Top 12 Film Industry Stories of 2007: #2:
Summer of Three-quels Does Not Disappoint
By Kim Hollis
January 1, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com

Cha-ching!

In the beginning of 2007, when we started really closely eyeing the movie release schedule, a notion came to us. The summer season had a grand total of six third-in-a-series films set to see theaters during that time frame, along with a number of additional sequels and outstanding original material. Summer 2007 had a chance to be huge. Would it hold up that way, or would audiences be tired of unoriginal ideas and stay home in protest?

Those of you who read this site on even an infrequent basis know how it all played out. The summer of 2007 was simply massive, producing $4 billion in revenue and establishing that crowds would still come out to the theater if the right projects were there. In fact, the only bona fide disappointment during this time frame was Evan Almighty, a movie that earned $100.3 million against a massive budget of $175 million. I think the lesson we can all take from that performance (as well as Son of the Mask and Dumb and Dumberer) is that Jim Carrey declines to do sequels for a reason.

It all started in May, which has come to be the de facto beginning of the Summer season for Hollywood. If you have been following along this week, you will know that in its first weekend, Spider-Man 3 set the box office records for biggest Friday, Saturday and Sunday of all-time, which naturally added up to an opening weekend that blew the previous record-holder out of the water. $151.1 million in three days was nothing short of a whomping of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which had debuted to $135.6 million about ten months earlier. It seemed that the web-slinger was ticked that the record from the original Spider-Man had been broken, and as such, went after his mortal enemy Jack Sparrow with a vengeance.

In the end, though, Spider-Man 3 turned out to be the least successful of the Spider-Man films, which can surely be attributed to questionable word-of-mouth that came from $151.1 million worth of ticket holders from weekend one. After the first two movies in the series were extremely well-received by audiences, they simply weren't ready to buy a dancing Spider-Man or the combination of villains he took on in this installment. The end result was $336.5 million domestically, which is nothing to sneeze at but slightly disappointing in comparison to the performance of the first two films. Of course, if we compare world wide box office, Spider-Man 3 is a champ, with $885.4 million in receipts compared to Spider-Man's $821.6 and Spider-Man 2's $791.4.

The second of three third-in-a-series films to open in May was Shrek the Third, which also got off to a blazing start. The big green ogre found an opening weekend total of $121.6 million, which is particularly glorious when compared to Shrek 2's first frame of $108 million. Like Spider-Man 3, though Shrek the Third had a problem. Audiences (and critics) simply didn't like it as much as the first two films, or perhaps a bit of fairy tale malaise had set in. Shrek the Third's final domestic tally was $321 million, which was far beneath the $436.5 earned by the second film in the franchise. Still, with worldwide totals that approach $800 million, no one is crying for DreamWorks/Paramount. And, by the way, that's two $300 million films that were released before we even hit June.

The fun wasn't over, either. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End was yet another three-quel that saw theatrical release in May. There was substantial discussion over its chances at beating Spider-Man 3's opening weekend record within the span of a couple of weeks. Pirates 3 gave it a good go, but in the end could only lay claim to being the second biggest opener of all-time, with $139.8 million in the kitty. You may be sensing a theme here, but once again word-of-mouth was not strong, and At World's End barely limped over the $300 million mark in North America with a grand total of $309.4 million. Its overseas numbers were actually a bit better than Dead Man's Chest, though, bringing it to a mighty worldwide tally of $958.4 (Dead Man's Chest actually crossed the billion dollar mark). So even though we puzzled over what was causing audiences to "reject" these films in comparison to the number two movies in the series, the honest evaluation is that three $300 million movies released in the span of 30 days is ludicrously amazing. Summer hadn't officially arrived on the calendar, but the box office was blazing hot.

We still had three more three-quels yet to arrive, too. Ocean's Thirteen debuted in early June, and had a debut weekend of $36.1 million. People talked about this as a slightly disappointing number when compared to the first two movies, but Ocean's Thirteen had some mountains to climb from the get-go. Many will remember that Ocean's Twelve was considered a serious dud, and backlash was strong against the series. Also, both of the first two films opened in December, a time frame that is super friendly for longevity and ability to build big overall box office numbers. Therefore, $117 million should be considered a solid result despite the fact that Ocean's Thirteen fell significantly short of its predecessors.

August brought the final two three-quels, and the first of them was a glorious success in every sense of the world. Many prognosticators were expecting The Bourne Ultimatum to match or slightly exceed the opening weekend of The Bourne Supremacy ($52.5 million). Instead, it had a stunning $69.3 million debut frame. Word-of-mouth and critical reception was absolutely stellar as well, which meant that the movie held on to make an amazing $227.1 million in North America (and $213.5 million overseas). It was by far the most successful Bourne film yet, and is even looking to continue that success with the possibility of Oscar attention in a couple of categories.

The summer of three-quels saw its end arrive when Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker returned to theaters with Rush Hour 3. Both of the first two films were considered surprises with regard to box office performance (Rush Hour 2 had a gaudy opening weekend of $67.4 million). However, it had been a long time - six years - since the release of the previous movie in the series. As a result, Rush Hour 3's opening weekend of $49.1 million was considered acceptable and its cumulative domestic gross of $139.9 million a general disappointment (it barely matched the original's total and couldn't quite find itself in the black compared to budget). Once overseas numbers and video are added in, of course, it's going to look a lot better on paper.

Of course, it wasn't all about the three-quels. There were an amazing number of films in summer of 2008 to have fantastic box office runs that ultimately contributed in a big way to that overall $4 billion that I mentioned before. These include Knocked Up ($148.7 million domestic), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer ($131.9 million domestic), 1408 ($72 million domestic), Live Free or Die Hard ($134.5 million domestic, $377.5 million worldwide), Ratatouille ($206.4 million domestic, $615.9 million worldwide), Transformers ($319.1 million domestic, $701.1 million worldwide), Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix ($292 million domestic, $937 million worldwide), Hairspray ($118.8 million domestic), I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry ($119.7 million domestic), The Simpsons Movie ($183.1 million domestic, $525.5 million worldwide) and Superbad ($121.5 million domestic). That's 16 movies that earned in excess of $100 million in North America. The box office wound up having a record year in 2007, and it's clear that without the summer bonanza, it wouldn't have even been worth talking about at all.