Box Office: No Salvation for 'Terminator'

The box office reaction to Terminator Salvation is much worse than I thought. We predicted an $80 million start, covering its opening day on Thursday through the Memorial Day holiday, but we're probably going to be off by a good $20 million. We also said bad reviews wouldn't hurt the film for the first three days, and we were wrong about that, too: Terminator has as little momentum as any $200 million movie you're likely to see. We were closer to hitting the mark on Night at the Museum: Battle of Smithsonian, which we estimated on Thursday would likely topple Terminator over the traditional four-day weekend with a $65 million opening. Right now, it's about $10 million ahead of Terminator Friday - Sunday, with $56.4 million in ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo. Yes, it's in 500 more theaters than T4, but that's not the reason. Bad reviews don't hurt family movies, and family movies sell more tickets to each customer. Still, if you would have told me four days ago Terminator would limp out to $56 million through Sunday, I wouldn't have believed you. Star Trek and Angels & Demons are having a close battle for third place and Dance Flick is actually performing better than expected, with a possible $15 million start. Terminator is obviously stealing some audience away from Trek this weekend, but I expect the J.J. Abrams reboot to correct that course slightly in the next two weeks, its last period of strong activity. Even still, it should be around $190 million after the weekend, and the year's top movie no later than wednesday. As for Terminator, this is the first real gaffe of the summer. Angels & Demons probably won't make money in the U.S. either, but it's also $50 million cheaper and was not as heavily marketed. Its three-day numbers from Friday to Sunday come up short in comparison to T3, which only went on to make about $150 million in the U.S. Where that film made most of its money was in foreign markets, but Salvation is only scheduled to play in about half the number of territories that hosted T3. So I'm skeptical that the new Terminator can match its predecessor's worldwide total of $433 million.

Comments

[Charcole]

I guess this is a warning to all the other summer movies. If you suck, we won't come. Christian Bale does have another chance to have a hit this summer. And for all the other Michael Mann fans out there, hopefully he will. I know not all of his movies have not been hits, but is there a bad Michael Mann film out there? I think his worst is Ali, and I like that film. So come on Public Enemies and kick our ass!

[Get The Big Picture]

Well, Miami Vice was a pretty inferior film to Collateral, which preceded it.