First rule of Horrorthon is: watch horror movies. Second rule of Horrorthon is: write about it. Warn us. Tempt us. The one who watches the most movies in 31 days wins. There is no prize.
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Box Office
From ew, Ron Howard's Angels & Demons soared to a $48 million opening this weekend, narrowly edging out a stellar $43 million second-week performance by Star Trek, according to estimates by Hollywood.com Box Office.
While hardly miraculous, Angels' solid bow is the second-best opening of Tom Hanks' career, behind The Da Vinci Code's $77.1 million debut in 2006. Despite receiving better reviews than its predecessor, Angels was widely expected to fly lower than Da Vinci on account of the cooled-off controversy over the religious subject matter in Dan Brown's novels. Still, the books' worldwide infamy should guarantee returns of biblical proportions; Da Vinci grossed $758.2 million globally, and Angels has already racked up an additional $104.3 million from foreign territories.
Angels may also have had its wings clipped slightly by J.J. Abrams' Star Trek, which dropped a slim 46% in its second weekend—presumably thanks to good word of mouth about the well-reviewed film. A $43 million weekend haul means that the space saga has already reaped $147.6 million, making it the year's fourth highest-grossing movie after just eleven days in theaters.
Following a steep 69% percent slump last weekend, X-Men Origins: Wolverine (No. 3 with $14.8 million) recovered a bit, dipping just 44% percent to reach a cumulative gross of $151.1 million after three weekends.
Faring even better, Matthew McConaughey' s Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (No. 4 with $6.9 million) and the Beyoncé-Ali Larter thriller Obsessed (No. 5 with $4.6 million) dropped off just 33 and 31 percent, respectively. These mid-budget genre pics have shown surprising resilience against the tide of blockbusters, demonstrating a strong market for counter-programming.
The weekend boasted only two other high profile pics, both in limited release. Jennifer Aniston's Management got a pink slip from moviegoers, grossing just $378,420 from 212 screens for a measly per-screen average of $1,785. Meanwhile, the caper comedy The Brothers Bloom was a bright spot on the specialty side, ringing up $82,000 from four theaters for a $20,500 per-theater haul.
Just two weekends into the summer movie season, overall box office is up 16% over last year. And things are just heating up: Next week's Memorial Day double-header of Terminator Salvation and Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian promises a weekend to remember at the multiplex. See you then!
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1 comment:
I wrote this comment below but I think it got lost in the shuffle,
I just finished watching it about an hour ago and all I can say is, WOW! Despite some jarring changes in the Trek we know, I was blown away by the non-stop action on such a tremendous scale. Almost every sequence could be the climax of an action movie. At one point I was feeling uncomfortable and I suddenly realized that I had been shallow breathing/holding my breath throughout the entire film. I think Spock's attack on Nero's ship was utterly thrilling and hypnotic. This is a film to be consumed over multiple viewings given the amount of detail/action going on in virtually every scene.
Minor complain, I thought Kirk was written as too much of an outlaw and a little over-the-top (I know, Shatner played him in a somewhat similar manner). I thought Spock and Bones were perfect. Chekov's accent was a bit too affective.
I'm actually relieved that they didn't show them training in the academy, this is something I've never been interested in knowing more about. I was totally psyched when it said, "Three years later". I thought, "Excellent, straight to the action!" I know I'm a simple man.
I was happy to see Nimoy play Spock again, it brought a gravitas to an otherwise solid action flick. Zachary Quinto NAILED Spock and at times I forgot that I wasn't watching a young Nimoy.
One final minor complaint; too many lens flares throughout the film.
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