Audiences Wanted WALL-E, Jolie
The robot fought Angelina Jolie to a draw.
WALL-E, the new Disney/Pixar film about a lonely little robot, grossed $62.5 million to top the weekend box office, according to Exhibitor Relations estimates today.
But pound for pound, Wanted was the bigger film.
Debuting at about 800 fewer theaters than WALL-E, Wanted, the Jolie action film, outgrossed the animated movie by nearly $500 per screen. It’s a statistical win that can be credited to its star’s pull with young men, yes, but also to its wealth of full-price admission tickets. (Wanted is rated R, while WALL-E is rated G for “good for a kid’s discount.”)
In the box office standings, Wanted finished second, with a $51.1 million take.
According to Box Office Mojo stats, WALL-E’s opening was the best for a Pixar film since 2004’s The Incredibles, and was a substantial upgrade over last summer’s critically acclaimed though rat-addled entry, Ratatouille, which debuted with $47 million.
Wanted becomes Jolie’s biggest opener ever, outdoing the first Lara Croft movie and Mr. & Mrs. Smith, which costarred Brad Pitt.
The box office’s latest one-two punch, coming a few weeks after the Kung Fu Panda/You Don’t Mess with the Zohan combo, helped push Hollywood into the black. For the first time in a long while, ticket sales are up over where they were at this point last year. Overall attendance, however, is still down.
WALL-E and Jolie, after all, are only two people. Well, one robot and one pregnant-with-twins superstar.
Other notable box office doings:
- Last weekend’s No. 1 movie, Steve Carell’s Get Smart, fell to third, but hung tough (i.e., ticket sales were down less than 50 percent). Its $20 million gross pushed its overall take to $77.3 million.
- Last weekend’s disappointment, Mike Myers’ The Love Guru, fell from fourth to sixth, and saw its modest business plunge 61 percent. Its $5.4 million gross pushed, if that’s the word, its overall take to, um, $25.3 million.
- Kung Fu Panda (fourth place, $11.7 million) kept on keeping on, and neared the $180 million cumulative mark.
- Sex and the City (ninth place, $3.8 million) moved past the $140 million mark.
- A moment of silence, please, for Iron Man, which slipped out of the Top 10 after eight scorching weekends. The film still came up with another $2.3 million, and saw its league-leading overall gross hit $309.2 million.
- Also dropping out of the Top 10: the horror-thriller The Strangers ($611,000, per Box Office Mojo), which has $51.5 million in the bank after five solid weekends.
- Abigail Breslin’s Kit Kittredge: An American Girl cleaned up again in limited release. The film took in $106,000 at five theaters, Box Office Mojo said. It goes wide on Wednesday.
- Trumbo, the new documentary about blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, did well, grossing $28,500 at three theaters.
Here’s a recap of the top-grossing weekend films based on Friday-Sunday estimates compiled by Exhibitor Relations:
- WALL-E, $62.5 million
- Wanted, $51.1 million
- Get Smart, $20 million
- Kung Fu Panda, $11.7 million
- The Incredible Hulk, $9.2 million
- The Love Guru, $5.4 million
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, $5 million
- The Happening, $3.9 million
- Sex and the City, $3.8 million
- You Don’t Mess With the Zohan, $3.2 million
Kung Fu Panda Sequel
Kung Fu Panda was the first non-Pixar computer animated film that I really enjoyed. When I saw the film a few months back, I said to one of my friends “This is gonna be huge, lets hope they don’t f**k it up by making a sequel.” Well guess what… A story crew has already begun early work on a Sequel, according to a posting on the TAG Blog. The original film has garnered great reviews across the board and made over $229.7 million worldwide in its first 19 days of release.
WALL-E - The Best Reviewed Movie of 2008?
What movie should you see this weekend? Wanted is surprisingly good, and will likely beat your expectations. I can honestly recommend it… but the clear winner is WALL-E.
So far the little robot that could has a 98% tomatoemeter rating on Rotten Tomatoes with over 40 reviews. Actually, only one reviewer gave a negative critique. It helps to know that Phil Villarreal of the Arizona Daily Star also gave M Night’s The Happening a three out of four star review… Point is, WALL-E is the best reviewed mainstream release so far this year. We’ll see how it holds up after the weekend as 100-150 more reviews will likely be added to the database. But I’m sure it will remain above 90%. Wanted is currently scoring 68% on the tomatometer.
Best Reviewed Mainstream Releases of 2008 (so far)
1. WALL-E 98%
2. Iron Man 93%
3. Kung Fu Panda 88%
4. Forgetting Sarah Marshall 86%
Burning Q’s: Rihanna’s Secret & Pandering Pandas
Did Rihanna write that song “Take a Bow” about Chris Brown? Did they break up?L.H.
Love that song. Just love it. Love that someone sat there, quite possibly for days, thinking of every word that rhymes with go, and then made a whole single out of it. It’s like listening to Dr. Seuss crying about a breakup.
Thing is, it wasn’t Rihanna who penned “Take a Bow.” It was Ne-Yo. In fact, Rihanna didn’t have anything to do with the lyrics at all. They were all written and done by the time she was pitched the song. “When she heard the lyrics,” a Def Jam flack tells me, “she loved it.”
And as late as yesterday, Chris Brown’s people were making it very clear that any media questions about Rihanna were off-limits. Which means they’re totally doing it.
Any more Burning Q’s? Let’s see what you got…
The movie studios’ sniveling blurb providers, oops, I mean critics, make a big deal over Kung Fu Panda not being loaded with pop culture references. Isn’t the real reason there aren’t any refs is to make sure the movie plays well in China, the home of our future overlords?K.S.
So I guess I won’t be seeing you at the Olympic torch relay in Tibet?
Any word on when the FX series Rescue Me is coming back?Brooke
Spring of next year. Writers’ strike and all this.
Now that Angelina is going to have more babies, are we going to have to hear how she and Brad actually do the work themselves? We all know the truth: They have an entire staff devoted to doing the work. Which leaves the celebs free to pose for staged parental photo ops.J. W.
I love readers who answer their own questions. They’re like self-cleaning ovens.
What’s the deal with Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson? For being big-time actors, how do they stay off magazines and TV? Or are they always being followed by paparazzi but are just too boring?Toni
Who? Sorry. I fell asleep as soon as you said Hayden Christensen.
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