Reject Report: $50 Million for Rush Hour 3

Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on August 12, 2007

Yes, it’s time once again for another Reject Report box office update, and the story this week is Rush Hour 3 and the $50 million in business that it did. Yes, pretty decent business, but not on the scale of what we have seen from recent weeks with The Simpsons, Bourne Ultimatum, Harry Potter, Transformers and all these other movies. It didn’t even make it up to the $55-57 million range that a lot of people out there were predicting.

In fact, it was kind of a down week. Stardust only made about $9 million, and that lousy Daddy Day Camp only drew $3.5 mil for a terrible tenth-place finish. So at least I got THAT prediction right, for a change.

The final weekend numbers from Box Office Mojo:

Release	Studio	Predicted Gross
Rush Hour 3	New Line	$50,237,000
The Bourne Ultimatum	Universal	$33,672,000
The Simpsons Movie	Fox	$11,125,000
Stardust	Paramount	$9,011,000
Underdog	Disney	$6,456,000
Hairspray	New Line	$6,367,000
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry	Universal	$5,950,000
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix	Warner Bros.	$5,385,000
No Reservations	Warner Bros.	$3,925,000
Daddy Day Camp	Sony	$3,550,000

Looking ahead, the end of the blockbuster season is clearly in sight, if it hasn’t happened already. Next week is Superbad which is another movie anticipated by a lot of people, and then that ought to be it for a summer season overwhelmingly dominated by sequels. Especially sequels ending with the number “3″, and especially sequels that claim to be the end of the series. Well, I sure hope this is the end for Rush Hour 3. I saw that movie last night and Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker surely are lurching near the edge of the cliff with that franchise. Their act was fun to watch the first two times but it is getting old in a hurry. They only got 20% at Rotten Tomatoes. Granted, that’s better than the 12% that Underdog got, and the 2% that Daddy Day Camp got, but it’s still pretty bad, folks. I have to think the negative reviews are having some sort of impact.

This is definitely the time of year when the studios are rolling out all the second-rate movies and the stuff that nobody is interested in seeing- sort of a lull period between the summer blockbusters and the good-quality stuff we usually get in the fall. Still, there are a few gems out there, you just have to look harder for them.

Back Friday for THE REJECT REPORT as we preview the rollout of Superbad and that Nicole Kidman sci-fi flick The Invasion is also due out.