Box Office Round Up: Pure Randomness

Picture of Captain Kirk arm-wrestling Captain Kirk is always related 

Cars 2 was number one to nobody's surprise. But like I said, it could have made any amount of money, and I wouldn't be surprised. It brought in $66 million, which I am sure Disney is happy to have. That puts the opening just a little bit less than Finding Nemo, Up, and the Incredibles, but slightly more than Wall-E and Cars 1. 

If you recall, the original Cars was the first movie made after the Disney-Pixar merger, and the stock holders were less than pleased to see it make only $60 million. It went on to make $460m worldwide, and Star Wars-level money in merchandise. Oddly enough, Cars was not that big of a hit overseas, so the filmmakers this time around added in more foreign cars and stars (aka Jeff Gordon is in the US version, but is replaced by Sebastian Vettel in the German release, Fernando Alonso in the Spanish edition, etc.) so that should help them in the long run.

Again, Cars 2 is looking good money-wise. But it is nowhere near Toy Story 3 which opened to $110 million only 53 weeks ago, and in less theaters to boot. However, Cars is striking out with the critics as it sits at only 33% at Rotten Tomatoes. Let's compare to Toy Story 3 again, who sat at MORE than three times 33% for 197 reviews before it finally got a grumpy critic. And he received death threats for his review. Cars is not Toy Story.

The big winner is actually Bad Teacher. The R-rated comedy which was advertised almost solely on a Lebron James joke made $31.6 million for the number two spot. The Hangover was the king for R-rated comedies (until Hangover 2 came out anyway), and it didn't make much more its opening weekend at $45 million. If Disney was "happy" with with $66 million, Sony must be "ecstatic" with this. Neither of these two budgets have been released yet, but I can only imagine the entirety of Bad Teacher cost the same as one scene in Cars. And they both combined cost less than Green Lantern. Speaking of which... 

Disney is happy, Sony is ecstatic, and Warner Bros is suicidal. Green Lantern finished third with $18 million. That is a massive 66% drop from its low opening weekend. After ten days, it has yet to reach $90 million, and $90 million is still less than a third of its projected budget. 

Mr. Popper's Penguins also dropped hard, falling 45% to fifth (Super 8, which I still really need to see, held at #4) for a $10 million weekend/$40 million ten day total.

X-Men was sixth with $6 million/$133m life to date on a $160m budget. If it wasn't for Green Lantern and Mr. Popper, this would be the biggest flop of the year.

The year's highest grossing movie, Hangover 2, was seventh for $5.5m/$243m ltd, but right on its heels is Bridesmaids, making $300,000 less than Hangover -- despite being out for two extra weeks -- for a $146m total, and it has outlasted heavy hitters like Kung-Fu Panda 2 and Pirates 4. Did I mention its budget is only $32 million? Bridemaids is looking to be this year's big winner.

Box Office Round Up: ...In Flopest Night

Ryan Reynolds's 3D abs weren't enough to save Green Lantern. Despite a gigantic budget -- rumors at first said $300 million, and now that is actually looking to be close to the truth -- Green Lantern only came home with $52.6 million. That puts the opening less than Thor or X-Men...or Daredevil or Ghost Rider or the Hulk or either Fantastic Four or even Batman and Robin in terms of tickets sold. It also so far has made a near non-existent $17 million foreign gross. Thor made that much in Brazil alone.

The movie is also rubbing people the wrong way. In addition to all the bad reviews, people are upset that the credits never mention original Green Lantern creators Marty Nodell or Bill Finger, nor do they mention the legendary writer/artist duo of John Broome and Gil Kane, who created Hal Jordan, Sinestro, Carol Ferris, Tomar Re, Abin Sur, Hector Hammond, Guy Gardner, and pretty much wrote the screenplay before the movie existed. Keep in mind, this was made by Warner Bros, the parent company of DC Comics. And finally, to add insult to injury, after the credits they show an ad promoting DC's comics with a link to some digital issues. They spelled the URL wrong.

And I almost forgot the best part. WB's explanation on the low success? The audience was getting it confused with the Green Hornet. Really, that was their excuse.

The craziest thing, Green Lantern was the only successful opening this weekend. Jim Carrey's Mr. Popper's Penguins came in at third with $18 million, which is an even worse opening than that God-awful Yes Man. This would be news, but looking back Carrey only had two box office smashes (Bruce Almighty and the Grinch). The real news here is that someone thought it was a smart idea to release a penguin movie in June.

The craziest thing, Mr. Popper's Penguins was not the biggest bust of the weekend. That honor belongs to The Art of Getting By. Yes, it did not have that wide of release, but even playing in over 600 theaters (GL had 3800) it made a mere $700,000. That is $1148 per screen (GL had $13,806). Even Fast Five and Rio did better than that. Heck, Buck which opened on a whopping 4 screens made $64,000, or $16,000 a screen. And Art actually was running alot of commercials too.

Atleast Super 8 is still going good, at #2 with $21 million. It has now made 150% of its budget.

Good word of mouth isn't helping X-Men First Class in the least. It was #4 with $11.5 million and $120m life to date. It is still $40m away from matching its domestic budget, and from catching  X-Men 1, the lowest grossing X-film until now.

Reviewers Love Green Lantern...

                      IN BIZARRO WORLD!


Yep, Green Lantern comes out tomorrow, and it is getting blasted by that green ring that is a Rotten Tomatoes certified rotten stamp. The movie review aggregation website is giving Green Lantern a 22% after 67 reviews and it's dropping fast.   You can see what all the reviewers are saying about it Here, but I think it is put best by Manohla Dargis of the New York Times, one of the world's finest newspapers: "Green Lantern is bad." I don't think that is going on the back of the DVD box.

I'll reserve judgment until I see it, but I probably won't be seeing it anytime soon because it looks bad. People have had it out for this movie right from the get-go, between Ryan Reynolds and Tim Robbin's head (quite literally) leading a nobody cast, the stupid outfit redesigns (which actually fit in pretty well with the recent changes DC is making), and the fact that this film has more CGI than all three Toy Stories combined.

So how will this do at the box-office during the Summer of Flops? This has been marketed MUCH more aggressively than X-Men (87% at RT) or Thor (77% and with a sinisterly similar plot). Besides, never underestimate the power of Ryan Reynolds's abs. And if the year's highest grossing movie, Hangover 2 (35%), has shown us anything, it is reviews don't matter.

Anyway, there are a few minor things that bother me about this just from the trailers.
--There is a scene where Hal Jordan (Reynolds's abs) is sparring with Sinestro. Killawog (and no, I'm not going to bother spell checking any of these names) says something about never trusting your enemy, and the camera zooms in to Sinestro. Ok, I like a good foreshadowing as Sinestro (spoilers, I guess) becomes the main bad guy. That's cool and all, but WHY IS THE CAMERA STILL ON SINESTRO? Seriously, the camera stays on him, as a hero mind you, for the entire minute while they are explaining how bad guys are born. I think we got it.

--People threw a major fit when the alien character of Superman was given to British actor Henry Cavill. But nobody seems to care that a Canadian actor is playing the gung-ho American military brat, Hal Jordan. People are too busy throwing a fit over Reynolds without even getting to his nationality.

--Finally, they changed the Oath. How could they do that? The old Oath goes:
                                   In brightest day, in blackest night,
                                   No evil shall escape my sight
                                   Let those who worship evil's might,
                                   Beware my power... Green Lantern's light!
But the new Oath goes something like this:

                                   In brightest day, in blackest night,

                                   No evil shall escape my sight

                                   Let those who worship evil's might,

                                   Beware my power... GRRRALWWARTMWWIIIIIIIIIIGTTTTTTTTTTT!

Why did they change that? That must be a Canadian word.

Who knows how it will turn out, but I bet Warner Bros is starting to regret that three movie deal before filming even started.