Pacific Rim held up a little better over the weekend than I feared, ending the frame with $38.3 million for a not-bad 2.62x weekend multiplier. The film opened higher than Super 8 back in 2011, but that film cost about a third of what Pacific Rim cost. The film played 19% IMAX, 50% 3D, 61% male and 47% under-25 years old. It earned $53 million overseas in 38 markets, including $4 million on 124 overseas IMAX screens alone. The opening weekend is such a mix of good news/bad news (smaller than hoped totals, but decent multipliers and big business with younger audiences) that we don’t really know the final fate of this one quite yet, which is actually a little refreshing. The summer is pretty much free of upcoming major tent-poles outside of The Wolverine on July 26th and maybe Elysium on August 9th, which means that Guillermo del Toro’s robots vs. monsters epic may well have halfway decent legs.
I’ve long written elsewhere about how Warner Bros. has used the mid-July weekend (usually next weekend, but sometimes this one) has a launching pad for one massive smash after another since 2005. To wit, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (this weekend in 2007), The Dark Knight, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Inception, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II, and The Dark Knight Rises have all hit massive pay-dirt on this weekend. And all but the famously quick-kill Harry Potter films have shown real legs as they basically helped close out the summer. So if Pacific Rim hits it big as a kids-sized adventure, it may play closer to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory than Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part II (the 4.7x weekend multiplier forInception ain’t gonna happen, sorry). A multiplier between 3.67x of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and the 3.37x multiplier of The Dark Knight gets you between $131 million and $143 million.
That’s the best case scenario. Worst case scenario is that this is another case of a major movie where only the hardcore film fans give a damn while general audiences opt for something less ‘weird’. Think Scott Pilgrim vs. the World orKick Ass, but on a much bigger scale (yes, Kick Ass 2 opens next month, but the original was cheap enough to be barely profitable). But even the 2.97x weekend-to-final multiplier of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World gets Pacific Rim to $115 million. But the 2.5x multiplier of Kick-Ass gets it to $97.5 million. Come what may, Warner Bros. will make its 25% of the budget back (Legendary, which just jumped ship to Universal, financed the majority of the film’s $180 million budget), and the film may well play overseas better than it does here. Even if the film plays closer to Cowboys and Aliens and drops like a stone and doesn’t play well overseas , that a film like this got made is pretty impressive. We can all whine about how Grown Ups 2 made more money this weekend or how we might not get sequels, but for those who truly loved this film, just take solace in the fact that you got to see it at all. That’s gotta be enough sometimes. Speaking of Grown Ups 2, there isn’t much to say about this one. It earned $42.5 million this weekend, or about on par with the $40 million that the original film opened with back in June 2010. The Adam Sandler-and-company glorified home movie franchise got a sequel because A) at $271 million, it’s Sandler’s biggest live-action worldwide grosser and B) Sandler is coming off two box office disappointments in Jack and Jill and That’s My Boy. The $80 million comedy will probably flirt with the original’s $162 million, as Sandler films tend to drop big in weekend two and then have strong legs as they become the de-facto second choice for general moviegoers over the next month. Still, even a smaller (by comparison) 3x multiplier gets the film to a respectable $125 million, so this is another feather in the cap for comedy’s most consistent box office draw. It’s not the end of the world, nor is it the death of cinema. What’s more dispiriting is frankly how often Sandler’s fans seem to punish him for being ambitious (You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, That’s My Boy, Little Nicky) versus his more generic “lazier” efforts (Grown Ups, Anger Management, Mr. Deeds, etc.), but that’s for another day.
In limited release, the now even more sadly topicalFruitvale Stationdebuted with a smashing $377,285 on just seven screens, for a $53,898 per-screen average. The Michael B. Jordan-starring drama, which concerns the last day of a young man gunned down by police under “suspicious” circumstances, will probably expand in the coming weeks and Weinstein Company surely thinks it has the first major Oscar contender on its hands. Come what may, if the film breaks out at all beyond this very limited release, Michael B. Jordan may end up with a Golden Globe nomination and possibly an Oscar nod. As for its long-term prospects, that’s an open question. At the end of the day, only a small percentage of moviegoers will pay money to venture out to a theater to see a film that appears to be more ‘homework’ than ‘fun’. But sadly the George Zimmerman acquittal will surely keep this film in the public spotlight for all of the wrong reasons, which may well make it a quasi-event film in the coming weeks.
The top film of the weekend was again Despicable Me 2, which held fine with $44.8 million in its second frame. That’s down 46%, which is a bit much for an animated film but A) it had a massive $142 million five-day debut last week and B) the weekend after a holiday weekend is always a tough one on holdovers. No matter, the $76 million animated film has already earned $229 million domestic in twelve days. That’s *just* behind the $236 million 12-day cume for Shrek 2, *just* ahead of the $226 million 12-day cume of Toy Story 3, and well ahead of the $206 million 12-day cume for Shrek the Third. Every other animated feature is in the dust. At this rate, if it can hold off the Wednesday debut of Dreamworks’ Turbo (which my daughter really wants to see), the July 31st debut of The Smurfs 2, and the August 9th debut of Disney’sPlanes, then Universal may be looking at around $330 million domestic. It is burning up overseas as well, with $472.4 million worldwide thus far.
In other holdover news, The Lone Ranger predictably collapsed in weekend two, earning $11.14 million (-63%), or pretty much what Disney’s Monster’s University earned in its fourth weekend ($10.64 million). The mega-budget western has crossed $71 million, meaning it will at least out-gross the likes ofJohn Carter, Battleship, and Jack the Giant Slayer in the US. It has $119 million worldwide thus far. Monsters University is at $237 million domestic and $474 million worldwide. Man Of Steel dropped hard after losing 1,100 screens, many of them to fellow WB release Pacific Rim (especially those precious IMAX auditoriums), but it grossed $4.8 million (-54%) and crossed the $280 million mark as it heads towards $600 million worldwide. The Way, Way Back expanded to 79 theaters and pulled in a solid $1.1 million second frame, for a $13,925 per-screen average and a $1.9 million cume.
Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain won’t expand beyond its 895 screens, and its 50% drop shows why expansion probably wouldn’t have worked. Still, who cares? The $2.5 million concert film crossed $26 million this weekend. World War Znow has $177 million domestic and $423 million worldwide while Star Trek Into Darkness has $224 million domestic and $446.8 million worldwide. This Is the End has crossed $91 million and may make it to $100 million domestic. Now You See Me is holding tight even as it drops screens, with $113 million thus far. The Heat crossed the $100 million mark on Friday and now sits at $112 million after a $14 million third weekend, with $150 million domestic in its sights. Finally White House Down is unfortunately not holding up, with $6.1 million in its third frame and $61 million thus far domestically for the $150 million thriller.
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