HuffPost Weekend Box Office in Review

It's close, but no cigar. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen ended up $2 million behind The Dark Knight for that much-desired five-day box office record. While I'd wager that Paramount may try to bump up that 'estimate' for tomorrow's finals, the estimate itself implies that Transformers 2 only dropped 14% from Saturday to Sunday, which is a bit optimistic. The finals were be interesting, as if the number is up $2 million, Paramount gets that five-day record, but if it drops by about $2 million, it'll lose the bragging rights for the $200 million five-day gross.

Anyway, the days for Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen -
Wed - $60.6 million (biggest Wednesday ever)
Thurs - $28.6 million (biggest non-opening Thursday ever)
Friday - $36.8 million (biggest non-opening Friday ever)
Saturday - $40.6 million (awfully swell, but no records here)
Sunday - $34.6 million (also terrific, but no records broken)
Three day opening - $112 million; five-day opening - $201 million.

For the record, that makes a five-day multiplier of 3.32x. This puts it in the lower-rungs of five-day opening weekends, but it's nothing to panic about quite yet (it's smack-dab in between Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and The Matrix Revolutions). Regardless of the long-term playability, the Michael Bay sequel is the second film in history to cross $200 million in five-days. It has the second-largest five-day, six-day, and seven-day totals in history after five days. It has three days to make it to $250 million to match The Dark Knight and five days to match Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Can they tie The Dark Knight's eight-day sprint? To paraphrase the immortal words of Barack Obama and/or Bob the Builder, "No, they can't!". The Dark Knight's eighth-day was the Friday of its second opening weekend, while Transformers 2's eight-day will be July 1st, where it will face the double-whammy of Public Enemies and Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs. Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Ice Age 3 supplants Revenge of the Fallen as number one over the long Fourth-of-July weekend.

Despite my distaste for the movie, and the somewhat predictable nature of its performance, this is a truly huge set of numbers we're dealing with here. And, make no mistake, this is exactly the kind of opening sprint that Paramount is praying for when their eventual Star Trek sequel hits theaters in a few years. We have a solid-opening original that ends up being better-liked than expected by audiences and critics, then has a sequel that EXPLODES out of the gate over its opening weekend. Sound familiar? That's the Batman/Pirates/Bourne/Transformers pattern and Paramount can settle for nothing less as it follows up the successful but way over budget Star Trek film. Of course, the word of mouth on this sequel has been less than stunning, but even the loathed Spider-Man 3 avoided anything larger than a 62% drop (although that was partially due to a complete lack of second-weekend competition). The sheer size of the five-day figure means it'll play better than Spider-Man 3 and/or X-Men: The Last Stand (domestic totals about 2.2x the 3-day opening, which Transformers 2 will equal with a mere $45 million more). We won't know the long-term picture until next weekend is complete, but pay close attention to the earliest weekday numbers. Anything below 10% of the three-day figure for Monday and Tuesday respectively is troubling. Anything approaching 5% or below is a recipe for disaster.

Meanwhile, the rest of the top ten did about as expected. The other opener, My Sister's Keeper ended up being shockingly frontloaded, as it could only parlay a $5 million opening Friday into a $12 million weekend gross (2.35x multiplier). Still, considering the super low profile and withering competition, Warner Bros should be thankful that it opened at all. The Proposal dropped a large, but not fatal, 45% and ended weekend two with a solid $69 million, guaranteeing that this will be Bullock's fifth $100 million grossing picture (and Ryan Reynold's second and second-consecutive $100 million+ grosser after X-Men Origins: Wolverine). The Hangover dropped only 35% in the face of Transformers 2, which pretty much guarantees that the popular comedy will end up in the top ranks of all-time grossing comedies (as well as the front runner at next year's MTV Movie Awards). At $183 million, it's already the 10th highest grossing R-rated film of all time, just $4 million below Gladiator (for R-rated comedies, it's at number 3 behind The Wedding Crashers and Beverly Hills Cop). In less pleasant news, Year One dropped a shocking 70% for a second weekend gross of $5.8 million. In ten days, the critically reviled Harold Ramis 'comedy' has earned only $32 million against a cost of $60 million.

In other news, Pixar's Up passed Star Trek for the (temporary) title of 2009's highest grossing film. It crossed the $250 million mark and will be Pixar's second-highest grossing title by next weekend's end. Of course, it will lose most if not all of its 3D screens to Ice Age 3 on Wednesday (if you recall, this loss was a fatal blow to the still popular Coraline earlier this year). So next weekend will be the one to decide if it's a near $300 million grosser, or a legitimate contender for Finding Nemo's $339 million all-time animated box office crown. Finally, the critically acclaimed Iraq-War action thriller The Hurt Locker opened with $144,000 on four screens ($36,000 per screen). It's a scorching limited-release debut, which is meaningless unless Summit has the money and skill to sell this to a national audience. It's awfully good, but it's not as easily marketable as The Kingdom, and even that only opened to $18 million. Of course, the new ten-Best Picture nominees Oscar ruling means that Summit might just want to save its money for the Oscar campaign.

That's the main news that's fit to print. Tune in next time for the box office fate of Ice Age 3 and Public Enemies, as well as the long-term prognosis for the rock-em sock-em robots sequel (time to be determined since I'm moving during the week and I'll be with in-laws over the holiday weekend). For a recap of The Dark Knight's record three day run (and a general history of the record breaking opening weekend), go here. For a recap of The Dark Knight's $203 million five-day sprint, go here. For previous Transformers 2 box office columns, read about Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday in Mendelson's Memos.

Scott Mendelson

Follow Scott Mendelson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/ScottMendelson

Comments

[bugsbonzai]

It's sad that an entire generation of people are being raised on these horrid films. The problem is cultural.

When we teach our children, we at least try to instill a basic understanding of the fundamentals of literature. Children have to read the classics to gain a comprehension of the fundamentals of storytelling through words, what elements are required for quality writing. Even if they don't enjoy it, they will absorb some of the lessons, and thus when they get older, are more easily able to discern good writing from poor writing.

But even though film is the dominant medium for storytelling in our society, we don't treat movies like we do literature. We don't have our kids watch classic films and dissect them to discuss its composition, why they are considered superior to lesser films. We don't instill in them a nuanced understanding quality character development, good plot, quality dialogue, theme, consistency. We don't teach them visual composition, what elements are necessary to tell a compelling story visually through moving pictures.

So it's like teaching our kids literature by having them read nothing but sleazy dime store romance novels, all ripoffs of previous romance novels, and expecting them to discern good writing from bad. These people have watched nothing BUT bad movies; it's their only frame of reference. They wouldn't know what a good movie was if they tried. If you eat nothing but delicious candy, why would you bother with the joys of a complicated 5-course meal?

[argyle]

Anyone else a little miffed that they call it Ice Age 3 and talk about dinosaurs? No way I take a kid to see something with that title.

[hhscarletgray]

You're kidding right?

[BlackJAC]

The trailer shows the dinosaurs living in a Lost World beneath the Earth's surface.

[Malkin71]

Transformers, before Bay and Spielberg got their hands on it, was my favorite "story" of all time.

The first movie was awful...from what I have heard this was even worse.

Dark Knight, on the other hand, was one of the best movies I have ever seen.

It's simple, Christopher Nolan = brilliant. Michael Bay = schlock.

[BlackJAC]

There was no stylistic difference between THE DARK KNIGHT and HEAT, which means anyone claiming to be able to distinguish one director from another is a lying pseduo-intellectual dilletante who couldn't even get accepted into Dov S-S Simens' Two-Day Film School.

[Freenation]

first one was much better than the present sequel...i agree with other posters some of the humor was crude and unwanted for a family movie...

[Grulg]

I really enjoyed it. I think it'll do frankly pretty well for a bit, couple more weeks. It's the same as the first one, really-Mikey Bay delivered exactly what he's done in the past, so what's the big surprise here?? I have seen Trek, Watchmen, Angels and Demons, Terminator IV and Up this spring--this was better than all of them save (of course) for Up and MAYBE Trek (Bring the Red Matter!), okay? And it seemed like the audience was really into it for the most part.

Sorry guys, but--this is a smash.

[oberon123]

Tranformers 2 will probably create another record for biggest percentage drop from first week to second week. The film was marketed well, and generated huge interest. But megahits generate their money from repeat customers. No one is going to shell out 11 dollars to see this stinker a second time.

[LaughingMan]

If that were even remotely true, then don't you think that word-of-mouth alone would have prevented it from getting to $200 Mill in 5 days, when plenty of people had enough time to get second opinions from their friends who had seen it.

It's a hit. Just accept it and move on. It will have a healthy, (though probably not spectacular ) 2nd week of repeat business, due to its core demographic (teenage boys), and make out okay in the long run.