Money Talks: 'Monsters vs. Aliens 2' May Not Happen

We talk about how much money movies make versus how much they need to make pretty often. Just because a $50 million flick earns $60 million in the U.S., that doesn't make it profitable. There are loads of costs after the fact and then the expectations about what the film should conceivably take in before you start counting the money from cable and broadcast rights, DVDs, and all the rest.

It really came into a clearer focus last summer when Warner Bros. chief Jeff Rubinov wrung his hands over Get Smart, which damn near tripled its budget. But he was disappointed. So if an $80 million movie makes over $200 million worldwide and it isn't good enough, then what does that mean for a Terminator Salvation that cost a reported $200 million and only brought back $325 million globally? DreamWorks' Jeffrey Katzenberg recently sat down with The Los Angeles Times to discuss the business end of the business. The animation wing is licking its wounds over a 7% drop in revenue and net income (Universal and Viacom could only dream of single-digit losses in the second quarter). The culprit: The number six movie of the year. Monsters vs. Aliens made almost $200 million in the United States, did about 90% of that overseas, and yet the $375 million the film brought in has left Katzenberg on the fence about making a sequel.

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Box Office - '17' Goes for $24 Million

For one of the few times this year, the weekend box office was disappointing. Not if you're Zac Efron's new body swap comedy, 17 Again, but otherwise, there were not a lot of congratulatory cigars being lit. The real evidence was the third place finish by Monsters vs. Aliens, now a month old. There just wasn't much else to watch.

17 Again did finish on top, slowing its $9 million Friday pace to end the weekend just north of $24 million. That's still a very good start, although the trouble is whether Zac Efron can give us any second weekend audience. I kind of doubt it; I think the film will be lucky to hold half its audience from this week. State of Play wound up in second place, with $14 million in receipts. That's about what was expected, so maybe Universal should have put it in a few more theaters, something that won't happen now with summer movies just two weeks away. The other new release, Crank: High Voltage was one of the bigger opening weekend flops of 2009, earning just $6 million plus in three days, despite tons of marketing. A key to its failure was almost certainly Fast & Furious, which managed to outdraw the brand new Jason Statham flick.

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Box Office - A Big Weekend for 'Hannah Montana'

Although Miley Cyrus says she wants to move on to other things, it's going to be difficult for her to find another project that rings the cash registers quite like Hannah Montana. Just look what happened to Hilary Duff after Lizzie Maguire.

The new Hannah movie zoomed to the top of the box office charts, beating most predictions with $34 million. It's the second $30 million debut for Hannah, who scored impressively with a 3-D concert film last year. Half of the business came on opening day, which isn't out of the norm, losing an average of 39% each day after that. The slide on Saturday and Sunday probably means a one-and-done scenario here, because it shows that there was early heat and then it cooled down. In fact, the movie was only number one on Friday, falling behind Fast & Furious the rest of the weekend. The Vin Diesel-Paul Walker sequel was competitive despite losing 60% of its opening weekend crowd, and with more movies on the way aimed at young men - Crank, Fighting, Wolverine, and everything else in May - this was probably the last major cash grab for Fast & Furious. But nobody at Universal is complaining about a movie that has already made $118 million.

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Fearless Forecast: Vin Diesel Outmuscles Hannah Montana

Last weekend was the biggest April weekend ever at the box office, and at the rate it's going, the entire month might be the biggest April in history, as well. That's because, in addition to three new releases, two of which have some decent to good business prospects, we've still got two movies sure to make at least another $100 million combined between now and May.

Even though we're seeing a lot of advertising for Observe and Report, I don't think there's any way that's the movie to beat this weekend. And just because Hannah Montana has a built-in crowd, don't expect that to rise to the top, either. No, it's going to be another win for Fast & Furious, and the reason I say that is not because it made $70 million last weekend, but because it will make about $15 million more during the week. People really want to see this, as evidenced by a ten-day total that will be near $125 million.

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Box Office - 'Fast & Furious' Destroys April Records

Nobody, anywhere, predicted that Fast & Furious would have the biggest opening ever for a movie released in April. And yet, three days and $72 million later, that's exactly what we have.

It's the biggest debut since The Dark Knight, just a hundred thousand less than Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, although it debuted in fewer theaters than the last LOTR movie, too. On a per-screen average, Fast & Furious made over $1,500 more. In other words, it's one of the biggest all-time openings ever, and definitely one of the most surprising. We wondered after its $30 million debut exactly how well the film would hold up over the rest of the opening stanza, and it did pretty well, dipping only 19% on Saturday ($24 million), and 30% on the Sunday estimates ($17 million), according to Box Office Mojo. So anybody wondering why they'd return again to make a fifth movie in the series certainly has their answer now.

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