This weekend, the wizard took the robots down a peg. And also made an obscene amount of money in a short amount of time. Sometimes I feel like summer's all about having one weekend and erasing it from your memory. Like TiVo. Only cheaper and with more annoying people sitting behind you. Let's go to the numbers, shall we? (All in millions, remember, and these are the studio estimates, the actuals will be available on Monday. Just to prove me wrong).
1. Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix (WB) - $77.4, 4285 screens, week 1, $140.0 total (Wed. Opening)
2. Transformers (Par/DW) - $36.0, 4050 screens, week 2, $222.99 total
3. Ratatouille (Dis/Pix) - $18.0, 3625 screens, week 3, $143.0 total
4. Live Free or Die Hard (Fox)- $10.875, 3201 screens, week 3, $102.9 total
5. License to Wed (WB) - $7.4, 2715 screens, week 2, $30.5 total
6. 1408 (MGM/Dim) - $5.0, 2206 screens, week 4, $62.2 total
7. Evan Almighty (Uni) - $4.9, 2702 screens, week 4, $87.867 total
8. Knocked Up (Uni) - $3.65, 1715 screens, week 7, $138.1 total
9. Sicko (LGF) - $2.65, 756 screens, week 4, $15.876 total
10. Ocean's 13 (WB) - $1.9, 1244 screens, week 6, $112.4 total
Ok, those are the numbers, but what do they mean? Well, it means pretty much what I said before about the smash and grab mentality of summer blockbusters. Get in, get out. Everybody does it, and films that opened huge a mere two months ago are now gone from memory. (With some movies, this is a blessing, however, when I'm trying to find a theater so I can finally see Pirates 3, but can't because of too many houses showing transformers, I can be irked). Where was I going with this? Oh right. Harry Potter made a lot of money. I'm really too burned out to care if it broke any records, but I'm pretty sure it didn't.
Although, along these lines, did you see the fantastic "record" broken by Transformers last week? It was along the lines of "Highest Grossing Fourth of July Weekend (For a non-sequel)". It was similar to that, but had an obscene amount of qualifiers, like released on a Monday with a 30% chance of rain. Hollywood is becoming a kindergarten, where everybody gets a gold star because everybody's special! (Which is just a nice way of saying that nobody's special).
The holdovers are doing fine. Transformers didn't drop as much as I thought it would, so good for it! But you know what impresses me most? Knocked Up still up there, while many have come and gone from it's side. Huzzah for Seth Rogan!
Below the top ten, Captivity, the movie known more for it's controversial billboards and wild premiere parties than for the actual movie itself (I didn't even quite realize it opened this week) took in $1.55 million on 1050 screens. Expect a lot of analysts to proclaim this the final nail in the coffin of "torture porn". That is until Saw IV comes out and makes a lot of money, confusing pundits of box office lore for another six months, until the next "torture porn" movie tanks. This business rules.
Also, a Don Cheadle movie called Talk To Me opened up on 33 screens and took in $391,000. Pretty good, and I've heard nothing but great things about Cheadle's performance, which is pretty much par for the course with that guy. After Harry Potter, Talk to Me had the next highest per screen average.
And in the "Because It's There" series: Hot Fuzz took in $42,000 on 87 screens, bringing it's grand total to $23,562,000 in 13 weeks.
There you have my break down. Next week, we have an Adam Sandler movie and a movie about John Travolta dressing up like a woman, which looks slightly more convincing than Eddie Murphy in Norbit, and just about as entertaining. Weird
Until next weekend....
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