Forbes/AP takes a doleful look back at summer box office through early July:
Summertime in Hollywood is not as hot as it looked at the beginning...
In fact, attendance is running behind last summer's and has even fallen below that of summer 2005, a year of box-office duds that had some analysts predicting audiences were abandoning movie houses in favor of home theaters and other entertainment options.
But let's not worry our pretty little heads over the turnstile traffic of two weeks ago. Let's take a look at what's happening now:
The Friday totals are in, and Mike Bay is back on top (after the disastrous Island) with the new, monster smasheroo Transformers. Robot cars live! And live well! ($107.4 million after 3/4 of a week in theatres.)
Ratatouille has an excellent $9.5 million Friday as it climbs to $90 million starting weekend #2.
Bruce Willis returns to full potency in his signature role as John McLane as Live Free of Die Hard roars ahead with $5,350,000 Friday gross and a $72.1 million total.
Update: The weekend estimates are in, and it's plain to see that the big robots collected a tall pile of coin ($67,000,000), and $152,500,000 in one week. High art and quality filmmaking win out every time.
Ratatouille drops 38.3% and crosses the $100 million threshhold after two weeks, with a total of $109.5 million.
Five films in the top ten have entered the $100 million club. I'm guessing that Live Free or Die Hard -- #3 with a $17.4 million total for the weekend -- and possibly Evan Almighty will get there. (But having seen Almighty, I won't be shocked and amazed if it fades out at $89.3 mill.)
Okay, now you know what the grosses are. Go out and watch a film, maybe the #1 film. Make Steven Spielberg happy.
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7 comments:
this film may be the most expensive poorly made film of the summer.
poorly made....anyway....I think is the most impressive vfx work to date in some scenes
this film may be the most expensive poorly made film of the summer.
It took me a second to figure out if you were referring to Transformers or Evan Almighty. But late on a Saturday night I have sawdust for brains.
Steve, read and enjoy your blog regularly. But surely you meant Ratatouille has made 100 mil in two weekends, and not weeks, as it's only been out for a week and two days? Or maybe this is common parlance, I don't know.
Right. Two weekends. I read two in the columns and leapt to the wrong interpretation.
Speed typing does that.
Transformers may be shallow and cheesy ,and things like character development and good dialogue are simply road blocks to get to the action scenes. With lavish fx and sounds, this is the thriumph of fx over storytelling...
and yet....
it got people exited to go to the theaters.
That ain't a bad thing, no matter how you slice it!
It's after all, "Transformers", not 'The Godafther IV'.
rufus.
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