'Super 8' at the Box Office

Or should I say 'Super 38'. Sorry.

The movie came in with $38m, right where I expected. Just could not see it doing $25-30m. (Some creative under-estimating by Paramount, probably). Over at ToH, Anne Thompson says "Paramount compared the numbers to District 9 ($37.4 opening, $115.6 million domestic), which makes sense, as that was another uniquely-marketed summer sci-fi sleeper." Heartily disagree. S8 should roll to $160m domestic pretty easily. Wouldn't be shocked if it did better.

As a side note, think S8 will play great overseas. Especially in Japan -- they love this type stuff.

I'm a bit surprised 'X-Men' only dropped 55%. Was thinking it might do as bad as 69%. But, I knew it couldn't stay above 50%, at least I got that right. Looking for a steep falloff next week. 'Green Lantern', as bad as it looks, should steamroll 'X-Men', which should come in around $8.5m. Good word of mouth should carry S8, which should show a slight dip of about 40-43% (I'm hoping for less, just love it when a movie like this comes along). All that would leave 'Mr. Popper's Penguins' scraping the bottom.

Cha-Ching

Variety is saying 'The Dark Knight' will finish the weekend with $155.4 million. That's what I predicted. (Actually I said $155 million -- I wanted to go with the exact $155.4 [I did. I know it sounds dumb to say that now, but...], however I thought it was just too too to guess down to that level).

"My, my. Perhaps we should have a parade," Joker seems to be saying with his oh so sarcastic applause.

If only I could be that accurate all the time...

How Much Money?

You got to admit, this shot of The Joker burning a huge pile of money is pretty good. You can't blame him -- I find burning big stacks of money to be therapeutic. I do it every chance I get.

Most are saying 'The Dark Knight' will pull down $90-130 million in its first weekend. I'll go with $155, which, according to my calculations, is not even close to how much The Joker is burning in this still.

Happy Birthday Mr. Ford

Over at Pop Dose, Robert Cass wishes Harrison Ford a happy 66th. This is one of my favorite movie stars -- a Golden Era leading man in an age of disposable icons. However, I agree with Cass when he asserts that Mr. Ford tried to hang on to his status perhaps a bit too long with more than a few roles (see: 'Firewall') in which he plays (as Cass rightfully points out, citing many a reviewer's assessment) yet another character who delivers cliche dialogue through clenched jaws with eyes burning of determination and the lips snarled just so.

With Ford not willing to budge on his asking price per movie and with the scripts (and box office) for said movies becoming more laughable, I thought his career was in crash-and-burn mode. But then comes Indiana Jones 4 and, just like that, Ford earns a reprise. He's putting the new lease on his movie star's life to use not by demanding top-dollar for a retread execution of a bloated cliche script, but by doing small pieces like 'Crossing Over' (pictured, with Alice Braga), and what looks like another character-driven drama, 'Crowley', in what one would hope and assume is an effort to re-establish himself as a viable commodity.

Good to see him back, albeit not exactly in the same form as a president kicking terrorists off Air Force One or a privateer blasting the Millennium Falcon into hyperspace to elude capture. By the same token, though, he's not in the same form as he was in 'Hollywood Homicide' (which, in this case, is first degree premeditated murder of one's career)... At age 66 doing movies like 'Crossing Over' is a very smart move.

Here's Cass' write up. A couple excerpts:

If you were to ask me "What did you want to be when you grew up?," I could lie and say "astronaut" or "baseball player" or even "actor," but the answer is "Harrison Ford." More than anything else, I wanted to be Harrison Ford. I grew up in the '80s, a decade in which the actor played Han Solo in two Star Wars films and Indiana Jones in three films. For a young boy, those were iconic characters...

...because he wouldn't drop his $20 million fee, those interesting scripts from young writer-directors never showed up in his mailbox...

HULK MAKE MORE MONEY! HULK FIRST!

INCREDIBLE HULK FINISH FIRST! HULK BEAT KUNG FU PANDA BEAR! HULK CRUSH HAPPENED! HULK BEST! HULK CRUSH YOU! HOWEVER, STILL NOT CLEAR IF THERE WILL BE ANOTHER HULK MOVIE WITHIN NEXT 5 YEARS!

Sweeney Box Office

The thing about Sweeney Todd I'm most interested in is how it does at the box office. There's a lot of praise for this effort, but the release of such a hybrid (and by all accounts, gory) movie over the traditional family get-together season of Christmas and New Year's seems a dubious strategy. Are families going to want to take the kids to see a razor-wielding barber kill people -- and sing?

Well, who knows. What better time to release this picture? -- I don't know, that isn't clear. What's much more clear is X-mas doesn't seem like the right time.

People love Depp, though. And, they like Burton. Most people don't know who Sondheim is and get squeamish when someone starts to sing (especially at the movies). So, this is one of the most interesting openings this year. Hope it does well.

Numbers

When adjusted for inflation just how good was box office business in 2007? It was a four billion dollar take but that's due to increases in ticket cost -- attendance was down.

NYT reporter Brooks Barnes gives us an excellent rundown on this summer's business and the implications for the writers unions negotiations -- click the audio interview on the same page.

It looks to me like, more clearly than ever, there are two issues: 1) movie theater attendance continues to decline, and 2) DVD rentals/sales (as well as other ancillary income) is becoming not only more important but of primary importance. Theatrical releases have become advertisements for the DVD.