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Did Potter Steal Hulk's Thunder?John Hamann's Weekend Wrap-UpJune 20-22, 2003
For the umpteenth time already this summer, the question is not who won or lost at the box office over the weekend, but how big the winner's haul was. Marvel's Hulk smashed the June record book this weekend, with albeit a smaller than expected gross of $62.6 million, lower than any box office prognosticator indicated. On the upside, Universal Pictures now has three $50 million openers in the last six weeks, a feat no studio has come close to matching. The best news from the weekend is that The Hulk smashed Justin and Kelly; the American Idol cheese-fest flopped, thankfully landing outside of the top ten.
The box office this weekend bounced back after a stunningly slow session in the last frame, when three high-profile openers performed high dives. Universal's Hulk breezed life back into the big show with an estimated $62.6 million from 3,660 screens, beating Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me for the June opening weekend record. The green machine had a smaller than expected screen average of $17,115 and a per-print average of $10,440. Universal made only 6,000 prints of The Hulk due to a busy box office, which may have kept it off the list of top ten openings of all-time. Shockingly, Hulk finishes behind Universal's launch of Bruce Almighty, which debuted in May to $68 million; something had to go very wrong for a Jim Carrey vehicle to beat a storied comic book adaptation. Even worse, the thought-to-be-unbeatable Hulk has only the fifth biggest opening of the summer behind The Matrix Reloaded, X2: X-Men United, Finding Nemo, and Bruce Almighty. What happened?
The answer is that the new Harry Potter novel turned into the big pop culture attention-getter this weekend, and stole Hulk's frenzy. Don't get me wrong - book sales do not impact movie box office to a measurable degree. However, it certainly can be said that it cut into Hulk's media coverage (aka free marketing). Media hysteria on Friday was all about Potter, and Hulk coverage was limited to more-often-than-not-poor reviews and the odd special effects story. CNN was live at a bookstore on Friday night, not at the movie theatre measuring lineups. Entertainment sections of newspapers covered Potter more than Hulk; in my Saturday paper, there was a full-page review of Potter, and nothing on the summer blockbuster. Did Universal not realize they were putting their biggest film of the summer out against the Potter book until it was too late? The wanted demographic for both properties are very similar, and I think Universal got the short end on this one. This film was a lock to finish with more than $80 million, and questions should be asked as to why it didn't hit that kind of mark. Hulk will obviously pass the $100 million mark next weekend, but where it goes after that in a very busy marketplace is yet to be seen. With questionable word of mouth, $200 million looks to be the best estimate at this point. The production budget here was $120 million, and after everything shakes out, Universal will have to make their money on DVD. The best news for the studio is that this is the birth of a franchise, and one day a very lucrative one.
Reviews for Hulk were similar to The Matrix Reloaded; critics seemed to either love or hate the film. Of the 122 reviews collected at RottenTomatoes, 74 were positive, leading to a (barely) fresh rating of 61%. With Reloaded, the continent's movie lemmings listened to naysayers, and that may have added to the second and third weekend drops of 56.5% and 60.7% respectively. Also, Hulk's weekend multiplier may be an indication of where it is headed. When dividing weekend box office by the Friday gross, the multiplier comes in at 2.51, which means the film was extremely front-loaded, even more than expected, which can indicate big drops to come in the weeks ahead. The low multiplier could also indicate questionable word-of-mouth. I think it is reasonable to think that the more people that see a film Friday night, the more likely word-of-mouth will impact a weekend.
As mentioned above, Hulk completes the six-week trifecta of winning films for Universal, which included Bruce Almighty (open: $68 million), 2 Fast 2 Furious ($50.5 million) and now The Hulk. For opening weekends, that's a combined $181.1 million and the studio still has American Pie 3 coming in August (I'm having a hell of a time calling this American Wedding). With the somewhat-incredible Hulk gross, Universal almost has the summer locked up, but it's still only June. Sony still has a shot at the title; the studio may also have the same three consecutive $50 million plus films in July and August with Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Bad Boys II and S.W.A.T.
Yes, there were other movies playing this weekend, and most of them seemed unaffected by either Hulk or Potter, indicating again that the competition for the Hulk was in the marketing department and nowhere else. Last weekend's number one film Finding Nemo grabbed the number two spot, dipping only 28%. Nemo grossed a still-powerful $20.5 million, its fourth weekend above the $20 million mark. Nemo lost 21 venues this weekend, dropping its theater count to 3,404, but the film still made off with an average of $6,031 which is impressive for any film in its fourth weekend of very wide release. Nemo crossed the $200 million mark on Thursday, and now has a terrific gross of $227.9 million. Nemo has passed Pixar's own Toy Story and A Bug's Life, and now sets its sights on Toy Story 2 (final gross: $246 million) and Monsters, Inc. (final gross: $256 million). For more information on how Nemo is doing during the weekdays, check out David Parker's column on weekday box office.
In at third is 2 Fast 2 Furious, Universal's second of three flicks in the top four. 2 Fast is disappearing fast; the film dropped a better 45% this weekend, following up on last weekend's nose-dive of 63%. The John Singleton pic grossed $10.4 million in its third weekend, falling fast from its $50.5 million opening. The car racing flick crossed the $100 million mark on Sunday; despicably slow for a film that opened to $50 million. Two more weeks and this film will only be a memory. Its gross has reached $102.1 million against a production budget listed at $76 million. Grosses like these for 2 Fast and Hulk are going to put big pressure on Universal's DVD department as the studio will be desperate for good results.
Fourth goes to the Almighty, Bruce Almighty that is. Jim Carrey has certainly been the top dog at the box office since his film opened on May 23rd. The angelic comedy grossed another $10.0 million in its fifth weekend, dropping a still relatively small 30%. Bruce now has a total gross of $210.7 million, and along with Finding Nemo, could go down as the box office surprise of the summer, in terms of total domestic gross.
Check out the sweet legs on The Italian Job. Paramount's heist flick is Down only one spot to fifth; the film grossed a still-excellent $7.2 million in its fourth weekend. The weekend-to-weekend drop was only 25% as word of mouth encapsulates new viewers every weekend. It's a shame that with so many big films taking up a such a large amount of space at theatres, The Italian Job can't hold onto its screen count. The film lost over 600 venues this weekend, and still performed very admirably. Its total has now reached $67.7 million and where it's heading depends on how many venues it can hold in the busy weeks ahead.
Those rascally Rugrats drop two spots from fourth last week, as they seem to have succumbed to the current Bruce Willis curse. Rugrats Go Wild! dropped a big 42.4% this weekend; I think most of the limited target audience saw the film over its opening weekend. Rugrats grossed $6.7 million in its second weekend, and the film now has a total of $23.5 million. The nice thing for Paramount and Nickelodeon is that the production cost was quite low for the kid flick; the budget came in at only $25 million, so video will be the saving grace on this one.
New release Alex & Emma failed to find any significant audience this weekend. The WB flick grossed $6.2 million in its debut, far below marketplace expectations. Maybe Rob Reiner should get out of the romantic comedy business. His last film was the Bruce Willis/Michelle Pfeiffer flop romance The Story of Us, which actually opened better than A&E, coming in at $9.7 million over opening weekend. Even with Kate Hudson as one of the leads, A&E couldn't permeate pop culture enough to be effective counter-programming against Hulk and Finding Nemo. Poor reviews didn't help: RT scored the film extremely rotten, as only 11 reviewers out of a possible 93 liked the movie. That's a disastrous 12% fresh if you're still playing along at home.
Speaking of disasters, Hollywood Homicide also slides three spots down the chart, moving from an opening weekend fifth to eighth this weekend. Sony's $75 million debacle made only $5.8 million this frame, dropping a "stop the marketing large" 48%. Sony has some strength coming from big titles in the upcoming weeks, and now the studio is going to need it to pay for this debacle. Double H's total has now hit a paltry $21.4 million.
The dreck called Dumb and Dumberer is ninth this weekend after a 61% drop. The "film" grossed $4.3 million and has a total of $19.9 million. Sadly, this film cost only $19 million, so it will most likely find a profit for New Line.
Tenth this weekend is The Matrix Reloaded, enjoying what is most likely its last weekend in the top ten. The setup flick grossed $4.1 million in its sixth weekend and now has a total of $264.5 million.
From Justin to Kelly finished in eleventh, reaffirming my faith in the North American filmgoer. After getting out of the gate on Friday with a tenth place $1.2 million, the Fox film ended up with only $2.9 million for the weekend. Dumb and Dumberer 2 had a production cost of $12 million; Fox will be very lucky to get half of that back.
A year ago this weekend, the box office was led by two big openers and a deep top ten. Led by Minority Report's $35.7 million and Lilo & Stitch's $35.3 million, box office came in at $146.0 million. This year, thanks to The Hulk and Finding Nemo, the top ten at the box office totaled $137.7 million, a 5.7% decrease from last year. The hits should keep coming next weekend with the Charlie's Angels sequel and the debut of 28 Days Later, the zombie movie from Danny Boyle. Check back next week for David Parker's mid-week analysis and Reagen Sulewski's projections for Hulk's follow-up weekend.
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Saturday, December 28, 2024
© 2006 Box Office Prophets, a division of One Of Us, Inc.
