This is lots of fun.

So, let´s see... People who were predicting that Sahara would do $10-12M, after the friday numbers: "Yeah, but It´ll have a bad multiplier"

After a nice multiplier: "Yeah, but It´ll drop like a stone on second weekend!"

You people never give up, do you? :wink:

$18.5M.....still a flop.

Mason you are compeltely ignoring us over and over saying that Paramount did not pay all 130 million. C'mon man, you're seriously letting your hatred for the movie that you haven't even seen get the better of you. It's proven everyone wrong twice already, and will next week too once again. :razz: Oh, and I think that this will do even better overseas.

then again, Mansonmyers seems to think that movies that even he is highly anticipating will underpreform :razz:

I don't hate the movie....it just doesn't appeal to me.

Anyway....WB didn't pay all $85M for Catwoman then??

lol.

No, they did, but Sahara was independently produced on it's own. Paramount just made a deal with it to distribute it in several countries and split the profits.

Well, if it falls under 45% next weekend, that'll prove it's going to have very nice legs and I won't be as negative about it. :wink:

Well done, Snrub! Bang up job there, old boy!

Now let's hope your your optimistic prediction for total gross turns out to be just as accurate!

WB only paid some part of budget for Catwoman.

Is Battlefield Earth a flop? WB just made a deal with it to distribute it in several countries and split the profits; they paid $0 on this movie.

Ok. let´s wait and see :wink: But what I also mean is, nothing so far indicates that it´s going to be that frontoladed - increased on saturday, attracting apparently older moviegoers, just one wide release next weekend and no direct competition - but...

I just remember THE RUNDOWN, which also had about $18 million opening weekend.

THE RUNDOWN got much better reviews than SAHARA, but it still only grossed $48 million in US.

I think the Rundown was muhc more oriented to male teens, who tend to rush in the first weekend, while "Sahara" is more like a classic adventure for the whole family thing...

But we´ll see, pretty soon.

An $18.5 million opening is decent, but not great by any means. It'll top out just under $60 million.

According to Variety, Paramount releases the pic in US for a fee "but has purchased distrib rights in several overseas territories, including the U.K. and Australia."

You've never heard of the Paramount 2nd weekend curse?

Lemony Snicket - 58.0% drop
Spongebob Squarepants - 44.3% drop on Thansgiving
Mean Girls - 44.0% drop, nearly its biggest drop in its wide release
Sky Captain - 57.3% drop
Without a Paddle - 36.6% drop, same as Mean Girls
Manchurian Candidate - 48.8% drop
Coach Carter - 56.4% drop

what is weirdest about Paramount is even there best revieved films drop hard :???: Titanic is a huge exception.

I gotta say, this is the second most fun I've had at the movies all year, besides Kung-Fu Hustle which is one of my favorite movies of all time. And the audience totally ate it up, so I'd guess it'll have great legs. And MG Casey, what the hell is this Paramount 2nd weekend curse? Is it anything like that "desert setting" curse that was going to make Sahara be DOA? Right off the bat I'd throw out School of Rock which fell 21% second weekend, and Collateral which fell 34%. And how can you list Without a Paddle? It only had two drops which weren't about as big in every weekend it had above 1 million, at which point the drops got much worse.

A curse? Hmmm... yeah! Very scientific! :wink:

Now, if you excuse me, I´m going to work on my black magic to balance the curse... Need to go to the mall to buy dove´s blood, Have you seen my flying groom? :bur:

I probably shouldn't have used to word "curse". It's more of their marketing. Their style of marketing makes their movies drop more in their 2nd weekend for some reason.

Haha, c'mon man I think that's pushing it. Let's look at your examples again, since I've already pointed out other Paramount movies that did fine in there second weekend:

Lemony Snicket - 58.0% drop - The movie would've kept dropping at that rate if it hadn't had Christmas and Winter Break to prevent it, it had pretty bad WOM and the first weekend of the monster that was Meet the Fockers
Spongebob Squarepants - 44.3% drop on Thansgiving - Once again, the WOM was pretty damn bad for this, and Christmas with the Kranks was direct competition. I think it had a surprisingly frotnloaded audience of teens that watched the show a few years ago, and the drops didn't get much better.
Mean Girls - 44.0% drop, nearly its biggest drop in its wide release Well New York Minute might've not set the world on fire, but it and Van Helsing were big competition, and I think WOM took awhile to set in, but I'm a bit on the fence about this one.
Sky Captain - 57.3% drop This also had pretty bad WOM, and the drops were not much better afterwards because of that. 50%, 28.6%, 48%, 52%, 61%, and over 55% until it hit second run theaters.
Without a Paddle - 36.6% drop, same as Mean Girls Like I said earlier, this was a GREAT drop, but it only had two drops out of six that were more then 2% better then this one, and after that it had lots of 40 and 50% drops when it started losing theaters, so I wouldn't say that any "second weekend" thing applies whatsoever.
Manchurian Candidate - 48.8% drop Collateral was direct competition, it was the other big adult thriller of the season, and for some reason they were released back to back. Afterwards the openers were AVP and Exorcist which didn't affect Manchurian's adult audience.
Coach Carter - 56.4% drop If you remember, there was a huge blizzard which knocked about 2 million off of every movie playing, especially ones that had strong urban appeal. Also, opening weekend was MLK, and Are We There Yet? was direct competition.

So I'd say Sahara does not have the direct competition, or the poor WOM, or the frontloaded audiences that you're pointing out in some of these examples.[/b]

1. Seriously, an opening of less than $6 million by New York Minute did not hurt Mean Girls. That was not the reason why it dropped like that.

2. Spongebob Squarepants did not have bad WoM at all. It was just frontloaded as it is a popular TV series with a definite fanbase.

3. Coach Carter would have dropped 45% even if it wasn't for the blizzard (you can't tell me that the blizzard made the drops over 15% bigger) and Are we there yet? wasn't exactly direct competiton. Urban audiences don't see everything that stars black actors. There are genres there as well.

Having said that, I expect Sahara to drop a bit over 40% next weekend and struggle to $60 million overall. Worldwide it'll probably get around $125 million, so it won't set the world on fire, but won't lose money either with the DVD sales and rentals included.

I don't think that SAHARA can make $125 million worldwide.

If HIDALGO, U-571 and THE RUNDOWN can't make $125 million worldwide, why SAHARA can?

You can say what you want, but I still think there is a Paramount 2nd weekend effect. :wink:

BOM INTL thinks SAHARA will most likely end up with $75M. Rather than $100M.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/intl/

Haha, you keep that going all you want, doesn't mean I didn't prove ya wrong and you couldn't back it up. : :mrgreen:

And Lecter,
1. It's still more competition then other weeks, and it wasn't the only reason I named. The audience was also teenagers which generally see movies earlier then later, I think they did and then older audiences saw it later from the good reviews.
2. Maybe, everyone I saw it with hated it as did many people at my school, I can't find anyone who doesnt' think the show is infinitely better. But either way that's not the point, point is that the second weekend drop wasn't so much harsher then any other.
3. Yeah, I agree that it would've been about a 45% drop, just like you said. That's still small enough to show it didn't drop so much more second weeekdn. And though it wasn't completely the same audience, I'd definitely say we see a lot of movies, and this appealed to them both.