic $237M in U.S. and Canada, +$2M ahead of New Moon. Everyone knew this was a front-loaded pic but the World Cup-slowed rollout overseas puts Eclipse No. 1 this weekend in all 3 major markets where it opened – France (9.8M Euros or $12.4M USD), South Korea (1.1M admissions), and the UK (13.8MM GBP or $21M USD). The international weekend cume is now $81.1M, and $219M total from 63 markets. That makes the worldwide cume to date for the 2D film: $456 million. Yowza!
3. Robert Rodriguez also is a magician when it comes to filmmaking budgets, especially at his Troublemaker studios in Austin. Still, it’s a shocker that in this day and age of $300M negative cost movies he managed to bring in Twentieth Century Fox’s Predators for just $38M as its producer. That takes enormous pressure off this R-rated scifi actioner riffing off the 1987 original with Adrien Brody substituting for Arnold Schwarzenegger. (I know… I know… because Alex Litvak & Michael Finch reworked the characters created by Jim & John Thomas. It looks to perform on target with $10.4 million Friday and $8.4M Saturday and an on-target $25.3M opening this weekend from 2,661 theaters.
Predators stalked 22 day & date international markets this weekend for $18M from 3,100 screens. UK ($3.5M from 391 locations), Japan ($2.8M from 373 screens), Russia ($2.8M from 700 screens), and Australia ($2.3M from 209 screens) led the opening markets. Nine new markets open next weekend, including France, Italy and Belgium.
4. Starting its 4th week in release, Disney’s Toy Story 3 keeps raking it in. The 3D megahit made $6.6 million Friday and $9M Saturday for a $22M weekend and mighty new cume of $340.2M. Today, Toy Story 3 moves into 16th place among the highest grossing films in domestic box office history. Also today, it becomes the highest grossing animated film in Pixar/Disney’s domestic box office history and Disney’s 2nd highest grossing domestic movie of all time behind only Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest).
This weekend, its international weekend tally is $39.1M in 39 territories representing 55% of the international market. With its overseas cume of $213.1M, Toy Story 3 now has a whopping global cume of $553.3M.
5. On its 9th day in release, Paramount’s The Last Airbender made $5.2 million Friday and $6.7M Saturday for a $17.1M weekend from 3,233 dates, -57% from a week ago, and a domestic cume of $100.2M.
Overseas, the pic is opening slowly because of the World Cup. Paramount says it debuted with $10M from Russia and 3 smaller markets. It opened with $8M in Russia, coming in first in the market vs the opening of Despicable Me and was 63% higher than the opening last summer of G.I. Joe.
6. Grown Ups (Sony) Week 3 [3,463 Theaters]
Friday $5M, Saturday $6.4M, Weekend $16.4M, Cume $111.3M
This has now become Adam Sandler’s 11th picture to hit $100 million in the last 12 years. “Pretty amazing accomplishment that demonstrates how consistently successful Sandler has been as a box office powerhouse,” a Sony Pictures spokesman said today. (His list of other $100+M performers is: Waterboy 1998, Big Daddy 1999, Mr Deeds 2002, Anger Management 2003, 50 First Dates 2004, Longest Yard 2005, Click 2006, Chuck and Larry 2007, Zohan 2008, Bedtime Stories 2008.) This week Grown Ups showed the best hold of all top films in release with only a -14% drop over last weekend.
7. Knight and Day (Fox) Week 3 [2,628 Theaters]
Friday $2.3M, Saturday $3.2M, Weekend $7.8M, Cume $61.9M
KNIGHT & DAY continues to hold, with only a -25% drop this weekend compared to last. Internationally, where the Tim Cruise-Cameron Diaz starrer was supposed to shine, the movie landing in 5 new markets for a weekend cume of $10.4M from 2,437 screens in 30 markets. That brings the international cume-to-date to $38.5m. Next weekend finds 20 new markets releasing, including Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Holland, Mexico, Spain and Sweden.
8. Karate Kid (Sony) Week 5 [2,458 Theaters]
Friday $1.7M, Saturday $2.2M, Weekend $5.7M, Cume $164.6M
The film crossed $200M worldwide this weekend and has generated $42.1M overseas. The reboot has now grossed $206.7M worldwide, with most territories still to open.
9. The A-Team (Fox) Week 5 [1,236]
Friday $550K, Saturday $720K, Weekend $1.8M, Cume $73.9M
The foreign tally is now $54.5M, or 42.5% of its worldwide cume of $128.5M.
10. Cyrus (Fox Searchlight) Week 4 [200 Theaters]
Friday $365K, Saturday $586K, Weekend $1.3M, Cume $3.5M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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Well the Twilight saga once again shows its the most front loaded series of all time. Never seen anything quite like this. Yep, still a huge money maker for Summit.
But, will the final two movies make money for them? Or maybe not nearly as much. The budgets will sky rocket when compared to the first movie. Each of the three stars is going to make 25 million EACH. Not to mention the final book is hated by most of the core fans. Sure they will probably see it once, but maybe not 3+ times like the first three movies.
Actually I thought that was an excellent hold for Eclipse. A lot of weekend b.o. projections was around 25-26m, based on the pattern of the two previous Twilights, so if this 35m turns out to be correct, then its either there’s strong repeat business from its target audience, or its fanbase is expanding.
If it made 11mil on Friday, I don’t see any feasible manner it makes 35mil this weekend.
New Moon made 17mil on it’s second Friday and had a 42mil on it’s 2nd weekend total. That’s an internal rate of roughly 2.5. If Eclipse made 11mil last night, it’s likely going to make about 27.5mil this weekend using that rough formula.
I honestly cannot see any circumstance where Eclipse holds at 35mil given it’s Friday 11mil. One of those 2 numbers are significantly wrong based on past history.
How is dropping roughly 60 percent a strong second weekend performance?
that too for a movie that opened on a wednesday…if it had opened on a friday..the drop would have been bigger.
if eclipse had opened to a 70 million friday..it would need 21 million on the 2nd firday for a 70% drop.
Actually I thought that was an excellent hold for Eclipse. A lot of weekend b.o. projections was around 25-26m, based on the pattern of the two previous Twilights, so if this 35m turns out to be correct, then its either there’s strong repeat business from its target audience, or its fanbase is expanding.
Comment by Henry — Friday July 9, 2010 @ 10:41pm PDT
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Thank you. I get so sick of people who don’t know a thing about the Twilight phenom, or fandom, commenting on patterns. A half billion worldwide isn’t only teen girls – only teen girls is Hannah Montana. The demo on this breaks wide, and includes females pretty much 8 to 80. The male demo actually increased on Eclipse. Bottomline is, to call it – you need to KNOW it. Summit riding the wave of the Catherine Hardwicke amazing set-up, dropped the ball on New Moon. They forgot it was an EPIC ROMANCE, and hid Edward Cullen away the entire movie. Fans were PISSSED OFF. That’s why repeat viewings on NM sucked. We had been gifted with this extraordinary sizzling chemistry laden love story via Hardwicke in the first Twilight, and had Taylor Lautner’s abs in the second. Plus, the promo for NM was ridiculous. A love story about Edward & Bella, Romeo&Juliet-esque, and yet they turn it into an episode of ‘The Bachelorett,’ (Bella’s got a new man, y’all) – they wouldn’t even let Kristen Stewart STAND next to Robert Pattinson in an effort to ‘present’ Taylor Lautner – uh, NO…we WANT the eternal love story that’s on the page, in our movie please. They finally seem to have caught our drift with Eclipse, the promotion was still Stewart/Lautner heavy in parts of the world – but it’s primarily because Pattinson was working – the film, is more Edward & Bella centric, and focuses on their love story progressing – compared to New Moon, fans see Eclipse as getting BACK ON TRACK. So you have to understand — New Moon did it’s business due to Twilight the first film, while Eclipse is RECOVERING from the disaster that is New Moon. They seem to have finally CAUGHT ON THOUGH — I see Melisaa Rosenberg is out early talking about the hot sex scenes (Twilight standards anyway) she is writing for BD, and mentioning lots of skin. THAT is how you blow it out of the water. BD the next film, will have a WEDDING, a few hot love scenes, and should give the massive audience exactly what they want.
The other thing to consider for the 4th and 5th movies is the BIG gap between Eclipse and them. So far, the first 3 movies have all been released within 18 months – The first one only hit theatres in late November, 2008.
It’s another 18 months before the first part of Breaking Dawn is released. That’s a LONG time in teenage girl years, methinks the trend may have passed by then…
Methinks, you need to re-think exactly who is seeing this film. I’m 41, and my entire office of women roughly 25 and up, had midnight tix in advance. It’s so funny how males who know nothing about the Twi phenom try to weigh in on who’s seeing it. Relegating it to teenagers is their way to give it short shrift, in my opinion. Have you been to fanfiction.net lately? There are millions upon millions of M rated fanfic out there, written by masterful authors — and I can guarantee you, these are NOT kids. Saying Twilight is teen girls, is kind of like saying the Star Wars trilogies are teen boys. Are teen boys who are predominant among that audience – most likely, but when half the world is seeing the movie along w/ them – you don’t characterize it (star wars trilogy) as a ‘teen boy’ flick. A good bellweather for interest level has always been the internet, and if you go to the sites that matter, you’ll see that interest level for Twilight has increased over the years, not decreased – and it’s because of one reason, adult women are moving this franchise, and teens are becoming adults every day, so I don’t see it waning anytime soon. twilight will continue to reign, just as romantic fiction, and the authors that write it, remain the #1 genre in best-selling fiction.
This is a great hold for Eclipse, actually. Twilight never had impressive holds but compared to New Moon, which was the height of frontloadness, this is pretty stable run so far. We`ll see if Inception cause any damage considering it`ll get some IMAX screens and that some ladies will be checking out hot actors in it.
“frontloaded”
Schadenfreude never tasted this good.
Summit is gonna need all the money it can get since they now have to market Mad Mel’s Beaver movie. *gulp*
Or they can decide not to throw good money after bad by quietly issuing the DVD.
“johns”, seriously – 61% and you’re saying “of all time”?
AIRBENDER had a 68% drop
IRON MAN 2 was a whopping 72%.
X-MEN: LAST STAND took a 67% drop.
I’m not saying 61% is good, I’m just saying don’t spew hyperbole if your facts aren’t straight.
Iron Man 2 did not drop 72%… its dropped 59% from $128M to $52M.
It was alos released not on a holiday weekend and during the middle of summer. Get your facts straight before you post to save your precious Twilight.
http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?page=weekend&id=ironman2.htm
Lots of folks are confused on what the three lead brats (hey, it’s Nikki’s term, not mine) are pulling in for Breaking Dawn. It’s $25m apiece for two movies, which means $12.5m per brat per flick.
Yes, that’s $37.5m per film, and the supporting brats are getting a bump too. Given how the films are doing – and they’re defying the industry trend on DVD sales too – even if the negative cost goes north of $120m on each of the final two installments Summit is still going to turn a tidy profit.
$23M is overperforming for Predators? yikes. i thought it would make atleast $30M
Uh…Check again. The report says its on course to make $30 million.
38 million to produce Predators while A-Team cost 115 million. Incredible.
Not to mention Knight And Day, another expensive underperformer that cost 117m plus marketing.
and the movie TAKEN only cost 24 million but has made over 100 million more than A-TEAM.
90 million dollar difference in budgets and nearly twice the profits.
Watch Predators and you will find out why it only cost 38 million dollars to make.
It was very much by the numbers, very much a B movie, and one character turn very late in the second act was a bit lacking, but I didn’t want those two hours of my life back.
You know going in it’s a rehash of The Most Dangerous Game, with evil aliens sitting in for the bored aristocrat on the island.
A-Team had to spend a lot on cheese, that is the big price difference between the two movies. Cheese is expensive.
Very surprised to see the price tags on both Despicable and Predators. Hollywood needs to understand that the tools to create a polished film have gone down because of advancements in technology, yet the price tags fir films continue to go up. I understand that the filmmakers and talent will always come with a price tag, but films like Despicable are proving that once the above the line is paid, the film can be relatively cheap in execution.
This is great news for Despicable Me.
A HUGE congratulations to Chris Meledandri and the team at Universal Pictures.
My family and I thoroughly enjoyed it and cannot wait to see it again.
You go GRU and your cute, cuddly and funny Minions!
Steve Carell’s voice performance is fantastic and hilarious in this movie. I just saw it and loved it.
I hope is star is still rising.
Nikki, is Predators really a box office smash? A 65% second-weekend drop is practically inevitable, and word-of-mouth isn’t exactly on fire to begin with. The $23m opening will probably result in a sub-$45m total. Sometime in the fall would’ve been better, maybe between Resident Evil and Saw?
By the way, if Robert Rodriguez is reading this, will you please drop Spy Kids and make the Sin City sequels, preferably not in 3-D? We’d all really appreciate it, I promise!
If Predators budget is indeed $38 mio (Brody is absolutely no movie star so they must`ve got him for cheap cause people go to see Predator(s), not him), than it`s a smash. Expectation-wise and considering the brand name, not really. It`ll die next week when all geeks rush to see Inception.
DK how to you figure Predators will only make 45 million dollars total when it will make around 30 million for its opening weekend? Predators will make between 70 and 80 million dollars domestically total not to mention overseas which will probably bring it up to at least 100 million worldwide. That is very good consider a budget of only 38 million.
65% drop? Are u kidding me… this film will fall least 50% but the good reviews and word of mouth will make this a hit. 90 mil final.
Realistically, Disney is not going to drop Spy Kids 4. The money it could make could be huge, and the way Rodrigues keeps costs in line is in keeping with Disney’s mantra, which is a great thing.
“The $23m opening will probably result in a sub-$45m total.”
Unlikely. AVP’s multiplier was 2.1, and this is supposed to be a better movie.
“Sometime in the fall would’ve been better, maybe between Resident Evil and Saw?”
Agreed. With Despicable Me, Eclipse, Toy Story 3 dominating the box office it’s surprising to see Predators do that well. But completely agree with you, sometime in fall would have been better.
Where are people getting $23 million from? An opening of $10.5 means around $26 or $27 for this type of movie in the summer. I know that horror films usually don’t do well in the summer, but there’s no way this is a sub-$45 million earner. Summer weekdays usually help, and this one will likely make at least $60-$65 mil.
“this film will fall least 50% but the good reviews and word of mouth will make this a hit. 90 mil final.”
There’s no way it’s reaching $90m if it’s only opening to $26M. It might be a good movie, but it’s still driven by a fanbase, and that ALWAYS throws a monkey wrench in the multiplier. $75m could only be accomplished if w.o.m. was outstanding. By the way, critics aren’t of much help to films like this, but even so, the reviews for Predators are lukewarm.
I’m surprised/disappointed it couldn’t top Eclipse in its tenth day. I’m not just trashing it because it’s horror or whatever; I want to see it myself. It just doesn’t seem to be a runaway smash from where I’m sitting.
Oh, and @ Anonymous and Leo: Clearly, you did not read the article. You just looked at the pictures, if you take my meaning. For shame.
Where are people getting $23 million from? A 10.5 mil opening in the summer is good for $26 or $27 million. No way this is a sub-$45 million movie. Summer weekdays will help get this to at least $60-$65 million.
IT’S SO FLUFFYYYY!!!
I’m so glad Despicable Me is going to open to good numbers. I just got back from seeing it with my family and we all enjoyed it alot. The trailers and TV spots don’t do this film much justice. Its really entertaining and definitely worth the 3D admission ticket. This film was better in 3D than both Clash of the Titans and The Last Airbender. I’m actually really thinking about seeing it again.
“it’s so fluffy, I’m gonna die!”
despicable me is awesome! so glad it’s going to open big.
Actually, Predators looks way too expensive, considering it’s just Doom ported over to a forest. But anyway, if Schmucks ends up doing alright, 2010 will be 3-for-3 for Carrell. Maybe he can host the Oscars next.
Predators looks like it was shot for $5 million, though. Seriously, RR needs to do more to impress me than put Doom in a forest. Anyway, if Despicable Me’s a hit, and Schmucks doesn’t bomb, it’ll be 3-for-3 for Carrell. Maybe they can give an Oscar host gig next.
The chimps will have moved on to the next shiny object.
OK. So we’re not really buying that $69m price tag for DESPICABLE are we? Just because the studio told Nikki that that’s what they spent doesn’t make it the real number. That said, it’s obviously a big hit, so congrats on that– let’s just not be naive about what the picture really cost to make.
It seems like Despicable Me is the first real movie to make more than the predictions. I guess Karate Kid did it too, but most of the movies this summer has either equaled the predictions (Twilight, Toy Story 3, Grown-Ups), or underperformed (Iron Man 2, Robin Hood, Sex And The City 2, The A-Team, Knight And Day, Shrek 4, Prince Of Persia, Jonah Hex).
Still, a very disappointing summer. I hope Inception is all that the critics make it out to be.
Is surprising to hear despicable me got big opening day and no doubt, there will be no drop in saturday number. $70 millions to make isn’t surprising because the pic was made in france. While, i’m happy that the toy still doing great, it will pass finding nemo’s gross by sunday
Do you think that France is less expensive than the United States?
Is surprising to see despicable me got big opening, and no doubt, there will be no drop in saturday’ number. Your prediction is too low. $60-66 millions.
“Bold originality”? Did you SEE Despicable Me, Nikki? Seriously?
“It’s so fluffy I’m gonna die!”
Nice to see the rebirth of good movie marketing at Universal now that know it all (err-no it nothing) Marc Shmuger is out of the picture!!
Congrats to U !
I would have to agree that based on its $64 million three day, if Eclipse came in with $35 million for it’s second weekend that would demonstrate a stronger hold than the first two films.
However, the not significantly better opening larger period suggests to me that the core audience has not really grown with Eclipse but that perhaps the Summer Holiday effect is boosting the coffers a little more than the Autumn releases of the previous films.
It’s still behind New Moon earnings at this point, but a good weekend hold may shorten that gap and it seems likely that a final US Gross similar to New Moon is achievable.
On a $68 million dollar budget – Summit is laughing all the way to the bank even if they do end up paying Pattinson, Stewart and Lautner the figures quoted.
However, it’s nice to see an affordable animation film hit the right note with the public and goodness knows, Universal could use a big earner after The Wolfman and Robin Hood’s performances earlier in the year.
NF actualy praising Universal instead of bashing them? What, is there some sort of solar eclipse happening this weekend or other cosmic shift? The marketing campaign was fantastic, especially the well-timed promo elements.
Chris Meledandri deserves a big congrats. With his name all over the trailers me thinks he might be a big animation player in the upcoming years. DESPICABLE ME while nothing fantastic was a great time and hilarious, plus the best “excuse’ for 3D compared to a lot of the films coming out nowadays. I see LONG legs for this one.
Seems to me that all of FOX’s big budget flicks that are currently out will be lucky to break even domesticly, I’m sure they’ll rake in big bucks over seas. They love big budget flicks with lots of action.
What are you talking about? This ain’t 1995. The foreign sales on these films are already coming in and with the exception of Prince of Persia and Sex in the City the films this summer are doing the same overseas as here. And Prince of Persia isn’t doing enough overseas to get it’s dough back.
There’s a reason 70% of Hollywood’s films are losing money and this summer will be worse than that. Especially the Fox slate.
UHmmmmmmm A-TEAM sits at 55 million overseas. OUCH when you consider Iron Man 1&2 / Live Free or Die Hard / Clash of the Titans / Sherlock Holmes all made between 250-325.
Don’t forget however, that The A Team/Knight and Day and a few other films have yet to be released in all foreign markets.
Those present foreign grosses are not fully representative of all markets they are going to play in.
It’ll take another couple months for the fuller foreign gross picture to emerge on some of these films.
A-TEAM has been released in 50 international markets over the past 3 weeks with the exception of just a few major ones like Germany and Japan.
55 million total is pretty sorry for a big action movie with this cast. The Worldcup had little to do with it since the audience interest and reviews have been bad.
“Despicable” looks great, and even better that it’s from Meledandri. A decent guy and class act in a town full of greedy, arrogant, incompetent pricks.
Dispicable Me is no surprise to me at all. Its a kid movie released in the summertime with heavy promotion. It had to do that well or it would be a failure. Good for them, Universal, and Steve Carrell.
Great numbers for Predators. I didn’t have it going that high due to its theater count and needing to fix its reputation from the previous three bad Predator movies that have released since the original in 1987.
Predators is being reviewed very well surprisingly and now it may make $25 million which is a good start considering Alien and Predator movies always have long legs if the movie is of high quality and this one certainly is.
I think it will make somewhere between $60-90 million by the end of its run.