Box Office Brief: Memorial Day is Sweet for Stiller
Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 27, 2009
As promised, The Reject Report is back with the final Memorial Day weekend numbers. All I have to say is that if you throw out my bonehead weekend prediction for Terminator Salvation my picks turned out not too badly.
Here’s the final Memorial Day weekend numbers.
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian – $70,052,004
- Terminator Salvation – $51,943,726
- Star Trek – $29,380,384
- Angels & Demons – $27,413,992
- Dance Flick – $12,622,450
- X-Men Origins: Wolverine – $9,910,686
- Ghosts of Girlfriends Past – $4,767,809
- Obsessed – $2,424,470
- Monsters Vs. Aliens – $2,060,680
- 17 Again – $1,292,506
On Monday, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian clobbered Terminator Salvation, $15,878,718 to $9,385,336. Needless to say, this is the best opening for a comedy movie in 2009, and as I said before it’s final showing wasn’t so out of line with what a lot of people were predicting, because we hadn’t seen too many comedies at theaters for some time. What was out of line was the Terminator meltdown, but then again, I’ve already ranted about that. I guess the only consolation for the producers is that it could have been worse, this box office could have been on the same low level as Speed Racer . Anyway, that’s that.
The storyline for the box office so far this summer season, and for this year for that matter, is that we have yet to see a weekend in 2009 with a $100 million opening, You would think we would have had one by now — the closest we came was the Wolverine weekend — but so far it’s been no dice. Next weekend doesn’t look promising right now, either. True, it is a Pixar movie, Up, that is rolling out, and Pixar flicks usually do really good business, but they never open to $100 million. So I think it’s a fair question to ask: when are we going to see another $100 million opening? Transformers 2 or Harry Potter, maybe? It could still happen, and these are the two likeliest suspects, but I’m starting to wonder if we’ll see another $100 million opening ever again the way things have been going.
Back later this week with more predictions here at the Reject Report as I once again try and get back on a winning streak.
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