Saturday, July 30, 2011

Last July Weekend Derby

And the Nikkster says it all:

... What's more humiliating than Hollywood execs overestimating opening day for Cowboys & Aliens and having it fall short? Having the well-pedigreed motion picture with big Hollywood writers (Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman), stars (Daniel Craig & Harrison Ford), director (Jon Favreau), and producers (Steven Spielberg, Ron Howard, & Brian Grazer) beaten at the box office by The Smurfs. Talk about humiliation! Especially with Smurfs playing in 355 fewer North American theaters than Cowboys but charging higher 3D ticket prices. ...

Do you feel the despair? The angst? The abject humiliation? Neither do I. Nobody in Hollywood feels these emotions for more than ... oh ... seventeen minutes.

I think the thing we can take away from all this is, everybody likes a good animated hybrid feature that is peopled with lovable, blue non-humans. But until Avatar II comes out, we have The Smurfs!

The Friday Tote Board

The Smurfs -- $13.3 million

Cowboys and Aliens -- $13 million

Cap'n America -- $7.86 million

Harry Potter -- $6.625 million

Crazy, Stupid Love -- $6.6 million

Friends WIth Benefits -- $3.2 million

Horrible Bosses -- $2.2 million

Transformers -- $1.75 million

ZooKeeper -- $1.36 million

Cars 2 -- $679,000

Winnie the Pooh -- $532,000

Add On: The finals show that Cars and Winnie dropped 59% and 66%, respectively. Not spiffy.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just curious.
Why is Cars 2 so low here compared to all the others?

Anonymous said...

I don't know-- especially now that it's the biggest selling movie franchise in history.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/8672694/Cars-2-to-become-most-lucrative-film-toy-franchise-ever.html

Steve Hulett said...

Slight misstatement, there.

The Cars features have hit a demographic sweet spot with 4 and 5-year-olds in the toy buying department. This age group loves the movies, and is too old for baby rattles yet too young for computers.

But the movies haven't sold a lot of movie tickets, compared to their Pixar siblings.

Anonymous said...

I don't hear stockholders complaining! I'm sure dw wishes they had product that sold as many anncilliaries. Or any other studio, for that matter! The film was weak, but better than the three transformer movies. Only Cars, as a studio property, made more money than that series.

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