Daily Box Office Analysis for July 3, 2007
Transformers Tuesday Breaks Record
By David Mumpower
July 4, 2007
After Monday evening's strong debut of $8.8 million, Transformers sustained momentum with a record-breaking Tuesday of $27.4 million. While this tally won't go down as one of the top 50 single days of box office ever (it is 56th), this amount represents a staggering performance for a Tuesday. While it is fair to point out that Tuesday's total is holiday inflated due to Wednesday being July 4th, an off-day for the body of the United States, the $36 million in 36 hours data point Paramount is trumpeting does impress.
As Kim Hollis mentioned yesterday, there isn't any true model for comparison to Transformers. A Monday evening release feels like the first mainstream North American attempt to mimic the extended debuts of British titles, some of which are in theaters as much as 12 days for what they term as "opening weekends". Paramount is not focused upon the daily numbers as much as they want to hail a tremendous Monday-to-Sunday total of $130-$150 million or whatever the movie winds up earning in first week revenues. If this plan succeeds, it could wind up being one of the most influential releases of the decade in terms of impacting future release patterns. If it fails, we will probably write off the entire strategy as a valid attempt to overcome an awkward calendar configuration for the July 4th holiday period that didn't succeed for whatever reason.
The news is not quite as sunny for the latest Warner Bros. release, License to Wed. Mandy Moore and John Krasinki are two people America (and BOP) likes a lot, but the presence of Robin Williams counteracted any good that might have come from casting them. The result is a forgettable $2.2 million debut, which is good enough for only fourth place. And it barely beats the Evan Almighty box office disaster at that. It's possible that a lot of folks missed out on the fact that License to Wed was also debuting on the same day as Transformers. If that is the case, it could still recover this weekend. If not, it's a financial non-factor. Stay tuned.
The other big story is the continued showing of strength by Ratatouille. I should be honest up front about the fact that I adore this movie, and BOP is – let's be honest here – wildly biased about the work of Brad Bird. We named The Iron Giant as the Most Underappreciated Movie of the past 15 years and The Incredibles was a multi-time nominee in our end-of-year awards, The Calvins. You should probably keep that in mind as you read my analysis of the movie over the next few weeks. I'll try to be as neutral as possible, but I want this movie to do well. It deserves that sort of success. Having acknowledged this, here is what matters about Ratatouille's second weekday. After what Kim Hollis had already chronicled as the best first Monday a Pixar film has ever had (from a depreciation perspective), Bird's latest movie actually increased 4.6% on Tuesday, giving it a running total of $61.8 million after five days of release. It's still well behind other recent Pixar releases, but word-of-mouth is helping to stop the bleeding quite a bit. July 4th box office should be equally lucrative, meaning it's going to wind up over $100 million after ten days.
The top ten of box office for Tuesday combines for an estimated $49,270,000. That's an increase of 71% from Monday. To be fair, the difference of $20,480,252 is mainly the change in box office Transformers had from Monday to Tuesday, which was $18,648,975. So, the rest of the top ten is up 9.2% from Monday due to holiday inflation and the introduction of a new release, albeit a small one in License to Wed.
| 1 |
Transformers |
DreamWorks |
$27,450,000 |
+211.9% |
N/A |
$36,250,000 |
| 2 |
Ratatouille |
Walt Disney Pictures |
$7,900,000 |
+ 4.6% |
N/A |
$62,500,000 |
| 3 |
Live Free or Die Hard |
Twentieth Century Fox |
$4,450,000 |
+ 4.0% |
N/A |
$57,125,091 |
| 4 |
License to Wed |
Warner Bros. |
$2,200,000 |
N/A |
N/A |
$2,200,000 |
| 5 |
Evan Almighty |
Universal |
$2,000,000 |
- 8.3% |
- 45.9% |
$65,000,000 |
| 6 |
1408 |
Dimension Films |
$1,500,000 |
- 4.2% |
- 37.3% |
$43,500,000 |
| 7 |
Knocked Up |
Universal |
$1,100,000 |
+ 4.5% |
- 26.7% |
$124,500,000 |
| 8 |
Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer |
Twentieth Century Fox |
$1,065,000 |
- 9.5% |
- 51.8% |
$117,186,001 |
| 9 |
Ocean's Thirteen |
Warner Bros. |
$840,000 |
+ 6.8% |
- 38.7% |
$103,747,000 |
| 10 |
Sicko |
Lionsgate, The Weinstein Company |
$765,000 |
+ 18.2% |
N/A |
$5,900,000 |
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Box office data supplied by Exhibitor Relations
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