Daily Box Office Analysis for August 28, 2007
By David Mumpower
August 29, 2007
BoxOfficeProphets.com
The Bourne Ultimatum's $1,086,445 gives it a grand total of $187,443,760 after 26 days. At this rate, it should pass the $200 million mark around Thursday of next week, its 35th day of release. Rush Hour 3's $985,000 is actually an increase of 0.5% from yesterday's $980,000. The Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker run-the-joke-into-the-ground action comedy now stands at $110.45 million.
The rest of the top five are the have-nots compared to the three haves above. With Superbad an inevitable $100 million earner, all three of those titles are certified blockbusters. Films four and five yesterday...not so much. War earned $823,364, bringing its total to a motley $11,583,312. For action movies such as this, the theatrical run is little more than an extended advertising campaign for the later cable and home video markets wherein the studio tries to makes its money. Somehow, I can't bring myself to believe that War's marketing phase has been a success yet I oddly find Mr. Bean's Holiday to be going well. The fifth place finisher earned another $891,280, giving it $11,637,800.
That's a difference of only 0.5% from War, but it feels like a more successful endeavor relative to expectations. This is the hard to quantify aspect of opportunity cost analysis. War seems to have made the average amount of money for a Jet Li film and seems like a total disappointment relative to stars Jason Statham and Jet Li's last joint offering, The One. I can't help but feel that money has been left on the table here. Conversely, Mr. Bean's Holiday is right in line with the performance of Rowan Atkinson's last release, Johnny English, which had earned $11.8 million after its first five days. Given the four year gap between the releases and the fact that Rowan Atkinson is far from a household name in North American (sorry, fellow Blackadder fans), its matching the more heavily advertised spy spoof feels like a win for Universal.
The rest of the top ten is highlighted (?) by The Nanny Diaries, which earned $729,142 on its fifth day, giving it $8,921,427. This pays for Scarlett Johansson's salary and that's about it. Well, I think it pays for her salary. I don't remember what her asking price was in early 2006 before The Island took a bite out of it. Maybe it's time to start thinking about Lost in Translation 2: Stop Whispering, the Audience Can't Hear You.
The seventh place finisher is The Simpsons Movie, which brought in another $422,394, bringing its running total to $174,216,753. That's roughly $99 million more than most people in Hollywood were expecting it to earn at the start of the summer...and that's before we factor in the $270 million more it has made worldwide. The other hit in the top ten is Hairspray, which added another $415,000 yesterday to bring its grand total up to $108.1 million.
Compare these two performers to the other dregs of the top ten, Stardust and The Invasion. Along with Evan Almighty, these are the three worst financial performers of the summer relative to expectations and production budget. Stardust's $424,356 gives it $27,207,620 after 19 days with no real way to sugarcoat it as a positive. So, just imagine where that leaves The Invasion, whose $314,479 signifies that it is about to leave the top ten altogether with only $12,094,878. Bru-tal.