Will Smith’s Superpowers Still Work
Will Smith did Hancock a solid.
Smith has star-powered the poorly reviewed superhero hybrid to a $66 million opening weekend, and a No. 1 finish, according to Exhibitor Relations estimates today.
WALL-E, last weekend’s champ, stayed strong, grossing another $33.4 million, but finished a distant second.
Hancock goes down as Smith’s seventh straight movie to open No. 1. If you count Shark Tale, the 2004 animated comedy, as a Smith movie, his streak stands at eight straight.
Overall, Hancock has grossed $107.3 million since “previewing” on Tuesday night and “opening” on Wednesday.
Looking strictly at the movie’s first five days, Wednesday-Sunday, Hancock took in $100.4 million, per Box Office Mojo stats, far behind the pace of this summer’s two leading movies, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($152 million) and Iron Man ($112.1 million).
Among Smith movies, Hancock becomes his top Fourth of July opener, a testament to the star’s drawing power, yes, but also inflation.
Run the movie math (divide the opening weekend gross by the average ticket price), and the numbers show Independence Day, Smith’s signature Fourth of July hit, sold nearly two million more tickets in its opening weekend in 1996 than Hancock did this weekend.
It’s actually better not to run the movie math. Not if you want to enjoy the holiday weekend to the fullest.
Other box office notes:
- Where WALL-E remained hot and pushed its two-weekend total to $128.1 million, Angelina Jolie’s Wanted (third place, $20.6 million; $90.8 million overall) cooled off considerably, with business down 60 percent.
- In its third weekend, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, the critically praised Abigail Breslin family film, opened wide and dieda doll-sized $3.6 million (eighth place) off nearly 1,850 screens.
- Speaking of the dearly departed, Mike Myers’ The Love Guru ($1.7 million) dropped out of the Top 10 after just two weekends.
- Looking on the bright side of a big giant bomb, The Love Guru, at $29.3 million overall, is the highest-grossing Justin Timberlake movie of all time. As long as you don’t count Shrek the Third as a Justin Timberlake movie. Which you really shouldn’t.
- The 1990s-nostalgia trip The Wackness, starring Drake & Josh’s Josh Peck, was the star in limited release, grossing $145,064 at six theaters. Its per-screen average of $24,177 was the tops for any movie of the weekend.
- Despite three movies taking in more than $20 million, the Hancock-led Fourth of July was 4 percent smaller than last year’s Transformers-led Fourth of July. The setback set 2008’s overall business once again behind 2007’s.
Here’s a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- Hancock, $66 million
- WALL-E, $33.4 million
- Wanted, $20.6 million
- Get Smart, $11.1 million
- Kung Fu Panda, $7.5 million
- The Incredible Hulk, $5 million
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, $3.9 million
- Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, $3.6 million
- Sex and the City, $2.3 million
- You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, $2 million
Review: WALL-E
WALL-E isn’t just another animated family film, or even just another Pixar movie for that matter. Andrew Stanton has created a masterpiece on the same level as recent classics like There Will Be Blood, The Departed, Pan’s Labyrinth and Children of Men. It is a universal film with timeless appeal. I wouldn’t be surprised if this film gets a nomination for Best Picture. And I’m not talking about the Best Animated Feature category, I’m talking Best Picture. The fact that I’m not the first person to suggest this possibility must tell you something.
When the film was first announced, a lot of people were skeptical that a modern day (virtually) silent film could play in contemporary times. The exclusion of dialogue has forced Pixar to tell the most visual story yet. There are moments like in Alfanso Curon’s Children of Men, where this film requires the audience to make a connection between a series of visual cues. The result is a more rewarding and involving cinematic experience. I see a lot of the press screenings for family films in auditoriums packed with little children. WALL-E was no different. I’m still not sure where I stand on children at the movies. I can assure you, it usually results in a horrible moviegoing experience. But not once during WALL-E did any of the kids say a word. Not once did they get bored.
WALL-E might be the cutest robot to ever grace the silver screen, but beyond that he is a fully functional droid. He’s a robot, but he’s alive. It’s amazing how much emotion the Pixar animators are able to display with a slight tilt of his binocular like eyes. There is a moment late in the film where they play against form, and you really see all the work that must have went into animating this little guy.
A environmentally destroyed and abandoned Earth is the setting for this film. The humans consumers who have escaped Earth, now live as technologically-pampered blob creatures on a super space starliner. Are there messages? Yes, but they are storytelling devices and nothing more. Why did the humans leave earth? This is why. And WALL-E’s newfound love for Eve mirrors humanity’s loss of intimacy in a technologically connected and networked world. A live-action Fred Willard is integrated into the computer generated world using projected taped images on a holoscreen. He is a reminder of what the human race use to look like.
If I have any complaint about WALL-E it would be the needed and expected change of focus between WALL-E’s story and the story of the humans late into the film. You identify with WALL-E so much that when he is off screen it becomes harder to identify with the stupid remains of humanity (not to say you don’t…). But this is a problem of any traveling angel type story.
Thomas Newman’s score captures the magic and creepiness of the best science fiction films. The juxtaposition of Hello Dolly’s Put On Your Sunday Clothes and the introduction of a post apocalyptic Earth in the opening of the film is so very perfect. There is subtle and not so subtle homages to the classic science fiction films of yesteryear. WALL-E is the anti Shrek, devoid of modern pop culture references. WALL-E enjoys watching the musical Hello Dolly, and at one point is seen playing Pong on an old monitor. And I’m sure if this had been a Dreamworks Animated film, the video game would have been a modern XBox 360 game. This is the difference between the two animation studios. In fifty years, WALL-E will still play flawlessly to new audiences, all the comedic and story beats in tact.
Rating: 9.5 out of 10
First Look At Gerard Butler In Game
These images of Gerard Butler looking badass in Game have been floating around the internet for a a couple of days now, however I’ve waited until the images popped up in better quality, because that’s how I roll.
Butler has become a little bit famous after a small movie named 300 was released in 2007. However, since then he has appeared in romantic comedy P.S. I Love You (vomits) and family film Nim’s Island (trips over own vomit and falls out of nearby window). Thankfully, Bulter is returning to what he does best…kicking ass! (celebrates furiously)
In the not too distant future, Kabel (Gerard Butler), a death row inmate, has unwittingly become a pop culture hero. Every week, millions worldwide tune in online to watch him and hundreds of other convicts battle in Slayers, an ultra-violent multi-player online game invented by technological genius Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall). To the wealthy young gamer who controls his every move, Kable is just a sim character. To the resistance group that opposes Castle’s games as high-tech slavery, he is a critical element in their battle to take down the inventor. Caught in the crosshairs of two opposing forces and under the command of a teenager’s remote device, Kable must use his extraordinary fighting skills to escape the game, bring down Castle and overthrow the system.
Indy Opens, But How Will It Close?
If it’s treasure Indiana Jones wants, he’ll have to wait for the weekend to collect the lion’s share of it.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opened Thursday with an estimated $25 million, per Exhibitor Relations Co.
The number puts the movie, the fourth in the adventure franchise, at fourth on the list for biggest Thursday debuts, per the stats at Box Office Mojo.
But it puts it at no better than 28th for all-time opening days (regardless of the day of the week), and falls short of expectations that, at their most expectant, pegged a $50 million start.
By comparison, Iron Man last month collected $35.2 million on its opening day (a Friday), good for 13th all-time.
Still, box office experts were not ready to count out, or against, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg’s savvy archaeologist.
“I’ll think we’ll know more from Friday,” Exhibitor Relations Jeff Bock said today. “This’ll play more like a family film.”
Family films tend to do their biggest business on the weekend.
The PG-13-rated Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is viewed as the summer family film to beat, especially with Speed Racer crashing and The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian losing at its own expectations game.
“It should do better on the weekend,” Box Office Mojo’s Brandon Gray said today.
The one potential booby trap awaiting Dr. Jones: Young moviegoers.
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, starring the 65-year-old Harrison Ford, is the first Indiana Jones movie in a generation, since 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
Because it also debuted after a lengthy gap between new movies, Lucas’ own Star Wars: Episode IThe Phantom Menace might be the best guidepost for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That franchise restarter opened with $28.5 million en route to a $431.1 million domestic gross, per Box Office Mojo.
The booby trap in that argument: The Phantom Menace opened nearly 10 years ago, when the average ticket was nearly $2 cheaper than it is today. Its $28.5 million represented a lot more tickets sold than the new Indiana Jones’ $25 million.
Still, Bock, who was calling for a five-day, Memorial Day weekend gross of as much as $175 million for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was not ready to call off the projection.
Gray essentially agreed. “Chances are now it’ll end up below expectations,” he said, “but the verdict is still out.”
Not that Indiana Jones has ever had to deal with tough odds before…