Will Smith Save The Last Action Hancock?
The reviews aren’t great. The genre’s iffy. Will Smith’s the star.
As far as box-office business goes, everything should be fine.
Big things were expected, per usual, of Smith, and his less-than-usual latest, Hancock, opening Wednesday.
“I think it’s going to be another Will Smith gigantic opening weekend,” says box-office expert Paul Dergarabedian of Media by Numbers.
Dergarabedian predicted Hancock could make $75-$80 million from Friday-Sunday, and expected the film to clear $100 million, easy, over its first five days, from Wednesday-Sunday. An opening of that size would lift Hancock, the tale of an unconventional superhero, right into the airpspace of Iron Man.
Box Office Guru’s Gitesh Pandya sees a slightly more modest opening weekendmaybe $65 million from Friday-Sunday. But he also sees an overall huge five-day grossmaybe as much as $110 million.
Like Dergarabedian, Pandya’s betting on Smith, and not necessarily the movie, a superhero, action, comedy, drama hybrid that recently was compared tooh, cruelest of putdowns!The Last Action Hero by Variety.
“It’s going to be a very big Will Smith opener because of star power and the action,” Pandya wrote in an email.
As for the second weekend…
Suggested Pandya: “It should play out more like Men in Black II or Wild Wild West.”
MiB II and Wild Wild West are two of the lesser-loved entries on Smith’s Internet Movie Database page. But they’re also two of the 11 films that Smith has helped push past the $100 million markMiB II grossed $190.4 million in 2002, per Box Office Mojo; Wild Wild West, mechanical spiders and all, came away with $113.8 million in 1999.
“Will Smith can open any movie,” Dergarabedian says.
Smith’s reputation says he’s especially good at opening movies over the Fourth of July, which just so happens to be Friday.
Hancock will be Smith’s fifth Independence Day-timed release. Of his others, each, with the exception of Wild Wild West, grossed at least $190 millionthe heftiest, Independence Day, appropriately, weighed in at $306.2 million.
This Fourth of July, however, could be Smith’s trickiest yet.
For one thing, the holiday falls on a Friday. Dergarabedian wonders if firework shows and other activities will keep audiences away from theaters on one of Hollywood’s favorite date nights. (The original Men in Black, which costarred Smith and which also ran into a Friday Fourth of July back in 1997, made out okayit ended up grossing $250.7 million.)
For another thing, Hancock is Smith’s worst-reviewed Fourth of July movie on record at Rotten Tomatoes since, well, Wild Wild West. At one point today, the movie’s Tomatometer reading stood at a chilly 32 percent, with 23 positive reviews outflanked by 50 “rotten” ones.
The Chicago Tribune called Hancock a “D-list project.” The Los Angeles Times found it “bizarre and unsatisfying.” The word “mishmash” was broken out by more than one critic. Roger Ebert (”a lot of fun”) and the New Yorker (”by far the most enjoyable big movie of the summer”) helped represent the minority opinion.
In the end, none of it may matter. At least not for the next several days.
Says Dergarabedian: “A Will Smith movie on the Fourth of July is about as sure a bet as you can get…I think it’s bulletproof this weekend.”
Get Smart a Hit; Love Guru a Nude Bomb
The Incredible Hulk wasn’t exactly Hulk, which was good. The Love Guru was vaguely Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, which wasn’t.
And Get Smart, which was absolutely not The Nude Bomb, was No. 1.
The weekend box office did not lack for storylines or dollars, with the Steve Carell spy comedy leading the way with $39.2 million, according to Exhibitor Relations estimates today.
Get Smart’s three-day take was nearly three times what the first big-screen crack at the sitcom classic grossed during its entire run. Not that taking out the bomb that was the 1980s The Nude Bomb, which starred original Agent 86 Don Adams, was either the plan or an accomplishment.
More to the point, Get Smart goes down as the biggest opener of Carell’s still fledgling leading-man career, and helps mitigate the disappointment of his last live-action comedy, Evan Almighty.
Elsewhere, The Incredible Hulk, last weekend’s No. 1, fell to third with $21.6 million. But it retained bragging rights over Ang Lee’s Hulk by falling “only” 61 percent in its second weekend, rather than the 70 percent plunge suffered by the 2003 film.
As for The Love Guru: It settled for fourth place and $14 million, two stats unbecoming a film that was promoted far and wideand uncomfortably on the season finale of American Idol.
For star Mike Myers, the debut wasn’t far off from the modest $9 million that his first Austin Powers grossed in its opening weekend. Eleven years ago. Before the spoof franchise took off on home video. Before Myers took off as a comedy brand name.
On the upside of a disappointing weekend, The Love Guru did outgross Get Smart, Again! Which was actually a TV movie. And therefore didn’t gross anything.
In any case, it should definitely surpass The Nude Bomb any day now. Which really wasn’t the plan. And honestly won’t be an accomplishment.
Drilling down through the standings:
- Fact No. 1: In The Incredible Hulk’s first weekend, 82 percent of the audience was comprised of people who’d seen Ang Lee’s Hulk. Fact No. 2: After two weekends, the two films have nearly identical cumulative grosses, with Lee’s holding the slight edge, $100.6 million to $96.5 million. Possible conclusion: There are only so many Hulk fans to go around. For all the drubbing that Lee’s Hulk took over its box office performance, The Incredible Hulk is doing almost exactly the same, except it’s doing it slightly smaller.
- Kung Fu Panda has strong, stubby legs. In its third weekend, the CGI comedy was only down 35 percent from the previous weekend. It held on to second place with $21.7 million, bringing its overall take to $155.6 million.
- In its second weekend, M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening (fifth place, $10 million; $50.3 million overall) suffered a Hulk-like fall, with ticket sales down 67 percent.
- Iron Man (ninth place, $4 million), indeed. The comic book movie passed the $300 million mark overall. It currently stands at $304.8 million.
- Tween girls do not live by Camp Rock alone. Those with access to Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, the new Abigail Breslin movie based on the popular doll line, helped it to a huge little opening weekend. Debuting at five theaters, the film grossed $222,697 for a per-screen average of $44,539. (Get Smart, by comparison, made $10,012 off each of its screens.)
- Prince Caspian ought to write Speed Racer a thank-you note for serving as the pre-Love Guru poster man for summer disappointments. Were it not for Speed Racer’s spectacular crash at the box office, more attention might be paid to the washout that has been the Chronicles of Narnia sequel. In its sixth weekend, the $200 million movie grossed $1.7 million, fell out of the Top 10 and stood at $135.5 million overall.
- In its sixth weekend, per Box Office Mojo stats, the first Narnia movie, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, finished fourth, grossed $10.1 million and stood at $261.3 million overall.
Here’s a recap of the top-grossing weekend films, based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- Get Smart, $39.2 million
- Kung Fu Panda, $21.7 million
- The Incredible Hulk, $21.6 million
- The Love Guru, $14 million
- The Happening, $10 million
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, $8.4 million
- You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, $7.2 million
- Sex and the City, $6.5 million
- Iron Man, $4 million
- The Strangers, $1.9 million
Jason Bateman to develop TV series
Jason Bateman is keeping himself busy. Hot off his pilot directing debut with Do Not Disturb, he has signed a deal with 20th Century Fox for a first-look at the new series. Obviously, he doesn’t hold a grudge from the network’s shoddy treatment of Arrested Development.
The new series will be developed under the banner of Bateman’s company, F A Productions. Do Not Disturb stars Jerry O’Connell and it was the only live-action comedy pilot Fox picked up as a new series for next season.
“He did an excellent job on the pilot visually, brought great energy and enthusiasm to it and, as an actor, he really understands how to talk to and motivate actors,” said Gary Newman, 20th TV co-chairman. Bateman is also scheduled to lend his voice to the Fox animated series Sit Down, Shut Up which is scheduled to begin in the fall.
Jason Bateman has come a long way since Silver Spoons. I’m still eagerly waiting for the new season of It’s Your Move.
Release Date Change: Hancock on July 1st
Hancock will be hitting select theaters one night earlier than expected. Columbia Pictures has decided to hold nationwide screenings of the Will Smith drunken superhero action comedy on Tuesday July 1st, a day before the film’s announced release. Screenings will begin as early as 7:00pm on the first. Check your local listings for complete details. Thanks to reader Alex for submitting the tip.