Friday, June 18, 2010

Father's Day Derby

Now with candy-coated Add Ons.

The Nikkster triggers the starting gate, and they're off!

... Based on early numbers coming into my sources, Pixar/Disney Toy Story 3 is the monster everybody thought it would be on 4,028 locations, including 2,463 3D screens of which 180 are IMAX). the 3D ticket price advantage will swamp previous Pixar opening weekends, including 2003 Finding Nemo's $70.2M and 2004 The Incredibles' $70.4M. ...

Through Thursday, Shrek Forever After has been bounding along in third place, running up a total of $217.5 million.

We will probably ... I'm going out on a frail limb here ... see a small decline in the ogre's performance over the coming weekend.

Add On: Toy Story 3, the feature John Lasseter has been wanting to make since 1999, rockets into the stratosphere:

... Toy Story 3 grossed an estimated $41 million Friday night ... Now Buzz Lightyear and Cowboy Woody are destined for Pixar’s record books, with the highest-opening ever for a Pixar movie. Based on the Friday numbers, Toy Story 3 could earn as much as $120 million for the three-day frame ...

Shrek Forever After is likely to take fourth place with a bit over $2 million on Friday and a weekend total that should add up to over $8 million. ...

The Mojo of Box Office has Shrek at $1,645,000 and in 7th place, with a running total just south of $220 million. We'll keep monitoring the lists to see if the ogre can crawl his way higher by Sunday.

Add On Too: Toy Story 3 rakes in $109,000,000 while the ogre drops 65% to end the weekend at $223 million.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

So the expectations are that TS3 will earn $118-125 million for its opening weekend. That's about $50 million more than any previous Pixar film opening! Wow.

Anonymous said...

Which will gaurantee Pixar is staying in the sequel biz --- and that TS3 will not be the last Toy Story

Anonymous said...

No: You're confusing Pixar with Dreamworks' Madagascar sequels again. :)

Whether Pixar was "forced" into making #3 before someone else did (and that argument's still going on on the other thread), or just took one for the road because they liked the Daycare idea, that was IT. Finito. It was the Movie That Wasn't Supposed to Have Been Made, But Whew, Didn't Turn Out So Bad After All.
And if we have to amend the "Pixar doesn't make sequels" rule, we can safely amend it to "Pixar doesn't make sequels FOR MONEY".

(Oh, they get money, all right. That's just not the reason.)

Anonymous said...

Oh cool! Thanks ravi! Hah... good stuff.

And I REALLY don't see there being a TS4. The way the finished off the trilogy was absolutely PERFECT. Heads will roll (yes, by my hand) if they ever start talking about it. They'll do shorts, and that's great, but not another film.

Anonymous said...

Pixar has already announced that they will be using the Toy Story characters in their Animated Shorts. So no it won't be the last we see of them, but also no you won't be seeing them in a full-feature-film again.

Anonymous said...

Never say NEVER in this biz.

Lasseter will have to give Disney something soon if he can't turn DFA around and so far it doesn't look like he can.

And you really have to get over this idea that Pixar is made up of ARTEESTS. They make films for money just like everyone else. Those espensive tent-like Hawaiian shirts don't pay for themselves (not to mention they'd pay their artists decent wages and go union if they weren't about the bottom line)

Anonymous said...

"Pixar doesn't make sequels FOR MONEY"

No, they make sequels to cure cancer.

Anonymous said...

I have it on good authority that the Swedish Nobel Prize committee personally asked Lasseter to make Monsters, Inc. 2 to help bring peace to the Middle East. So it is definitely NOT about the money.

Anonymous said...

Really? I thought their Nobel Prize was for being the first CGI studio to have discovered that you can make more money directing different movies!! ;)

Anonymous said...

And you really have to get over this idea that Pixar is made up of ARTEESTS. They make films for money just like everyone else. Those espensive tent-like Hawaiian shirts don't pay for themselves (not to mention they'd pay their artists decent wages and go union if they weren't about the bottom line)

That's right, Pixar is just made up of greedy money grubbing hacks who couldn't care a whit about quality just as long as it brings in the cash.

The employees there would probably be more interested in going union if their jobs weren't so stable with health, retirement, training benefits, profit sharing, and posh extracurricular activities. The ones who cashed in their stock options are no doubt laughing all the way to the bank.

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