Box Office - 'Wall-E,' 'Wanted' Put Up Big Numbers

We hinted yesterday that it was going to be a bigger weekend for Wanted than originally thought, and it was. Though the film finished in second place behind Wall-E, it made ten to fifteen million dollars more than analysts had predicted, with a final tally of $51 million, according to Box Office Mojo.

Wall-E did either as well as previously believed or slightly below, taking in $62 million. Both movies are very good, very entertaining, and we knew it would be quite a battle, although I don't think anyone took Wanted as a serious contender to Pixar before this weekend.

How did Wanted close the gap? Per-screen average. We talk about that number a lot; it's the movie equivalent of offensive rebounds in basketball. The stronger your per-screen average is the better chance you have to make up ground on movies playing in more locations. Wanted averaged $500 more per screen than Wall-E, or roughly 50 admissions per location. Spread over 3,175 locations, that really adds up.

More good news for the James McAvoy-Angelina Jolie assassin flick: It's almost made its money back. $51 million on a $75 million budget in just three days is a spectacular number, especially in the heart of summer, when a lot of movies have to rely on foreign receipts before they're safely in the black.

For Wall-E, that news isn't so good: $62 million doesn't make the biggest dent when you're looking at a $180 million budget. Still, the film is experimental, Pixar knows it, and I'm sure they're content looking to international markets to really make their cash. It's worth projecting, however, that a $62 million weekend is eerily close to that of Cars, which went on to score $244 million in the U.S.

It was quite a battle this weekend, and we won't see another one this good for the rest of the summer, I predict.

Looking at the rest of the chart, I don't know what Marvel's looking for from The Incredible Hulk, but at its current pace, it won't even outperform the 2003 Ang Lee film. That version cost in the $135 million ballpark and made just about as much money back. The new film cost $150 million and after this weekend has only earned $115 million. I don't believe it has another $35 - $40 million left in the tank. Could it be that people just don't want to see The Hulk?

People clearly have wanted to see Indiana Jones. If you round up the number to the nearest hundred thousand, it's now a $300 million movie. Again, the numbers we're dealing with are estimates not actual totals, so it may earn enough on its own today. If not, it will celebrate that milestone tomorrow.

Posted on Sunday, June 29, 2008 at 11:06AM by

Colin Boyd in Box Office, Angelina Jolie, Wanted, James McAvoy, Summer Movies, Wall-E, Animation, Pixar |

2 Comments

Reader Comments (2)

Very informative, thank you. I'm looking forward to watching both movies, seems like we'll have a great summer.

Lets hear your thoughts on The Dark Knight, eh !

Sunday, June 29, 2008 |

Sae

Some people have predicted that, based solely on advance ticket sales, The Dark Knight will beat Spider-Man 3's all-time opening weekend record. I don't know if I accept that, though. Advance sales are completely geek-driven, and the last Batman movie didn't even come close to making what the Tim Burton film made 16 years earlier.

I think it's going to be great (although I worry about having Two-Face in the Joker's movie...he doesn't need another villain) and I'm confident it will do a lot better than Batman Begins at the box office, but I don't know about a record-breaker.

Sunday, June 29, 2008 |

Colin Boyd

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