Despite big genre failures in the past and a summer of consecutive disappointments, Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl blew away expectations this weekend and made a certain league of gentlemen walk the plank. Jerry Bruckheimer and Disney spent big bucks to get Pirates made, and took a big chance that it would find a big enough audience to repay the big production cost. Meanwhile, The League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen got off to a decent start, but is still going to be a big messy flop for 20th Century Fox if published budget figures are correct.
I say the new word learned from Summer Box Office 2003 is "disappointment." There's been a lot of talk in the press (and in coffee shops) in recent days about the "flops" that have haunted the box office over the last few weeks. The list of questionable misses, or films that failed to meet expectations include Terminator 3, Legally Blonde 2, Sinbad, Charlie's Angels 2, The Hulk, Alex and Emma, From Justin to Kelly, Rugrats Go Wild, Hollywood Homicide, and of course, The Prequel That Shall Not Be Named. That's ten "misses" in a month, one of the worst summer streaks in memory. I've added T3 and Legally Blonde 2 to the list because even though they got out of the gate decently last weekend, they still under-performed, at least in this man's opinion. The big question is, though, how many of these films were bad investments for their respective studios? Very few in the (very) long run. When looking at production budget versus total gross, Charlie's Angels 2 will make money after foreign grosses are counted, as will The Hulk. From Justin to Kelly will most likely make a boatload on home video and become a camp classic; Fox might get their $12 million back in a few years. The Evil Prequel Comedy That Shouldn't Have Been Made actually made money domestically as did Rugrats Go Wild!, so after video sales, they're both probable winners. Your losers with a capital "L" appear to be Hollywood Homicide, with its $75 million production budget and probable $33 million gross, and DreamWorks' Sinbad, which cost $60 million and will most likely claw back only $30 million. The point is that most of these films are not financial flops in any way, shape, or form. They are expensive gambles that won't look good on the forecasted bottom line, but most won't lose a whole bunch of dollars for their studio, which I think makes the term "disappointment" perfect for Summer 2003.
The film that broke that streak of disappointments is, to me, one of the most unlikely. Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl roared at the box office this weekend, taking in a wild $46.4 million over the Friday-to-Sunday portion of the weekend and $70.4 million since its debut on Wednesday. It was only a matter of time before a somewhat-new idea grabbed the attention of moviegoers again, breaking North America's sequel-induced hypnosis, and Pirates certainly did. It took in a blistering three-day screen average of $14,206 from 3,269 screens, by far the best in the top ten. Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer took a big chance on the theme park ride cum movie, as they spent a huge $125 million bringing Pirates to the big screen. Disney must be elated, as this film is win-win: it has the excellent opening weekend gross for the movie, and is excellent worldwide marketing for the corporation's theme parks.
People obviously love Pirates. After a $13.3 million debut on Wednesday, the demo-bending flick continued on a good keel, grossing $10.5 million on Thursday for a combined $24 million heading into the weekend. The Disney flick was marching to the same beat as T3. Last weekend's supposed super-opener grossed $28.4 million over Wednesday and Thursday; however, it earned $4 million from Tuesday night previews. If we don't count those preview grosses, it leads to a virtual tie heading into Friday night. As BOP's Kim Hollis wrote yesterday, Pirates continued to excel on Friday, finding an estimated $15.2 million, beating T3's July 4th deflated gross of $13 million. Pirates of the Caribbean ended the weekend with an excellent 3.06 multiplier, which indicates a lack of front-loading, a good crossover audience, and excellent word-of-mouth. It finished $2 million behind T3 over the five-day open (again remember that T3 had that $4 million Tuesday), and cost Disney and Bruckheimer $45 million less to make.
Jerry Bruckheimer is becoming a huge force to be reckoned with amongst the power in Hollywood. Ever since rising through the power rankings with co-producer Don Simpson, Jerry B has had very few big financial misses since 1994. Pirates of the Caribbean is from the well-named Jerry Bruckheimer Films, which had a misstep last year with Bad Company, but before that had hits with Black Hawk Down, Armageddon, Remember the Titans, and unfortunately, Kangaroo Jack. JBF also has Bad Boys II primed for next weekend, which should make Bruckheimer a household name in about seven days. Big hits from the same production company in back-to-back weekends are unheard of, let alone from a single producer, but if anyone is going to manage this accomplishment, it's Jerry Bruckheimer.
Second spot this weekend goes to The League of Extraordinary Gentleman, which had an extraordinary Friday, but dropped off over Saturday and Sunday. LXG grossed $8.8 million on its first day, but only had a 2.65 internal weekend multiplier, leading to a not-bad-but-not extraordinary weekend gross of $23.3 million (estimated). The low internal multiplier once again shows us a summer movie with bad word-of-mouth, and for Fox, that bad word-of-mouth will be the death knell for League. USA Today reported on Thursday that the Fox film had an incredibly expensive budget of $110 million, so it's highly doubtful that the studio will see a return on its investment if the budget is truly that high. Reviews were horrid: RottenTomatoes found 100 reviewers willing to sit through this, and only 18 came out with a positive review, leading to an 18% fresh rating, one of the lowest scores this summer for a supposed blockbuster.
Marketing for League has always been a mess. The TV ads were scatterbrained. They seemed to start their marketing by selling League as a Connery-only movie, then tried to sell the impressive line-up of literary characters. I think it left the target audience confused as to what the movie was about. In this summer of "disappointments," some of the bigger films (CA2, The Hulk and the upcoming Lara Croft movie) have all sold their product through sizzle, instead of marketing a story, and I think that's a big part of where some of the mistakes are happening this summer.
Third spot goes to goes to last weekend's number one film, Terminator 3: The Rise of the Machines. T3 got hit by the second weekend crunch, dropping 55% compared to last weekend's holiday weekend gross of $44 million. T3 found $19.6 million over the post-July 4th frame from a still super-wide 3,504 venues; it had a second weekend venue average of $5,596. At this point, T3 looks to be one of these summertime disappointments. Its gross has now reached $110.5 million against a budget of around $170 million. T3 will make money overall after foreign grosses are counted, but the domestic gross isn't going to meet expectations.
Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde takes the number four spot this weekend and is another film that's not going to meet or beat expectations. LB2 grossed an estimated $12 million in its sophomore weekend, dropping 46% compared to last weekend's holiday gross. There's been a lot of speculation over the last week about how much this film actually cost. IMDB lists a budget of $25 million, but that obviously doesn't include the star's salary. Regardless of expectations, LB2 is going to be immensely profitable for MGM. The film now has a cume of $62.9 million, with probably $30 million more to come. The bad news for MGM is that because the sequel is going to gross less than the original's $96.5 million, it will still be considered a disappointment.
The big hit of the summer, Finding Nemo, still has a top five spot after seven glorious weekends of release, an impressive feat in these days of big open-quick exit. The undeniably cute Pixar movie grossed another $8.2 million in its seventh frame, dropping only 29% compared to last weekend's holiday gross despite losing 259 screens. With a total haul now of $290.8 million, Nemo swam past huge films on the all-time grosser list this weekend like Home Alone, The Empire Strikes Back, and settles in just behind The Sixth Sense, which grossed $293.5 million. Finding Nemo now sits at 16th on the big list, and should find a top ten spot in about two weeks. For Walt Disney Pictures, the Pirates/Nemo combination is going to make their year, and they still have five strong titles in their war chest to come. It's going to be a good year for the Mouse House, no matter how the $90 million-budgeted Haunted Mansion performs.
In sixth is Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, which continues its fall from grace. CA2 saw its fortunes drop again, as the film lost another 48% of its audience compared to last weekend. The sequel grossed an awful $7.3 million this frame, bringing its domestic total up to only $81.7 million. The good news for the Angels and distributor Sony is that the sputtering sequel is performing well overseas, and should eventually help recoup the film's production cost of $120 million. If you want a laugh, find the news story where the Angels blame Demi Moore for the domestic box office demise of the film. Catfight!
Seventh is DreamWorks' big miss, Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas. Sinbad got a little help in its second weekend; the film dropped a not bad 32.5% compared to its opening frame, pulling in $4.6 million. It's all too little, too late. The film has now grossed $19.1 million against a $60 million production budget.
28 Days Later continues to hang around in the top ten, as the apocalyptic zombie movie drops only one spot to number eight this weekend. The film took in $4.3 million, and now has a total gross of $28.4 million. Thanks go out to a BOP reader who correctly pointed out that the budget for 28 Days Later is $15 million, with Fox Searchlight's portion of the budget coming in at $8 million. 28 Days Later has turned into a decent sized hit for the Brits and for Fox Searchlight; it dropped only 29% compared to last weekend, the second lowest drop in the top ten. It's a great movie, and one of the few in the top ten that I would recommend.
Ninth spot this weekend goes to Universal's The Hulk. After weekend drops of 70% and 56%, The Hulk continued its downward spiral again this weekend with a gross of $3.7 million and another stunning drop of 55%. The good news for Universal is that The Hulk has grossed more domestically ($124.7 million) than the film's $120 million production budget, so after foreign and DVD sales, Universal should see some green from the not-so-jolly giant.
At the bottom of the top ten pile is The Italian Job, another film that has turned good word-of-mouth into a profit for Paramount. The Italian Job grossed $2.8 million in its seventh weekend of release, and now has a total of $88.9 million.
A year ago, four films opened over the post-July 4th frame; they included Road To Perdition, Reign of Fire, Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course, and Halloween: Resurrection. This weekend's openers fared much better than with that crop, which helped the box office overtake last year's totals even with the weak openers we've seen over the last month. Totals for the 2003 top ten came in at $132.1 million, while last year's top ten gathered $124.32 million, which makes this year 7% better than a year ago.