The Reject Report: Weekend Box Office Too Close to Call
Posted by John Cairns (jcairns@filmschoolrejects.com) on July 5, 2009
Welcome to yet another photo finish weekend at the Reject Report, and just like a few weeks back when The Hangover clipped Up at the wire to win, we don’t know exactly who ended up on top.
What ended up happening was a saw-off at the top between Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. For Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, their run at number one ended on Wednesday night when Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs beat it with a haul of $13.7 million. Then Transformers 2 won on Thursday and Friday by very narrow margins, and then the Ice Age sequel won narrowly again on Saturday. We don’t have the actuals for Sunday yet, which is expected to be yet another narrow result.
So the bottom line is that I am writing a box office column today, and I can’t say with any certainty who actually won the weekend. I will say this: the fact that this latest Ice Age movie only took in a five day haul of over $67 million is not such great news for them, because a lot of these other CGI cartoons have easily done better, with openings upwards in the range of $60 million. A lot of folks are complaining and saying how sick and tired they are of these Ice Age creatures. It seems as if a significant number of people have had enough of them — at least, in the United States.
Sure, this movie looks as if it definitely won the five-day holiday period and it’s doing great business overseas to the tune of $148 million. In fact, they set the sixth-biggest overseas opening ever and set opening records in 16 countries. So there are clearly parts of the world that still can’t get enough of these animals, and this is still going to make a pile of money in the end. But the fact the haul was as low as it was domestically, and the fact that a lot of customers are complaining and bellyaching about the movie spells trouble ahead. These animals may be in need of a serious reboot.
As for Transformers 2, I really don’t want to talk about this movie anymore, but it continues to make a ridiculous amount of money, now up to $293,459,000 domestically and $591 million internationally. So it’s now the highest grosser of the year so far, but we knew that was going to happen anyway.
But the dropoff from last week to this week was a fat 61 percent — a sure sign that the various complaints about the movie are having some sort of an impact. I notice the IMDB score is getting worse — down to 6.5 out of 10. Heck, even Terminator Salvation had a better score than that — 7.1 out of 10 as a matter of fact — and yet people everywhere were wanting to string up McG afterwards for that movie. Here’s McG looking for a safe place to hide, while Michael Bay makes his usual fortune with a lower IMDB score! I know McG can’t figure that one out.
Still, the public is now showing some signs of getting tired of Michael Bay, too, and the dropoff for Transformers 2 is on.
Maybe this Transformers 2 flick will still win the weekend; who knows right now. Beyond that, those among the Transformers fans who follow box office numbers closely can’t be thrilled about a lot of things, because it’s a 61 percent drop and they couldn’t even beat a bunch of goofy cartoon animals over a full five-day period. And the movie is still falling short of The Dark Knight’s records. The Dark Knight kept its records as fastest movie to $250 million (eight days) and fastest to $300 million (ten days). Otherwise, life is pretty good.
As for Public Enemies, they made only $26 million this weekend for a five-day haul of $41,044,000. So they have nothing to be excited about, either. I guess the haul is okay, but I know a lot of its fans were hoping it would do better.
The box office results are as follows:
- Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs – $42,500,000
- (T-1) Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen – $42,500,000
- Public Enemies – $26,172,000
- The Proposal – $12,779,000
- The Hangover – $10,415,000
- Up – $6,579,000
- My Sister’s Keeper – $5,255,000
- The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 – $2,500,000
- Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian – $2,100,000
- (T-9) Year One – $2,100,000
So that is all I gotta say this weekend. As I say, the numbers are totally up in the air, so we really won’t know who won this photo-finish of a weekend until Monday at least.
See you later with more predictions here at the Reject Report!
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