'Da Vinci' Sequel 'The Lost Symbol' Taking Shape

There is plenty of money to be made with or by or through Robert Langdon, so Tom Hanks and possibly Ron Howard will go at it again with The Lost Symbol. Collectively, The Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons made Columbia/Sony about $1.2 billion around the world, and in fact, the foreign markets are where these films are more aggressively targeted, so even if they don't blow up in the US, the studio is fine with that.

Cinema Blend reports this week that the film is close to beginning the pre-production phase, which from the sounds of it, will take quite a while; Sony is looking at a 2012 release date. I don't know a thing about the book. I tried reading Da Vinci when it was the biggest thing in the world, discovered for myself Dan Brown writes worse dialogue than a truck stop men's room graffitist, and quickly put it away. Terrific story, but man, I couldn't get past whatever was in quotes.

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'T4,' 'Angels & Demons' Printing Money Overseas

It turns out that Warner Bros. may have the last laugh after all. Despite weak reviews and rather unspectacular business, Terminator Salvation has been a dominant film in the international box office race. Currently, it's trailing only Angels & Demons on the list of U.S. films overseas, and it's unlikely that anything not named Potter or Transformers will catch the sequel to The Da Vinci Code.

Its performance in the foreign markets isn't surprising; Sony made more money on the first Dan Brown movie abroad than it did in the states. But Terminator Salvation is something of a surprise. It has earned more money around the world than it has in America, which is the most lucrative film marketplace. In the U.S., T4 has only made about $115 million (The Hangover has already sold more tickets for Warner Bros.), but internationally, it has picked up over $160 million in business. Perhaps we should have expected this. The three previous films in the series have all done better in foreign countries than they have at home, with Terminator 2, the most successful movie in the franchise, making $315 million in other territories nearly 20 years ago. That was a giant number then.

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Fearless Forecast - 'Up' Goes Up

There was an article this week about whether or not the box office hot streak was over. I don't think that's true. We've just seen some movies audiences weren't terribly excited about the last two weeks, repeating a trend from last May. But it will pick back up in about a month.

Between now and then, as I've said all along, I expect the May movies to continue to build up their bank accounts. Star Trek is the most audience-friendly movie so far, and June will be good for it, considering it's almost a month old, and Up will make most of its money there, too, because the competition in June just isn't that strong. For this week, I think we'll see a typically big debut for a Pixar movie. Last year, Wall-E opened against Wanted, and both films started with $60 million-plus. Up will see a little spike from the 3-D theaters, and that should help Pixar's tenth movie make over $60 million this weekend.

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Box Office - Weekend at 'The Museum'

The final four-day weekend estimates are in, and the news has not improved for Terminator Salvation, which marks the second straight weekend of somewhat disappointing box office for a potential summer blockbuster. Last week, it was Angels & Demons, but Terminator is probably a bigger deal all the way around, so its lighter than expected performance over the first five days is a bit more troubling.

From Thursday to Monday, Terminator has only managed $67 million. So now, even with a one day head start, it couldn't do the kind of business Night at the Museum generated. Yep: $70 million in four days for Museum versus $67 million in five days for T4. So where does Terminator go from here? Maybe $150 million, but probably not much more. A 50% drop next weekend would be in the mid-$20 million range, and that's actually the good news. The prospects are much brighter for Night at the Museum, which because it's a family film, will have a longer life in theaters, even with Up arriving next Friday. Star Trek finished the five-day frame in third place, and the totals for that film will be over $200 million before we reach next weekend, with still three or four weeks of being the only May blockbuster worth seeing to follow.

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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.

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