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SATURDAY PM/SUNDAY AM: Rentrak is having system issues so box office will be a bit late today. But Paramount was so worried about its No Strings Attached being a stinker that the studio didn’t even bother to give me a pre-release briefing. I don’t necessarily blame them: any movie starring Ashton Kutcher is probably a bomb since his last one — PG-13 Killers with Katherine Heigl — opened to only $15.8M for Lionsgate. And rom-coms, especially sexy R-rated ones (Ed Zwick’s Love And Other Drugs which opened to only $9.7M for Fox with Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal) have been stillborn at the North American box office with this caliber of star. But No Strings Attached surprised at the box office, not only coming in No. 1 but with a decent $20.3M. Exit polls showed 70% of the audience was female, meaning it should be the least affected by football on Sunday. As for CinemaScore, 40% of those aged under 25 gave the film an “A-” while 60% over 25 scored it a “B”.
This $25 million-cost movie started out as a Black List script titled Fuckbuddies and written by Elizabeth Merriwether. Natalie Portman came on board as a producer and star for Ivan Reitman and Tom Pollock’s The Montecito Picture Company, which co-financed in partnership with Coldspring and Paramount’s usual partner Spyglass Entertainment.
Natalie is hot after her Oscar-worthy transformative performance in Black Swan and now finds herself with 2 movies in this weekend’s Top 6. And perhaps risking overexposure because of her new pics opening in January, February, April, and May. Anyway, the pic took advantage of being the only wide opening this weekend and may hang on for $20M. (Remember, it took Ron Howard’s Dilemma starring Vince Vaughn and Kevin James 4 days to even make that over the MLK long holiday.) The film had been tracking strong with 20-year-old females whom Paramount pursued aggresively not with traditional newspaper ads but instead with a big Facebook push of a sexy Red Band trailer. Meanwhile, Sony’s The Green Hornet 3D and Universal’s aforementioned Dilemma look to drop more than -35% each this weekend. Here’s the Top 10:
1. No Strings Attached (Paramount) NEW [3,018 Theaters]
Friday $7.3M, Saturday $8.2M, Weekend $20.3M
2. The Green Hornet 3D (Sony) Week 2 [3,584 Theaters]
Friday $5.1M, Saturday $8.7M, Weekend $18.1M (-31%), Cume $63.4M
3. The Dilemma (Universal) Week 2 [2,943 Theaters]
Friday $3M, Saturday $4.5M, Weekend $9.9M (-33%), Cume $33.5M
4. The King’s Speech (Weinstein Co) Week 9 [1,680 Theaters]
Friday $2.1M, Saturday $3.9M, Weekend $9.1M, Cume $58.6M
5. True Grit (Paramount) Week 5 [3,464 Theaters]
Friday $2.1M, Saturday $3.8M, Weekend $7.9M, Cume $138.5M
6. Black Swan (Fox Searchlight) Week 8 [2,407 Theaters]
Friday $1.7M, Saturday $2.7M, Weekend $6.2M, Cume $83.5M
7. Little Fockers (Universal) Week 5 [2,979 Theaters]
Friday $1.2M, Saturday $2.2M, Weekend $4.7M, Cume $141.4M
8. The Fighter (Relativity/Paramount) Week 6 [2,275 Theaters]
Friday $1.2M, Saturday $2.1M, Weekend $4.6M, Cume $73.1M
9. Yogi Bear 3D (Warner Bros) Week 6 [2,510 Theaters]
Friday $740K, Saturday $2M, Weekend $3.8M, Cume $88.6M
9. Tron: The Legacy 3D (Disney) Week 7 [2,018 Theaters]
Friday $930K, Saturday $1.8M, Weekend $3.7M, Cume $163.3M
Editor-in-Chief Nikki Finke - tip her here.
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No kidding, predicting “Strings,” to win the weekend made everyone nervous (including myself) because of that recent history.
Wow. It did pull through though. I think the credit is mostly due to Portman and her current popularity.
The cost for No Strings was $25???? Of course it will make it’s money back and more. But having Natalie in a movie every single month through the summer…..is that a smart move? I bet everybody’s watching to see if that works.
True Grit and Fockers neck and neck….wonderful!
$25 is not what that movie cost, that’s just what they’re telling press. The actual is much higher. Paramount has said all along they needed an opening of $22, hopefully they get it.
Why would it be higher?
Ashton Kutcher in that movie?
Hmmmm…….Next.
They spent far more than $25 to make this movie and with what Paramount spends on marketing this doesn’t seem high enough but relative to Dilemma and Green Hornet this is a solid opening. They also had a B on cinemascore so it will be interesting to see their % drop.
why would you be nervous about what a movie opens at?
How about you admit that The Delimma isn’t a bomb? $20mill for that movie really wasn’t an awful opening and it’s holding at 50%. If it keeps up it will do just fine.
It’s easy for you to say, as you were NOT the one who spent 70 million dollars producing it.
When you spend in the neighborhood of $35,000,000 for your two stars and it opens to $20,000,000….its a floppy. And when you throw in another $10,000,000 for your director its a stinky flop.
Don’t know if it will help Rom-Com’s overall in general though. Still appears that genre remains weak.
I don’t know. $20 million for an R-Rated Rom Com starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher is pretty impressive.
If it were PG-13, I’d be laughing.
I think this means the R-Rated Rom Com is back. Does “Wedding Crashers” count??
Strings cost $34 to make and they spent $30 on marketing. Is an opening of $20 enough?
String costed 25 million and the marketing costs could be around 10 million.
The $25 million number is a studio plant. And they spent far more than $10 million on marketing. That’s a ridiculously low number.
I love that studios and PR hacks think the public is too stupid to know a “save our ass” spin when we see one. The next thing we know, they’ll be trying to tell us that a rom com with one of the supposed “highest paid actresses in the world” and TWO directors shot in expensive-as-hell NEW YORK cost only…say… $19 mil!!! Oh … wait … they already tried to sell that LIE when Jennifer Hasbeeniston’s Swith IMPLODED with an opening of only $8 mil. I guess the same imbeciles who believed that budgetary whopper will believe any manufactured post-mortem numbers the studios decide to float past them.
Unless all principles worked for nominal up front pay and are relying on backend, then it is ridiculous to believe that this film shot on location in LA with one of the most expensive directors in Hollywood for only $25m. Hell, LOTTERY TICKET cost $17. You’re telling us you get named stars like Portman, Kutcher and Kevin Kline, a director like Reitman, and a producer like Birnbaum for only $8 mil more than Bow Wow, Ice Cube, and a cast of complete unknowns shooting on the cheap in Compton? I’ll believe Aniston will win an Oscar next year before I believe NSA cost $25 mil.
First of all Portman is a known actress but that doesn’t necessarily equal big paycheck, I don’t know about Kutcher though. Also actors and directors take paycut for small proyects. Otherwise it would be impossible to believe that Changeling with Jolie and Eastwood cost only 55M or Sandra Bullock’s The blind side which cost only 29M.
Aniston at most gets paid 8M and that’s for relatively big budget rom-coms(The break-up) or comedies (Marley and me) that doesn’t mean she always gets paid that amount. The same goes for directors.
I can’t be sure what the budget of this film is but rom-coms are usually not expensive (well a few exceptions such as How do you know).
$25 is what they’re telling press. The movie cost was in the mid-30s and with the reshoots probably ended up costing closer to 40. Their TV marketing spend alone was almost 30. The movie will eventually break even with TV and DVD but never in theaters with this low an opening.
strings budget was $10 mil and marketing $25 mil
I heard it was 1.5 mil and th networks gave them the ad time for free because everyone wants to see Natalie Portman do well. Plus it will kill in foreign because the world loves American comedies. It willl also kill in DVD sales. DVD’s are making tons of money these days.
i heard they did it all for the free catering and a daily stipend of $40.
How do you know that cost is correct. Nikki stated $25Mil…where did you get the $34Mil?
Of course it’s enough. You’re looking at a final gross of around $60 million in the US. It won’t d huge business overseas, but international business should make it profitable not long after it hits DVD shelves, if not earlier.
So, “Tron” definitely won’t get to $170 million domestically. I’d love to see a story on how this massive miscalculation is taking its toll at Disney. Guess the “machine” only works for things that are GOOD? Course, it didn’t really save the $260 million “Tangled,” either, despite it grossing more than “Tron,” a situation no Disney executive foresaw.
Sigh. Here we go again. The actual budget for Tangled was around 150 mil or less. The 260 mil was factored in, because of the two previous versions of Rapunzel which were eventually scrapped. So, according to Disney corporate, Rapunzel and Rapunzel Unbraided were written off as a loss, and the actual budget for Tangled will be what is weighed against its Box Office results. After this weekend, Tangled will be well over 400 mil worldwide with a good chance of it passing 600 mil. (It still has to open in 45% of the market, incl. The UK, China, Japan, India, and Italy.) Much the way WB claims it didn’t make any money on the Harry Potter’s theatrical release, Disney isn’t about to dispute the 260 mil budget so that they could hide some of the profits. So, all of this hype about Tangled’s budget is great for Disney corporate. So no, it isn’t taking a toll on Disney. And congratulations, it’s people like you that help the corporate bottom line.
Oh, and as for Tron; apparently they have a teaser for Tron3 that’s going to be attached to the blue ray release of Tron Legacy in a few months. Does that sound like Tron took a toll on Disney. Tron did what it was supposed to do. It made a buttload on the merchandise, it’s soundtrack was number 1 all around the world, it has a very popular promotional attraction at Disney California theme park, which has been extended by 3 months and Disney can see the possibilties with this brand. Cars only made about 450 million worldwide for Disney, yet has been it’s top licensed product since the original came out. It’s all about the licensing and multi-media platforms nowadays. Disney realizes that and they know why Tron failed to make more than expected, which is why they are letting Lasseter and Pixar come in have a big say in the development of the sequel. If Tron was a drama or a comedy that was dependent on an actor or a director bringing in the cash, then yes, they would be concerned. But much like Hasbro’s GI Joe and Transformers, Tron is a brand which can make tons of money through it’s licensing. So basically, NO Tron didn’t take a toll on Disney.
The Tron merchandise didn’t even sell more than Shrek Forever After’s.
And your are reaching if you are noting that the Tron theme park attraction is extended for 3 months. Woop de doo.
Tron is not a flop, but it is not close to being a hit.
Ummm, the Tron merchandise was the biggest seller during Christmas. Even outselling Transformers. Where did you get your Shrek forever After numbers? Anyone who does a little research on the net could dispute your claim. And it’s not a reach to note that the Tron attraction is doing well at Disney California. It shows it’s potential value to the theme park, which bodes well for future attractions and park revenues across Disney’s global theme parks. Globally, brand names are potentially huge finacially. Tron is one of many Disney licenses that the company will use to sell it’s name brand globally. Disney needed a positive “boy brand” to make it’s investors happy. Tron fulfilled it.
Re – Tangled: Fair enough (and thanks, I did not know that), but Superman Returns also got tagged with a $260 million budget due to ten years of aborted Superman projects as well. It may not be fair (in fact, it’s not), but it’s not uncommon for a film to carry the financial weight of all of the preproduction that came before it. Regardless, Disney cartoons are long-term investments. Even at “$260 million”, Tangled is a big win for the Mouse House, as they’ll be making Repunzel toys and what-not forever.
Tangled opened in Italy (my country) on early December…
Umm… Film’s already made 329 million worldwide. “Tangled,” just crossed the 395 million mark worldwide.
Those aren’t miscalculations, in fact, they’re hits. You also fail to consider all the other marketing and tie ins those films bring into Disney on top of box office… Disney’s doing just fine.
Tron and Tangled are indeed successes. There will no doubt be a sequel to this film and with good marketing and merchandising will probably see a sold 400-500 million next time around.
Do not forget for a second this is Disney, no one can milk a franchise for all it;s worth like they can. (cept maybe Lucas). DVD sales and rental so of these films will bring an additional $100 million each.
what if tron makes it to $169 million? would that make u feel better? what about $168 mil?
2 massive stars of comedy, a very expensive movie to make and market, 50% is not a “hold” it’s a “drop”, V V being the biggest a-hole in hollywood and it will top off at 58 mil. That’s a bomb.
Strings are very entertaing, cast is great, so it just has to do well. It should be even bigger hit int’l. Many terrs will open after oscar noms or even around award show, so Natalie’s exposure will be massive. This movie will make its money back easily.
And there’s one thing certain, after Your Highness, Strings and Swan skin scenes, she was obviously ready to do a Basic Instinct type erotic thriller. It seems the producers missed the boat on that one.
Or producers are already on the boat and it’s called “Black Swan.”
The studio has Natalie Portman to thank for the strong opening. She has been getting well-deserved buzz for Black Swan.
Unfortunately, this movie stinks. Too bad it’s coming out during awards season. It could cost her a statuette. Just ask Eddie Murphy.
Norbit was critically slated. This is doing okay, so it should have little to do with her Oscar chances.
Norbit was awful and it also bombed in the boxoffice. At least Nat is getting good reviews for her performance and the movie overall is getting decent reviews. Plus, the movie is a hit. I think if the movie flopped, it would have made things bad but right now things will be fine.
NORBIT DID NOT BOMB AT THE BOX OFFICE — IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY IT OPENED TO NEARLY 30 MILLION. What cost murphy the oscar is that he is not very well liked in hollywood and did you see his SAG acceptance speech.
portman will win it even though she doesn’t give the performance of the year — they like to give young actresses oscars, just ask Reese witherspoon who was much better in other movies than what she won for — sorry but the best actress of the year is Nicole Kidman for Rabbit Hole — why they that movie has not gone wide yet is beyond me.
rabbit hole sucked
What you’re forgetting,though,is that she has an indie movie which (on paper) should be better than NSA. Kind of softens the blow.
Tron is still in The top ten after so many weeks. It may not be a hit, but at least it didn t disappoint most of people who saw it. As for tangled, it is huge abroad!
Everyone in my packed theater tonight
was enjoying NSA
but it was very apparent that
Natalie’s star power has never shined
brighter then this weekend!
Go Natalie!
were you trying to write a haiku?
HA! Thanks for the laughs, very witty
Can someone explain, why do Amer. movies MUST open in the U.S. If it’s an American movie, is there a mandate that it must open in the U.S. first? Seems that since Worldwide is getting big, why not open a movie overseas first and then bring it to America?
Why shouldn’t American movies open in the US first? But FYI, Transformers 2 was apparently released in the UK, Russia and Japan before the United States.
Because the North American box office is still the single greatest market. Opening it solely overseas may kill the NA mkt, i.e. the way bad buzz kills many a Cannes movie.
america is a trendsetter for movies and accounts for about half of the box office
Movies make the majority of their money in the U.S. compared to other countries. Studios aren’t going to open a movie abroad, then have it uploaded to the internet and available to American audiences before it is released there.
I’m not sure of what everyone else is talking about here, but they apparently do not work in distribution. Many American movies have opened abroad before they were opened in the U.S. It just depends on the specific strategy the releasing company is pursuing. Things like World Cup, overseas holidays, and competitive local films factor into the timeframes in which American movies are released internationally.
It’s so great seeing good movies like Grit, Swan and Fighter doing so much better than the high profile ones. I hope this means we’re in a long new era.
we’re not.
IDK Steve, I really hope Renato is right. Maybe the phrase “long new era” is a bit much because there will always be shitty high profile blockbusters. But, the studios MUST be taking notice of how well the Oscar season films are doing this year and hopefully are rethinking there strategies for the coming years. Surely, with the success of True Grit we will have a bunch of westerns being greenlit. And who knows what kind of movies Black Swan will pave the way for.
It just goes to show that the public has a great deal of power in this industry. If we choose not to pay for garbage sequels, prequels, and remakes then studios wont be making more of them. Or at the very least, studios will make the awful movies but wont get a huge marketing budget, so we wont have them shoved in our faces everywhere we go.
“Surely, with the success of True Grit we will have a bunch of westerns being greenlit.”
I think that was tried before (in the 60′s and 70′s), and these types of genre films eventually overstayed their welcome.
It’s the feel-good movie that answers the question:
Wouldn’t you like to fuck Natalie Portman with no strings attached?
Of course, the answer is yes, so there you go, there’s no reason to see the movie. I just saved everyone ten bucks.
but they get caught up in their feelings even though they didn’t plan to!!
The economy is looking up!
People must have money to throw away if they buy tickets for a stinker like “strings”.
idiocy is looking up! people making judgements on movies they havent even seen! wheeeee!
I saw this movie and want my money back. 48% of RT. I should have known better. Script was so juvenile, with dumb jokes.
The best part of Strings was Lake Bell – I’ve never seen her in a comedic role like this and she knocked it out of the park.
She was very funny.
“any movie starring Ashton Kutcher is probably a bomb”
An absolute falsehood. Valentine’s Day (an ensemble film where he had the lead role) opened to $56 million just last year. What Happened In Vegas opened to $20 million and ended up with $219 million worldwide just under three years ago. Sure, Killers underperformed (at $93 million worldwide, it would have been fine at a reasonable budget), and he occasionally out-and-out whiffs (A Thing Like Love, My Boss’s Daughter), but Kutcher is a relatively consistent opener. Of his fifteen wide-openers as a lead (including NSA), his lowest is $13 million (Dude, Where’s My Car), and he has seven films opening between $17-23 million. The two outliers are Cheaper by the Dozen at $27 million and Valentine’s Day. Not blockbuster numbers, but the only major film of his that ‘flopped’ was Killers, which was due to the absurd $70 million price-tag. Point being, Kutcher is a reliable opener who delivers mid-level opening weekends for movies that generally have mid-to-low budgets, films that generally gross (9 out of 14 so far) between $93 million and $219 million worldwide. Ashton Kutcher actually remains one of the more reliable stars working today, as long as you keep your budget in check.
Correction… A Lot Like Love ($7.2 million), and My Boss’s Daughter ($4.3 million) are his lowest wide-release openings. They are, as noted above, also his lowest-grossing wide-release films.
It’s totally ludicrous to suggest that Cheaper By The Dozen or Valentine’s Day are Ashton Kutcher films. While he happened to be in both, he was hardly the selling point of either title and just happened to be in them. I’ve never even seen Cheaper By The Dozen and didn’t know Kutcher was even in it, because IT WAS SOLD AS A STEVE MARTIN FAMILY COMEDY.
Next you’ll be crediting The Expendables as a Bruce Willis film.
The Ashton Kutcher/Jennifer Garner storyline in Valentine’s Day was the primary arc around which everything else revolved. In terms of screentime and importance, they were the ‘stars’ of that picture.
If you don’t want to count Cheaper By the Dozen, fine, but don’t think that the studios cast Kutcher purely for fun: different actors to market to different demos. Regardless, the guy has had a pretty consistent run with stuff like Guess Who, What Happens In Vegas, Just Married, and The Butterfly Effect. He’s not Adam Sandler or Will Smith, but if the budget is under $40 million, you get your money’s worth.
$40 million is way to high for a guy who has more bombs than hits. $20 to $30 million maybe.
Mighty generous of you to concede Cheaper By the Dozen, since even those who saw the movie still don’t know Ashton was in it. They must have blinked during that part. Besides, it is dead obvious everyone went to see that movie because of Tom Welling and Hilary Duff. Old guy on the poster made no impact. He was some relic from silent films or something.
Oh come on. Tron was hyped to the max, and Disney was really hoping for Avatar numbers. The results have been…ehhh, not so hot. The main problem is that not only has it done mediocre box office in the U.S., it hasn’t exactly hit overseas either. And who says Tron is raking in big merchandising bucks? Its video game is a massive flop. It’s sold like 160,000 units, whereas Epic Mickey has sold 1.4 million. Which just goes to show: if Disney MUST go back to the past for “fresh” material for its films, maybe it should skip things like flop sci-fi movies or moth-eaten frog puppets, and just go back to the mouse.
Crappy weather won’t help those box office numbers.
tangled.
The way studio finance works is that the costs of a film are attributed to the film upon release. So yes, tangled has to take the costs of the failed glen keane versions against it. Plus, the overhead of the entire studio goes against it since they only release the one film a year. that’s how you get to the 250 million number.
(studio overhead at live action are split among all the releases)
It is still considered a hit.
and tron seems to be enough of a hit that they are going to try and make a sequel. seems to me to be on par with franchises x-men, gi joe, clash titans.
I believe Iron Man 2 opened internationally before opening in the US, but that was due to the World Cup.
so killers opening at $15.8 mil is a bomb, but add $4 million and friends with benefits opening at (maybe) $20 mil gets the headline “Reverses Recent Row Of Rom-Com Flop Openers”. oohkay, that must be some $4 mil.
Considering Killers had a SUMMER RELEASE DATE, a 70M PRICETAG and a CERTIFIED FEMALE SOLO BOX OFFICE STAR (Heigl), that opening weekend (15.8M) WAS actually ‘floppy’.
No Strings Attached has a JANUARY RELEASE DATE (worst BO-month), 25M/35M PRICETAG and a female star who has NEVER been considered a solo Box Office-star and has NEVER made a broad romantic comedy.
So yes, considering all that – especially the budget – that 20M+ OW makes No Strings Attached a decent HIT.
I would also add that Killers and the Dilemma were PG-13 films, whereas No Strings Attached was rated R – making NSA’s numbers even more impressive.
Good point.
How come there is no mention of The Company Men? I saw it last night in Burbank.
Ashton is not a leading “man.” – He’s actually more of a boy. What happened to real men in Hollywood?
I don’t care how delightful an actress Portman is,any flick with Kutcher as one of the leads is one I avoid like the plague. My money’s better spent elsewhere.
Okay. I suppose I should grudginglyshow some respect for that damn Yogi Bear 3D thing. It just refuses to go away. Whenever it drops out of the Top 10 and you think it’s out, it crawls back in.
Still, The Black Swan should surpass Yogi sometime later this week. If Natalie Portman is in a new movie this week, I’m really glad it’s a comedy. She can be quite funny when the script and director allow for it.