Weekend Box Office: A 'Fantastic' start!

[The Clown Prince]

While not a critical success (26% rating out of 121 reviews at RottenTomatoes), Fantastic Four started out doing well with box office success. In it's debut weekend, it made $56 million. The coming weeks will tell us how big of a success or lack there of F4 will be.

Falling to second place after one week at the top was War of the Worlds which made an additional $31.3 million and a total so far of $165.8 million.

In third place was Batman Begins making $10.2 million and collecting a total of $172.1 million to date.

Opening in fourth place was Dark Water which made $10.1 million. When actuals come out on Monday, Batman Begins and Dark Water could very well switch places.

And rounding out the top 5 was Mr. & Mrs. Smith with $7.8 million and a $158.6 million.

Opening next weekend are two new movies. First up is Tim Burton's version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory starring Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka.

Next up is a comedy that has the great potential to do very well, Wedding Crashers starring Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson with appearances by Christopher Walken, Will Ferrell, and Jane Seymour.

Here are your numbers...

1) Fantastic Four- $56,000,000 ($56,000,000) NEW!
2) War of the Worlds- $31,300,000 ($165,809,000)
3) Batman Begins- $10,216,000 ($172,105,000)
4) Dark Water- $10,127,000 ($10,127,000) NEW!
5) Mr. & Mrs. Smith- $7,850,000 ($158,647,000)
6) Herbie: Fully Loaded- $6,274,000 ($48,506,000)
7) Bewitched- $5,500,000 ($50,851,000)
8) Madagascar- $4,300,000 ($179,550,000)
9) Rebound- $2,875,000 ($11,360,000)
10) Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith- $2,600,000 ($370,819,000)
11) The Longest Yard- $2,250,000 ($152,507,000)
12) Cinderella Man- $1,850,000 ($57,114,000)

The Clown Prince

[The Penguin]

Well I am happy to see this. Fantastic Four has also been credited with helping end the box office slump. It exceeded Fox's expectations by a over 16 million and and even beat the first weekend returns of X-Men. Fantastic.

It's good to see Batman Begins stay decently strong in the number three spot with another 10 million to its credit. It appears that this week will be the final bow for Revenge of the Sith in the top ten.

I honestly think both of next week's movies can go either way of being a hit or doing reasonably okay. My expectations of Chocolate Factory are higher than Wedding Crashers however.

[Spongebrain2.0]

Wedding Crashers is the only film on the IMDb message boards that I have ever seen not have ONE negative comment on its message boards. Every post is someone saying "I can't wait for this", no posts saying "This Movie wil be teh suck!!". I think Wonka will bomb to be honest, it has a $150 million budget, not counting advertising, & it hasn't be hyped on TV that much, most kids I know think it looks "weird". I say Wedding Crashers will be a sleeper hit & revive the popular R-rated comedy

[Lord Dalek]

I wouldn't be surprised if F4 takes a huuuuge dive next weekend. Unless the comics community can sustain it for another weekend, it just doesn't have any mainstream appeal.

[PaQ]

Wow, nice solid start for Fantastic Four, even a little higher than I expected but good to see. I haven't seen it yet but I plan to. War of the Worlds made a little less than I expected, looks like the dropoff will occur though, it just doesn't seem like a movie that would have high replay value.

Batman Begins continues to stay solid, I think it could reach $200 million by the time it's all said and done. Dark Water looks like a really good movie, I think it could stick around in the top 10 for quite a few weeks and rack itself up a pretty nice chunk of change. I'd like to see Revenge of the Sith reach $400 million but that might be a stretch to achieve.. Not many have done that (not counting adjusted) and their current haul is still impressive.

I definitely see Charlie & the Chocolate Factory finishing in the top spot next week. Depp + family-esque movie appeal should bring in the viewers, who doesn't love Willy Wonka? F4 should finish in second right behind it, with either WoW or Wedding Crashers finishing third. With Crashers rated R and WoW might not having as huge of a dropoff, it might be hard for WoW not to finish 3rd. Batman Begins & Dark Water should round out the top 6, I think it's a pretty deep box office draw right now.. Good amount of movies I want to see.

[randomguy]

About what I expected for Fantastic Four, so it'll be interesting to see whether it can stick around or not. I haven't seen it yet either, but I plan to check out a matinee or something sometime this week.

Other than that, no real surprises. The only thing I can think when looking at these lists is how quickly Land of the Dead dropped out of the top twelve. It's a pretty good little flick, so that's really a shame.

[Fone Bone]

Am I completely wrong or did Fantastic Four make more money in it's opening weekend than Batman Begins? That's a shocker considering Batman's name recognition and the fact that FF is actually kind of a cultish thing in the mainstream. Wow.

[Memphis Bleek]

Are the weekend estimates based on the sales total for Friday and Saturday? If so, why are the estimates and actual totals so close? Can anyone clarify this situation for me?

[Eidan]

Am I completely wrong or did Fantastic Four make more money in it's opening weekend than Batman Begins? That's a shocker considering Batman's name recognition and the fact that FF is actually kind of a cultish thing in the mainstream. Wow.

Yes, Fantastic Four had a higher opening weekend.

But then again, Batman Begins had accumulated $72 million after its first weekend.

And I don't understand why so many of you don't think Fantastic Four has mainstream appeal. All I hear from people coming into the weekend was how the planned on seeing the film. Guys, girls, even the dudes that work at my local barber shop were pumped.

[Spider-Man]

Looks like the four heroes may have also saved the box office, too:

http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/st...-26221,00.html

Jedis couldn't do it. Computer animated zoo creatures couldn't do it. Batman, Herbie the Love Bug, Brangelina and Tom Cruise couldn't do it. It seems to have taken a clan of dysfunctional comic book heroes to reduce the epic slide at the domestic box office.

According to preliminary estimates provided by Exhibitor Relations, the 20th Century Fox Marvel adaptation "Fantastic Four" swooped to the top of the box office, making a better-than-expected $56 million for the three-day period ending Sunday, July 10. If early figures hold, the Top 12 films at the box office will be up over the same weekend last year for the first time in nearly five months, following 19 consecutive down frames.

"Fantastic Four" averaged $15,547 million per screen, opening in some 3602 locations. Despite receiving vicious reviews from many critics (its RottenTomatoes score currently stands at 27 percent "fresh"), "Fantastic Four" came through with the sixth best comic superhero opening ever, just ahead of the $54.5 million earned by "X-Men" in its first weekend, but only half of the record $114.8 million delivered by "Spider-Man" when it premiered in May 2002.

The film, which stars Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Ioan Gruffudd and Chris Evans, also came through with the fifth best July opening ever, behind such big-ticket earners as "Spider-Man 2" ($88.12 million), "Austin Powers in Goldmember" ($73 million), "Planet of the Apes" ($68.5 million) and last weekend's "War of the Worlds" premiere ($64.9 million).

The gross for "Fantastic Four" made up 40.6 percent of the $140.95 million turned in by the weekend's Top 12 films, up 5.4 percent from last weekend and 2.26 percent from the same period last year, when new releases "Anchorman" and "King Arthur" failed to unseat "Spider-Man 2" at the top.

[Lord Dalek]

Am I completely wrong or did Fantastic Four make more money in it's opening weekend than Batman Begins?

BB made $78 million.

[The Penguin]

BB made $78 million.

But it came out on a Wednesday. It's weekend total was $48 million. So weekend for weekend, Fantastic Four made more money.

[ManicWebb]

Looks like the four heroes may have also saved the box office, too:

http://www.zap2it.com/movies/news/st...-26221,00.html

Jedis couldn't do it. Computer animated zoo creatures couldn't do it. Batman, Herbie the Love Bug, Brangelina and Tom Cruise couldn't do it. It seems to have taken a clan of dysfunctional comic book heroes to reduce the epic slide at the domestic box office.

According to preliminary estimates provided by Exhibitor Relations, the 20th Century Fox Marvel adaptation "Fantastic Four" swooped to the top of the box office, making a better-than-expected $56 million for the three-day period ending Sunday, July 10. If early figures hold, the Top 12 films at the box office will be up over the same weekend last year for the first time in nearly five months, following 19 consecutive down frames.

"Fantastic Four" averaged $15,547 million per screen, opening in some 3602 locations. Despite receiving vicious reviews from many critics (its RottenTomatoes score currently stands at 27 percent "fresh"), "Fantastic Four" came through with the sixth best comic superhero opening ever, just ahead of the $54.5 million earned by "X-Men" in its first weekend, but only half of the record $114.8 million delivered by "Spider-Man" when it premiered in May 2002.

The film, which stars Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis, Ioan Gruffudd and Chris Evans, also came through with the fifth best July opening ever, behind such big-ticket earners as "Spider-Man 2" ($88.12 million), "Austin Powers in Goldmember" ($73 million), "Planet of the Apes" ($68.5 million) and last weekend's "War of the Worlds" premiere ($64.9 million).

The gross for "Fantastic Four" made up 40.6 percent of the $140.95 million turned in by the weekend's Top 12 films, up 5.4 percent from last weekend and 2.26 percent from the same period last year, when new releases "Anchorman" and "King Arthur" failed to unseat "Spider-Man 2" at the top.

And all it took was an excessively massive ad and join-venture campaign.

"Samsung's fantastic!"

[Lord Dalek]

And all it took was an excessively massive ad and join-venture campaign.

"Samsung's fantastic!"

Yeah probably $20,000,000 was from people who wanted to win the dumb Amazon gift certificate.

Interesting Note: F4 may be the film "that saved Hollywood" (>_>) but it still made $6,000,000 less than the Hulk two years ago.

[Stu]

Yeah probably $20,000,000 was from people who wanted to win the dumb Amazon gift certificate.

Interesting Note: F4 may be the film "that saved Hollywood" (>_>) but it still made $6,000,000 less than the Hulk two years ago.

Wasn't Hulk released in August? And if I recall, Hulk's opening whooped ass. It took a huge dive the following week though. I might be getting mixed up with X-Men 2 though...

Anyway, I'm glad to here FF made it's money. I haven't heard positive things about the film yet, but I plan to see it when it opens here on the 22nd.

Hopefully, we'll get a sequel. I wasn't expecting this to make too much, despite what Avi Arad thinks, the FF aren't anywhere near a houshold name like Spider-Man, Hulk and Batman are.

[Bird Boy]

Wasn't Hulk released in August? And if I recall, Hulk's opening whooped ass. It took a huge dive the following week though. I might be getting mixed up with X-Men 2 though..

Hulk was June and X2 was July I think. I don't recall any superhero movies opening in August...

-BB

[KuwabaraTheMan]

X2 was May, actually. X-Men was July.

[Hades]

Wow, I'm amazed it was #1. It was getting hammered with negative reviews, and when I was at the theater today to see it, 80% of the people in line were there to see Dark Water, and the theater I was in had maybe 20 people, if that. However, it was nice to hear people clap when it ended.

With that said, FF was very enjoyable and I hope to see an extended edition released on DVD as it could really help make it even better (ala DD). I'm glad it was #1.

I have no interest in Dark Water as it is just another remake of a Japanese movie, and a bad one at that. Not to mention it is by the guy who created Ring, and I hated the Ring.

THe only movie I can see as #1 next week is Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Except for Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Depp has never done a bad movie at this point, so I have high expectations for this. And then the week after that is The Devil's Rejects (I think, I haven't seen any trailers for it yet).

[Hades]

Hulk was June and X2 was July I think. I don't recall any superhero movies opening in August...

-BB

Blade and Blade II opened in Aug.

[TimTwoFace]

Wow. I figured that it was going to be a much tighter race in #1 spot with F4 and WAR OF THE WORLDS; F4 did amazingly well, especially considering the horrible reviews. I predict a huge dip next weekend, but still - that's a pretty respectable opening. WAR OF THE WORLDS took a rather large dive, too - but then again, after a huge opening weekend, where else could it have gone?

I'm really interested to see the battle for third, between BATMAN BEGINS and DARK WATER.

BATMAN BEGINS and MR & MRS SMITH certainly have had great staying power this summer. I predict WAR OF THE WORLDS will do similarly.

Next week, I dunno if either CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY or THE WEDDING CRASHERS will have huge openings. They could be huge, or at least in the Crashers' case, huge flops. We'll see!

-Tim