Thursday
02Jul2009
Box Office - 'Ice Age' Tames 'Transformers'
Thursday, July 2, 2009 at 2:01PM
The official stranglehold Transformers has on the box office is over, at least for one day. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs opened with $13.8 million on Wednesday, good enough to take down what will prove to be the biggest film of the year.
Reader Comments (5)
Colin do you really think Transformers will out do Harry Potter?
A couple weeks ago you said Hangover wouldn't make 200 million, which it will before the weekend's up.
Well, if history is the best predictor of the future. I think it's safe to say that the new Harry Potter movie, while most likely outperforming Harry Potter in the Worldwide Box office, will not outdo it in the Domestic Box Office. Here's why. Transformers 2 is already at around $240 million dollars in 8 days, which by itself is an amazing feat only one movie has bested, but look at the facts. We are saying that by the end of the second weekend, it will be above $300 million, and that $400 million is certainly within reach since it basically has a grip through the time Harry Potter launches in July.
Well, with all of that in mind, the best grossing Harry Potter movie, the first one, only managed to make $317 million, while none of the other four attempts even passed $300 million. Since these books are even more popular around the world, it was most likely outdo Transformers around the globe, but we should not be looking at this Harry Potter movie to beat the first one unless we hear excellent word of mouth, as well as very positive reviews. I just don't think picturing it making that much money is a very wise thing to do.
Ned -
I sure did and it sure will. The Hangover has consistently done better than anyone's expectations, even better than liberal estimates of what it might do week-to-week. I do think my Star Trek number looks good, though. Before the summer I said $277 million, and after ten days in theaters amended that to $257 million since we had some real information to look at. It's going to be in that range. I also said Up would be the second biggest Pixar movie and it will be. But it's not an exact science.
My original Transformers prediction was $342 million. It will easily beat that thanks to those first three days, which were just enormous. But I had Potter in second place for the summer at $309 million. One thing in Potter's favor is its release date. Somebody tell me where the competition is after July 15th. G.I. Joe? Sure, it's going to have a good opening weekend, but that's three weeks after Half-Blood Prince.
So while the Potter movie won't open with $200 million in five days, it should do really well for three weeks, and probably after the second weekend, will outgross Transformers overall. It's got a much stronger potential to hold a bigger audience for a longer period of time. I think it's going to break $300 million, but won't get too much higher than that. However, considering the worst performer in the series made $795 million worldwide, beating Transformers in the U.S. isn't really even worth the fight. It's going to do just fine regardless.
Ice Age got the largest ever international opening. The movie's performance at the box office is amazing. A real success. For more detail refer http://www.entertainmenttrend.com/ice-age-dawn-of-the-dinosaurs-worldwide-opening-rakes-in-record-millions/