Monday
26May2008
Box Office - 'Indy' Crosses $150 Million, Won't Set Any Records
Monday, May 26, 2008 at 11:35AM
The numbers are in, at long last, and we don't need to
speculate about the opening weekend box office of
Indiana Jones anymore. In the
final analysis, Friday was the only day that really didn't live up to
expectations. Yes, it made $31 million that day, but I think a lot of people
wanted/imagined it would do five - seven million dollars more because it was the
first chance for a lot of people in nearly 20 years to see Indy Jones.
The Thursday numbers were, well, Thursday numbers. You
can never really tell what they'll do or what they'll mean. $25 million on
Thursday is certainly strong, but the increase to Friday probably should have
been more significant. Saturday got Indy back on track and Sunday and Monday
held true to that form, giving the long-awaited sequel $151 million in domestic
ticket sales over five days. Buried within that is the best opening weekend of
the year, Friday - Sunday, with $101 million in sales, just edging Iron Man,
which had $98 million on its Friday - Sunday debut.
So, no records were broken. Eleven movies have broken
$100 million faster. Pirates still holds the Memorial Day four-day record, set
last year, and in terms of opening weekends, Indy just cracks the top ten,
according to
Box Office Mojo. Three-day weekends finds Indy
placing 13th, moving up the charts to eighth for a four-day stanza, and fifth
all-time for five-day opening weekends.
Here's how that list looks, FYI:
Revenge of the Sith - $176 million
Pirates: Dead Man's Chest - $169 million
Spider-Man 3 - $169 million
Spider-Man 2 - $152 million
Indiana Jones - $151 million The number for Star Wars is more impressive because it's only on 3,600 screens versus over 4,000 for all the other films. I guess this means we probably won't have any new records of note all summer at the box office. Unless I'm missing something, the only remotely possible juggernauts are Wall-E, Hancock, and The Dark Knight. Toy Story is the only Pixar movie to win the box office, and that was 13 years ago. Hancock keeps getting worse and worse notices as its release approaches, and The Dark Knight is following on the heels of a Batman movie that barely made $200 million. I think it's going to be tough for that movie to make, what, double what the first one did. A final note: I saw a guy dragging his wife to see Kingdom of the Crystal Skull dressed in full thrill-seeking archaeologist attire. She was dressed sort of like Marion Ravenwood. Here's the problem: It was Saturday night. If you're a real fan, do it on Friday night at the latest. You can't play dress-up, tell people you've been dying to see the movie and wait 48 hours to do it. I wanted to openly mock the guy, but his friend dressed like Mola Ram was really intimidating.
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