This was probably one of the least exciting weekends to try and predict, as everything pretty much fell exactly where I expected. With only one wide-release this weekend, and the hold-over of "The Amazing Spider-Man" last weekend, it was easy to see where most of the big players this weekend were going to fall. I was off on a few amounts - "Ice Age: Continental Drift" under-performed, while "Ted" slightly over-performed - but the rankings remained the same.
Overall it was the lowest-grossing weekend we've seen in over a month, and that was surely due to the lack of new material. As we pointed out on Thursday, a few other films were opening this weekend, but with all of them premiering on so few screens, none of them even came close to contending.
But nonetheless, after the break, I'll go over all of the numbers from the weekend, and point out any impressive stats or accomplishments from the top films.
We'll start with "Ice Age: Continental Drift", because it pretty easily took the top spot this weekend. While it barely lived up to the standard that the previous films set for their opening weekends, it still did just that, and put together a decent $46.6MM gross. I though there was potential for the film to make about $10MM more than this, but I guess we other family films like "Brave" and "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" still hanging around, there was formidable competition. Box Office Mojo doesn't list a production budget for the film, but from a few other sources I've checked out, it's estimated to be in the $100MM range. That's not too bad for an animated film like this, and even though it made less than half of that in its opening weekend, it still shouldn't have many problems hitting that mark over time. More importantly though, the film has been open overseas for two weekends now, and the film has already racked up $339MM internationally. Those numbers for these two weekends alone already surpass what the first film from the franchise did in its all-time worldwide tallies. It still has a long way to go to catch the middle installments, but this is no doubt another worldwide hit for Fox, who has already quadrupled their $100MM investment in just 10-days.
Outside of that though, and especially here in the states, the film fell pretty flat. The reviews for the franchise have went down with every subsequent film, with the 40% that this installment has mustered up on Rotten Tomatoes being the lowest. I haven't seen all of the films in the series, so I don't feel like I can make accurate assumptions about the film, but as is the case with many animated films, eventually the act gets tired and critics become uninterested with the formulas. But hey, that being said, the film has already nearly made $400MM, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?
I don't expect any great milestones or accomplishments from this film, but it looks like a perfectly fine installment for the children, and something that they can all easily enjoy.
Next we have week-2 for "The Amazing Spider-Man". If you can recall, this is the second weekend for the film, but it actually opened the Tuesday before the 4th of July, so it had a 3-day head start on its numbers. While the extra days allowed Sony to cash in on the holiday, it made for less-than-spectacular weekend totals, only pulling in about $65MM last weekend. But the film continues to power along, racking up strong amounts with every passing day. I haven't seen any totals that have really wowed me, but it does seem like every time I look, the film has quietly put together impressively more money. Even though the film has a budget of $230MM, it doesn't seem like that will be an issue for the studio at all. With this weekend's $35MM (on the dot what I predicted for it), it's now put together a cool $200MM domestically. That brings it within $30MM of its budget, which should be surpassed by the end of next weekend.
And as is the case with so many of these superhero movies, the film is doing fantastic internationally. It's racked up more than $320MM so far, which, obviously, puts it in a pretty comfortable place. The film still has a ways to go to catch any of the other previous Spider-Man films, and honestly probably won't ever match what any of the three were able to accomplish, but the film has still received positive reviews and earned a strong following for future sequels. I personally loved the film and thought it was exactly what I wanted for a Spider-Man origin story. Our own Ben Foutch did a review for the film, which you can read here; and even having stronger ties to Sam Raimi and the Spider-Man character than I do, he still was quite pleased with it as well. I'm happy to see the film doing well, and it's nice to see Sony giving a little more (presumably) creativity and freedom to this franchise. I think this is a great tone and direction for this character, and I'm excited to see what's ahead.
"Ted" probably was the biggest surprise for me this weekend. Even though it was pretty easy to see that the #3 spot would be where it would fall, its total numbers and percentage drop for this weekend were much stronger than expected. How often do we see an R-rated comedy pull out a 31% change in its third week? Maybe it happens more than I think, but that is really impressive to me. With such a small drop, the film pulled in over $22MM this weekend, raising its total gross to over $158MM. As expected, the film hasn't done much overseas, but with only a $50MM budget (still high for a comedy film), it's already fine off. Looking over some stats, I was really shocked to see that this is already the 19th highest-grossing R-rated film of all-time. It should be able to fly through the next few spots and make it into the top 10 in the next couple of weeks, too. From there it will be tricky for the film to advance much more, but I think that if you told the studio and Seth MacFarlane that their movie would ultimately be among the ten highest-grossing R-rated films of all-time, they'd be pretty happy about it. I've yet to see the film, but I think based on popularity alone I'll have to at least give this one a chance with its Blu-Ray release.
Rounding out the Top 5 were "Brave" and "Magic Mike". Last weekend's "Savages" was also in strong competition for these spots, but as I expected, did just miss with the more family friendly and popular films pulling ahead. I'll kind of lump my thoughts and the stats on all films into one spot here, and we'll knock all of these out at once.
Outside of the top three, "Brave" was the only other film to gross more than $10MM this weekend, with an estimated total of $10.6MM right now. This was the film's third week, and as of this past Thursday it had already met its budget of $185MM, so everything this weekend and on was just extra. It looked for a while that this film would struggle to get to these numbers, but as most animated films do, even if they don't start incredibly strong, they have strong legs that seem to power through week after week. I'm baffled though at how little the film has made overseas, with just over $46MM so far. Pixar films usually do amazing internationally, so I wonder what it was that's made this one so unappealing?
"Magic Mike" won't hit the $100MM mark for another week, but with only a $7MM budget, those numbers are incredible. The film has received pretty strong reviews so far (our own Nathan Hinds even made his way to the theater for this one), and Tatum's popularity is at an all-time high, so it isn't much of a surprise. Even though this film probably isn't much for me (I'll still watch it when it comes out on Blu-Ray), I'm glad to see director Steven Soderbergh with another hit.
This was the second weekend for "Savages", and mixed reviews and difficult material have made it so tough for this film to succeed. It's made just over $30MM now in its 10+ days in theaters, and will probably get past its $45MM budget mark, but I don't expect much more. Ben Foutch did a review for this film too, and while it had aspects that were appealing and made it different from most of what you see in this genre, overall it was just kind of there. I'll be interested to check this one out on Blu-Ray for sure.
Outside of those films though, "Madagascar 3" passed the $200MM mark this weekend, so congrats to it. I haven't seen the film, nor do I have much desire to do so, but it's still a nice accomplishment. Marvel's "The Avengers", in its eleventh week, enjoyed what will probably be its last of $1MM+. It came within $40MM of "Titanic" on the All-Tim Domestic list, but probably won't get much closer than that. Interestingly though, if you take out the $55MM that the film made in its re-release back in April, then "The Avengers" takes that spot. So who knows, maybe one of these days when "The Avengers" gets its re-release it will hop up to that #2 spot.
Check out the full numbers below, courtesy of Box Office Mojo:
Overall it was the lowest-grossing weekend we've seen in over a month, and that was surely due to the lack of new material. As we pointed out on Thursday, a few other films were opening this weekend, but with all of them premiering on so few screens, none of them even came close to contending.
But nonetheless, after the break, I'll go over all of the numbers from the weekend, and point out any impressive stats or accomplishments from the top films.
We'll start with "Ice Age: Continental Drift", because it pretty easily took the top spot this weekend. While it barely lived up to the standard that the previous films set for their opening weekends, it still did just that, and put together a decent $46.6MM gross. I though there was potential for the film to make about $10MM more than this, but I guess we other family films like "Brave" and "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" still hanging around, there was formidable competition. Box Office Mojo doesn't list a production budget for the film, but from a few other sources I've checked out, it's estimated to be in the $100MM range. That's not too bad for an animated film like this, and even though it made less than half of that in its opening weekend, it still shouldn't have many problems hitting that mark over time. More importantly though, the film has been open overseas for two weekends now, and the film has already racked up $339MM internationally. Those numbers for these two weekends alone already surpass what the first film from the franchise did in its all-time worldwide tallies. It still has a long way to go to catch the middle installments, but this is no doubt another worldwide hit for Fox, who has already quadrupled their $100MM investment in just 10-days.
Outside of that though, and especially here in the states, the film fell pretty flat. The reviews for the franchise have went down with every subsequent film, with the 40% that this installment has mustered up on Rotten Tomatoes being the lowest. I haven't seen all of the films in the series, so I don't feel like I can make accurate assumptions about the film, but as is the case with many animated films, eventually the act gets tired and critics become uninterested with the formulas. But hey, that being said, the film has already nearly made $400MM, so if it ain't broke, don't fix it, right?
I don't expect any great milestones or accomplishments from this film, but it looks like a perfectly fine installment for the children, and something that they can all easily enjoy.
Next we have week-2 for "The Amazing Spider-Man". If you can recall, this is the second weekend for the film, but it actually opened the Tuesday before the 4th of July, so it had a 3-day head start on its numbers. While the extra days allowed Sony to cash in on the holiday, it made for less-than-spectacular weekend totals, only pulling in about $65MM last weekend. But the film continues to power along, racking up strong amounts with every passing day. I haven't seen any totals that have really wowed me, but it does seem like every time I look, the film has quietly put together impressively more money. Even though the film has a budget of $230MM, it doesn't seem like that will be an issue for the studio at all. With this weekend's $35MM (on the dot what I predicted for it), it's now put together a cool $200MM domestically. That brings it within $30MM of its budget, which should be surpassed by the end of next weekend.
And as is the case with so many of these superhero movies, the film is doing fantastic internationally. It's racked up more than $320MM so far, which, obviously, puts it in a pretty comfortable place. The film still has a ways to go to catch any of the other previous Spider-Man films, and honestly probably won't ever match what any of the three were able to accomplish, but the film has still received positive reviews and earned a strong following for future sequels. I personally loved the film and thought it was exactly what I wanted for a Spider-Man origin story. Our own Ben Foutch did a review for the film, which you can read here; and even having stronger ties to Sam Raimi and the Spider-Man character than I do, he still was quite pleased with it as well. I'm happy to see the film doing well, and it's nice to see Sony giving a little more (presumably) creativity and freedom to this franchise. I think this is a great tone and direction for this character, and I'm excited to see what's ahead.
"Ted" probably was the biggest surprise for me this weekend. Even though it was pretty easy to see that the #3 spot would be where it would fall, its total numbers and percentage drop for this weekend were much stronger than expected. How often do we see an R-rated comedy pull out a 31% change in its third week? Maybe it happens more than I think, but that is really impressive to me. With such a small drop, the film pulled in over $22MM this weekend, raising its total gross to over $158MM. As expected, the film hasn't done much overseas, but with only a $50MM budget (still high for a comedy film), it's already fine off. Looking over some stats, I was really shocked to see that this is already the 19th highest-grossing R-rated film of all-time. It should be able to fly through the next few spots and make it into the top 10 in the next couple of weeks, too. From there it will be tricky for the film to advance much more, but I think that if you told the studio and Seth MacFarlane that their movie would ultimately be among the ten highest-grossing R-rated films of all-time, they'd be pretty happy about it. I've yet to see the film, but I think based on popularity alone I'll have to at least give this one a chance with its Blu-Ray release.
Rounding out the Top 5 were "Brave" and "Magic Mike". Last weekend's "Savages" was also in strong competition for these spots, but as I expected, did just miss with the more family friendly and popular films pulling ahead. I'll kind of lump my thoughts and the stats on all films into one spot here, and we'll knock all of these out at once.
Outside of the top three, "Brave" was the only other film to gross more than $10MM this weekend, with an estimated total of $10.6MM right now. This was the film's third week, and as of this past Thursday it had already met its budget of $185MM, so everything this weekend and on was just extra. It looked for a while that this film would struggle to get to these numbers, but as most animated films do, even if they don't start incredibly strong, they have strong legs that seem to power through week after week. I'm baffled though at how little the film has made overseas, with just over $46MM so far. Pixar films usually do amazing internationally, so I wonder what it was that's made this one so unappealing?
"Magic Mike" won't hit the $100MM mark for another week, but with only a $7MM budget, those numbers are incredible. The film has received pretty strong reviews so far (our own Nathan Hinds even made his way to the theater for this one), and Tatum's popularity is at an all-time high, so it isn't much of a surprise. Even though this film probably isn't much for me (I'll still watch it when it comes out on Blu-Ray), I'm glad to see director Steven Soderbergh with another hit.
This was the second weekend for "Savages", and mixed reviews and difficult material have made it so tough for this film to succeed. It's made just over $30MM now in its 10+ days in theaters, and will probably get past its $45MM budget mark, but I don't expect much more. Ben Foutch did a review for this film too, and while it had aspects that were appealing and made it different from most of what you see in this genre, overall it was just kind of there. I'll be interested to check this one out on Blu-Ray for sure.
Outside of those films though, "Madagascar 3" passed the $200MM mark this weekend, so congrats to it. I haven't seen the film, nor do I have much desire to do so, but it's still a nice accomplishment. Marvel's "The Avengers", in its eleventh week, enjoyed what will probably be its last of $1MM+. It came within $40MM of "Titanic" on the All-Tim Domestic list, but probably won't get much closer than that. Interestingly though, if you take out the $55MM that the film made in its re-release back in April, then "The Avengers" takes that spot. So who knows, maybe one of these days when "The Avengers" gets its re-release it will hop up to that #2 spot.
Check out the full numbers below, courtesy of Box Office Mojo:
