Box Office - 'Shrek' Loses Touch, Makes $71 Million

No doubt, $71 million is a lot of money, but when you're a movie that cost $165 million and your three predecessors made over $300 million each, that $71 million looks kind of small. So it's an uphill battle for Shrek Forever After from this point forward: Can it make three bills, or does it struggle to even make $200 million? I always like to see what the second weekend does whenever a movie is either far beyond expectations or far below them. In this instance, Shrek doesn't really have much direct competition for three weeks, until The Karate Kid arrives, so even though this was a much weaker start than a lot of people expected, what's going to drain its business in the next few weeks? Marmaduke, sure, but if Shrek stumbled, I have a hard time buying that Marmaduke is going to be the dagger. DreamWorks can't be thrilled, though, because Shrek 3 is the all-time opening weekend champ for a cartoon, and Shrek 4, just three years later, has the widest opening ever for an animated film and all those 3-D screens. It should have gravy trained $100 million or close to it. But to come up almost 40% off that Shrek 3 figure is not what they had in mind. International business will keep it from losing money, but I think in the US we've learned that just because you call something The Final Chapter, that doesn't mean people will come out of the woodwork to see it. That goes double for calling your movie MacGruber, which probably sold about half a million tickets total. There was a lot of promotion for this film and it got good reviews at the start, but MacGruber only generated $4.1 million. That's a bomb, even if it did only cost $10 million to make. Here's how bad it is: The per-screen average - $1,607 - barely beat Date Night's $1,512, and that movie's been in theaters seven weeks. Even with lower than normal expectations, Universal can't back into a movie that makes money, even if the studio's only distributing it. On that front, Robin Hood will turn a profit once the global figures are factored in, and then the argument just becomes how much money was spent on the advertising and theater rentals and everything, those distribution costs. Studios cling to those very tightly, so we'll probably never fully know, but summer movies on that scale spend at least $100 million on promotion, so when this $200 million movie makes back its $200 million, it's really only the beginning. Universal still has a long way to go to see any true profit, especially because Ridley Scott and Russell Crowe make first-dollar percentages. All's well for Iron Man 2, however; it's closing in on $600 million worldwide after making another $26 million in the states. It won't be as big as almost everyone believed it would be, but there's no doubt it's going to be one of the top movies of the summer. I'm curious to see if it catches the first Iron Man, though. It's at $251 million right now, and it will take nearly three weeks to double its opening weekend of $128 million. It's certainly going to hit $300 million by about June 15th or so, but then it'll start running on fumes. The Top Five:
1 - Shrek ($71.2 million)
2 - Iron Man ($26.6 million)
3 - Robin Hood ($18.7 million)
4 - Letters to Juliet ($9.1 million)
5 - MacGruber ($4.1 million)

Comments

[Nelson]

the summer's been weaker than expected so far, meaning that the biggest is yet to come. If Inception gets rave reviews, watch out, that could be the biggest of the summer. Otherwise, Toy Story 3 has a fair shot at being a 300 million movie, as does the new Twilight movie. Really though, this summer is looking fairly lackluster

[Get The Big Picture]

It always did look that way, which is why I thought the real blockbusters would make a lot more money. Inception has a real shot now, which it probably wouldn't have if Iron Man 2 had been stronger.

[Honz Brix]

One quick note Colin. The first Shrek only made $267 million, so all 3 didn't make $300 million. However your point about Shrek 4 being disappointing is still correct so it doesn't matter

[Get The Big Picture]

Ah, thank you. My mistake for assuming.

[El Doucheo Bago]

Wow, I really thought some people would go see Macgruber.

[Josh]

I'm betting that, instead of Shrek, people are waiting for Toy Story 3.