Weekend Box Office: The competition has been Terminated!

[The Clown Prince]

As expected, Terminator 3 opened up this weekend with guns a blazin' bringing in $44 million! Add that to it's Tuesday night previews, Wednesday and Thursday totals and you got an impressive $72.5 million! After mediocre hits like End of Days, Collateral Damage, and The Sixth Day, Arnold finally has a hit on his hands after a very lengthy dryspell. He of course would find it in a sequel being the character that made him huge. WB and every other person who invested their money into this $170 million movie has got to be happy. But not only are investors happy, but a majority of the movie going audience that saw this were really happy. Only a $100 million more to break even. We'll T3 continue to perform well? We'll we see T4? Time will tell over the next few months.

The July 4th weekend's other big movie was Legally Blonde 2 which did pretty well for itself bringing in $22.9 million. Add that to it's Wednesday and Thursday totals and LB2 has a $39.1 million total!

Charlie's Angels 2 dropped to third place with $14.2 million and a $67.2 million total.

And we have a new top grossing film of 2003! Finding Nemo dropped to fourth place but not before surpassing The Matrix Reloaded's top gross. Nemo brought in $11 million this weekend to bring it's total to $274.9 million! Once again, I say congrats to Pixar.

The Hulk rounds out the top 5 with $8.2 million and a $117 million total. I don't know what else to add to this....

And the holiday weekend's other new film, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas stumbled and fell, got up and stumbled again out of the gate with a dismal $6.8 million weekend. Add that to it's Wednesday and Thursday totals and you have a $10 million total. You knew Dreamworks knew it was in trouble when test audiences didn't like it. And what more can you do when it's already been animated? It would have cost a fortune to rewrite, re-animate, and redo voice over work. Dreamworks needs an animated hit and fast. They may get it with the upcoming Sharkslayer and Shrek 2, but we'll see.

As mentioned, Matrix Reloaded was surpassed this weekend as top grosser of 2003 so far. Reloaded came in eleventh place with $1.5 million and a total of $271.9 million.

Next weekend 2 more big movies open. Wednesday sees the anticipated release of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and Friday sees the release of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Lots of big movies in theaters right now. Will T3 hold on to number one next weekend against the very likely powerhouse of Pirates of the Caribbean?

Here are your numbers...


1) Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines- $44,045,000 ($72,526,000) NEW!!!
2) Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde- $22,900,000 ($39,187,000) NEW!!!
3) Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle- $14,200,000 ($67,206,000)
4) Finding Nemo- $11,000,000 ($274,900,000)
5) The Hulk- $8,200,000 ($117,000,000)
6) Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas- $6,800,000 ($10,000,000) NEW!!!
7) 28 Days Later- $6,070,000 ($20,686,787)
8) The Italian Job- $4,275,000 ($84,015,000)
9) Bruce Almighty- $4,000,000 ($228,700,000)
10) 2 Fast 2 Furious- $2,400,000 ($119,300,000)
11) The Matrix: Reloaded- $1,560,000 ($271,926,000)
12) Rugrats Go Wild!- $1,500,000 ($34,868,000)

The Clown Prince

[sag_2002]

Ah-nald's back. Good to see the third Terminator did well.

Also good to see "Nemo" still holding strong.

Next week could prove to be interesting. "Pirates" and "LXG" have potential to knock Arnold out of the top spot.

[Chris Wood]

T3 isn't out of the woods yet. According to BoxOffice Mojo, production cost $200 million and marketing $40 million. That puts the film still $168 million in the red. Good luck Arnold. You're gonna need it.

[Auggie Doggie]

As expected, Terminator 3 opened up this weekend with guns a blazin' bringing in $44 million! Add that to it's Tuesday night previews, Wednesday and Thursday totals and you got an impressive $72.5 million! After mediocre hits like End of Days, Collateral Damage, and The Sixth Day, Arnold finally has a hit on his hands after a very lengthy dryspell. He of course would find it in a sequel being the character that made him huge. WB and every other person who invested their money into this $170 million movie has got to be happy. But not only are investors happy, but a majority of the movie going audience that saw this were really happy. Only a $100 million more to break even. We'll T3 continue to perform well? We'll we see T4? Time will tell over the next few months.

Whoa! If the audiences thought it worked, then this should make plenty of money.


The July 4th weekend's other big movie was Legally Blonde 2 which did pretty well for itself bringing in $22.9 million. Add that to it's Wednesday and Thursday totals and LB2 has a $39.1 million total!

Well, surprise, surpise!


And we have a new top grossing film of 2003! Finding Nemo dropped to fourth place but not before surpassing The Matrix Reloaded's top gross. Nemo brought in $11 million this weekend to bring it's total to $274.9 million! Once again, I say congrats to Pixar.

And here's to Pixar.


And the holiday weekend's other new film, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas stumbled and fell, got up and stumbled again out of the gate with a dismal $6.8 million weekend. Add that to it's Wednesday and Thursday totals and you have a $10 million total. You knew Dreamworks knew it was in trouble when test audiences didn't like it. And what more can you do when it's already been animated? It would have cost a fortune to rewrite, re-animate, and redo voice over work. Dreamworks needs an animated hit and fast. They may get it with the upcoming Sharkslayer and Shrek 2, but we'll see.

Oy! Things are looking like crap for Traditional Animation. It is thanks to the Hollywood fatcats that we will bad CGI movies for too long a time. And this may be what will harshly and permaently hurt, if not kill, the motion picture industry, with badly designed movies like Sharkslayer (though a nice, clever and possibly funny story may be going for it). Maybe we can prove the greedy-asses wrong by getting Don Bluth to helm a traditionally animated movie with a nice story, like something from Pixar.


Next weekend 2 more big movies open. Wednesday sees the anticipated release of Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, and Friday sees the release of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Wow! These are real contenders! You gotta love them!


12) Rugrats Go Wild!- $1,500,000 ($34,868,000)

This ain't gonna break even...

[The Penguin]

I find I don't really have much to say this week other than I'm a tad surprised with Sinbad (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=79898). I wasn't excited about it and the theatrical trailer was starting to get on my nerves, but I still expected a bit more from it. After Treasure Planet (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=57652) (which I thought was really good) this is just not a good time to be a traditionally animated film. :shrug: CGI on the other hand...

Good to see T3 (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?t=80242) hit the jackpot. I've caught myself up on the other two and now I need to go out and catch this one. :)

It feels weird for movie that's made $117 million to feel like a failure, but Hulk (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?threadid=79069) just feels like it's performing way below expectations.

Overall it hasn't done really well as far as the rankings, but tough little Italian Job (http://forums.toonzone.net/showthread.php?threadid=77003) really seems to be hanging in there.

Okay, I guess I found some stuff to say. :o

[TimTwoFace]

I am to see T3 too relatively OK - for a movie of that size, that opening isn't "huge", like what X2, Nemo, Matrix, and Bruce Almighty took in. I'm actually happier to see two of the cheesiest movies of the summer slowly going down in flames, those being Legally Blonde 2 and Charlie's Angels 2. :)

Congrats to Finding Nemo on doing so well. I still don't see why people are flocking to see this movie so much in comparison to all the other Pixar flicks, though.

-Tim

[Silent Bob]

Legally Blonde 2 isn't going down in flames, it actually opened better than the original did. I'm more surprised at the box office of Temrinator 3. I thought for sure it would've made $100 million by the end of the weekend, but it fell short of that total. I wonder how it's going to fair in the coming weeks. I can't see it making more than $150 - $175 million.

I'm more surprised to see how strong The Italian Job is doing. No one expected this movie to even break $40 million, but it's made double that. It's less than $1 million away from recouping it's cost and advertising fees. I'm also glad that 28 Days Later is still doing good. For such a small budgeted movie, it's making a nice impact. Great flick, too.

Now bring on The League!

[Zoddman]

The ad campaign for T3 wasn't that great, but the reviews overall have been positive, and audiences in the first week have had a blast, soo...

T3 may just be a word of mouth hit. It might pull a Finding Nemo on us and keep raking in money.

[Daniel P]

T3 will need to make about $340 million to break even for Warners. You forget that on average theaters keep almost 50% of the ticket price profits. And that won't happen. T3 will probably go just barely to $200 million.

DreamWork's desperate SHREK CD-ROM promotion for Sinbad didn't do much. Neither did those celebrity-themed voice actor ads. This movie should end with just under $25 million. Now, there is a problem. The "experts" blame this failure on the traditional animation, not its bad plot and marketing. Why must they blame the animation style? Bastards.

Finding Nemo is being totally amazing at the Box Office. I expect it to pass $300 million soon. It could get up to $315 million total.

Rugrats Go Wild, with a budget of $25 million+, is dying a slow death. I can't believe Paramount convinced 2,021 theaters to keep it for FOUR weeks. Any wise theater would know not to keep this more than three weeks, given how badly its predecessor, THE WILD THORNBERRYS MOVIE, did.

The Italian Job is the movie that refuses to go away. This movie has really good legs. Should end with $90 million.

[JLApe]

DreamWork's desperate SHREK CD-ROM promotion for Sinbad didn't do much. Neither did those celebrity-themed voice actor ads. This movie should end with just under $25 million. Now, there is a problem. The "experts" blame this failure on the traditional animation, not its bad plot and marketing. Why must they blame the animation style? Bastards.Yes. Why? They're not going to do any better by going CGI. It may make their movies look better, but ultimately bad plots, bad writing and overall bad storyline is going to sink the technology. Then what? No more animation every again??

Ever wonder why Japanese anime haven't gone CGI all the way? Because they don't have to. They still use traditional cel animation, occasionally incorporating CGI, and their movies still make tons of money.