Saturday, June 09, 2007

The Box Office Among Us

The two animated candidates now occupy the middle of the Top Ten list.

Surf's Up came in at #4 on Friday, with a $5.1 million take.

Our old friend Shrek landed at #5, with a haul of $4,300,000. S3 has now collected a $270.4 million domestic gross.

The top two slots are filled by 1) George Clooney and Associates ($11.6 million) and (#2) Knocked Up ($6.2 million).

Update: To nobody's surprise, Ocean's 13 cops the top spot, snaring $37 million in its opening weekend (with the Koch calculator (c) predicting a final take of between $100 million and $140 million -- give or take -- for O13's final domestic tally.)

Johnny Depp and his merry band of cutthroats bring home $21.3 million for a total of $253.6 million (and Pirates is now in #2.)

The baby comedy KU declines less (34.8%) than anything else in the Top Ten, collecting $20 million and a #3 berth for a $66.2 million total after two weekends.

As for the animated entries, Surf's Up collected $18 million in its opening frame, which is no doubt a bit of a disappointment for Sony Pictures Animation, but still good enough for a fourth place finish in a competitive field. SPA's sophomore effort will probably finish south of Open Season. Our guess: it winds up in the $58-$80 million range.

Lastly, Shrek the Third collected $15.8 million for a $281.9 million total and 43.8% decline in its fourth week of release.

Update 2: Variety notes that this summer weekend was a little weaker than year-ago numbers. Ocean's 13 opened slightly smaller than its two predecessors, and Surf's Up probably got bashed by the Big Mean Ogre.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

All the beautiful visuals couldn't help non- appealing cartoon characters with adult dialogue. Oh and lets not forget that p_ssing scene. what were they thinking!

Anonymous said...

I agree. Surf's Up is definitely a Surf's Down. Every time I watch the trailer, I get annoyed even more. The characters are very cliche and has no individual qualities. Its a movie worth waiting to catch on TV.

Anonymous said...

Hmm. Did we see the same movie?

I went today with a 2 year old, 2 5 year olds, 4 7 year olds, one 11 year old and 3 parents over 40. A giant playdate, if you will. The 2 year old passed out 1/3 way in, one 7 year old fidgeted a little and the rest of the kids ... were really into it. They weren't alone. The theatre was filled with kids in the same age group and a few teenagers. There weren't a lot of BIG laughs but lots of little ones. After the movie the kids were quoting the sea urchin (broken, broken) and "I feel it in my nuggets" and other things like that. I think the smaller kids loved all the interviews (for them that WAS the movie along with the friendship plot and some surfing) and the parents liked the story. The 11 year old liked both the story and the interviews.

The amazing thing was that the theatre had lots of little little kids (3 -7ish) but very few got up with parents to wander, stretch or go the bathroom. Everyone stayed put. The audience even clapped at the end of the movie! Yes, adults and kids get different things out of the movie, but that seemed to work for our crowd. (The parents actually liked that there were jokes they got and the kids didn't). And in our little group, no one complained about the peeing. One of the moms said she was surprised at how mild the "rude humor" was , given its PG rating. It may not be the best movie ever, but it was great for us all to be able to enjoy a movie together. That hasn't happened since Night At the Museum.

Steve Hulett said...

Night at the Museum received lacklustre reviews...and a HUGE domestic gross.

Audiences can usually be counted on to go to the movies that grab them, regardless of what critics say.

Anonymous said...

Anon 3 : I dont where you went or how the crowd that you saw it with has been trained over the past years that animated family films mean you can do what ever cheap crude jokes you want. I guess people are changing their priorities faster than ever and are ok with it being never too early to teach 3-6 year olds crude humor. The theatre I saw it in was less than a 1/3 full and kids were bored. I dont think this film will make 2/3 of its budget back from domestic.

Worst part is, I REALLY wanted to like this film.

Steve Hulett said...

Funny. The critical response to Surf's Up has been pretty good:

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/surfs_up/

Anonymous said...

yea ....but the box office number says otherwise. since when do people rely on the paid comments posted on Rotten Tomatoes.

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