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
Movie Reviews: Get Smart vs. The Love Guru
This was supposed to be a big weekend for comedy, with both Mike Myers and Steve Carell cranking it up to 11 for your pleasurewith a little Timberlake thrown in. But we’ve seen the results, and your choice is between bad and really bad. Or The Incredible Hulk.
Get Smart: A mediocre spoof, with two bickering spies (Carell vs. Anne Hathaway) trying to thwart a plan to nuke L.A. But the gags fall flat, and those two have no chemistry, maknig this another big summer movie that should have heeded its title’s advice. Grade: C
The Love Guru: Myers does the same character he always does, just with a new accent. So you’re in for frozen grins, urination scenes, midget jokes, blatant product placement and that annoying “promised myself I wouldn’t cry!” thing he does. Grade: D
The Guardian Do A Hulk Review In Hulk Talk
I think I’ve just read the best movie review I have ever read in my life. While 99.9% of movie reviews are all the same, a critic talking about the film, the good points, the bad points, overall conclusion. Peter Bradshaw from The Guardian has done something unique and way more entertaining.
Here is a section of his review of The Incredible Hulk:
“Hulk. Smash!” Yes. Hulk. Smash. Yes. Smash. Big Hulk smash. Smash cars. Buildings. Army tanks. Hulk not just smash. Hulk also go rarrr! Then smash again. Smash important, obviously. Smash Hulk’s USP. What Hulk smash most? Hulk smash all hope of interesting time in cinema. Hulk take all effort of cinema, effort getting babysitter, effort finding parking, and Hulk put great green fist right through it. Hulk crush all hopes of entertainment. Hulk in boring film. Film co-written by star. Edward Norton. Norton in it. Norton write it. Norton not need gamma-radiation poisoning to get big head. Thing is: Hulk head weirdly small. Compared with rest of big green body.
To read the rest then CLICK HERE!
Incredible Hulk Smashes Past
Judged against Spider-Man, Hulk came up short. Judged against Hulk, The Incredible Hulk came up big. The franchise restart, starring Edward Norton, topped the weekend box office with $54.5 million, according to Exhibitor Relations estimates today. While that’s about $8 million less than what Ang Lee’s Hulk opened with in 2003, the gross is considered a victory for Universal Pictures, which had to overcome, well, Ang Lee’s Hulk.
“There were a lot of naysayers out there when we said we were doing this,” Nikki Rocco, Universal’s president of domestic distribution, said today. “The Hulk smashed those naysayers.”
M. Night Shyamalan also won at the expectations game. While his latest horror-thriller, The Happening, settled for the bronze with its third-place debut, its $30.5 million opening represented substantial improvement over the filmmaker’s 2006 disappointment, Lady in the Water.
Kung Fu Panda, meanwhile, stayed strong in its second weekend, hauling in another $34.3 million and finishing second.
It was, however, The Incredible Hulk that dominated, accounting for nearly one-third of all ticket sales for the weekend’s top movies.
The debut was bigger than recent superhero movies such as Batman Begins ($48.7 million), Superman Returns ($52.5 million) and Ghost Rider ($45.4 million), even though it was far smaller than that of the latest superhero hit, Iron Man, which scored $98.6 million over three days in May.
The most important stat of the weekend for The Incredible Hulk, however, may be the strong A-minus it received from weekend moviegoers, per Cinema Score polling. By comparison, Lee’s Hulk rated a less-enthusiastic B-minus.
The next most important stat will come with next weekend’s grosses.
In 2003, it wasn’t just that Hulk didn’t score a $100 million debut, à la Spider-Man the year before, it was that business dropped a stunning 70 percent in its second weekend.
Can The Incredible Hulk avoid a similar week-two plunge?
“Who knows? I’m confident,” Rocco said. “Because this movie delivers.”
Drilling down through the box-office standings:
- When Iron Man (seventh place, $5.1 million; $297.4 million overall) crosses $300 millionand it will shortlyit’ll join the three Spider-Man movies as the only superhero films to bash that barrier.
- Kung Fu Panda’s second weekend was one of the best in recent memory, retaining nearly 60 percent of its first weekend business. The CGI comedy has already grossed a total of $118 million.
- Sex and the City (sixth place, $10.2 million) continues to prove it was no short-lived phenomenon. Since its $57 million, bigger-than-The Incredible Hulk opening, the romantic comedy has tacked on $62 million over the last two weekends, bringing its cumulative total to $119.9 million.
- In its second weekend, Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess With the Zohan suffered the usual 50 percent dip, plus a little extra, falling to fourth place and a $16.4 million take ($68.8 million overall).
- In limited release, Mongol ($113,000 at five theaters; $135,326 overall) had another strong weekend, while the new indie horror-comedy Baghead did okay with $8,925 at two theaters.
- After a couple of big weekends, the movie business has nearly caught up to 2007, with overall ticket sales now off less than 1 percent from last year. Attendance lags nearly 4 percent.
Here’s a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
1. The Incredible Hulk, $54.5 million2. Kung Fu Panda, $34.3 million3. The Happening, $30.5 million4. You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, $16.4 million5. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, $13.5 million6. Sex and the City, $10.2 million7. Iron Man, $5.1 million8. The Strangers, $4.1 million9. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, $3 million 10. What Happens in Vegas, $1.7 million