Kong was EXPECTED to have good legs though due to its release date and expected competition. Its legs were in the range of how long most predicted them to be, but probably on the lower end of these expectations.

MI3 doesn't have the fantastic WOM that Batman did nor the holiday season that Kong did. This will struggle to get to $150 million. Unless it increases (a lot) on Saturday, I don't see it recovering. $140 million.

Couldn't agree more. What's the point of Tom's personal life or any "hate" level on Tom relating to disappointing results from those (including me ) who expected more? I watched first two films, and I believed that general audience expected MI3 to be like the first two; so it could be the reason to bring down our high hopes of its big potential success. Besides, it was one of my least anticipations to pay tickets for, due to cheesy ads all over.

I'll bet anything the studio will NEVER let this get under 50mil for the weekend. Truthfully I dont think it would anyway. 17mil for Friday. Up to 20mil Sat. and easing to 14 on Sun......

51mil...

I see it like this...

Friday: $17.0 million
Saturday: $19.6 million (+15%)
Sunday: $13.7 million (-30%)

Weekend: $50.3 million ($12,400 PTA)

I give it 46m for the weekend, and 115m total.

From the limited release numbers listed on MCN, The Promise made $70,000 in 213 theaters. Not unexpected, but still an ouch.

Can you post the rest?

The Promise $70k 213
Art School Confidential $40k 12
The Proposition $9k 3
Down in the Valley $7k 3

Well those are horrible limited numbers.

That's a worse IM than X2: X-Men United.

Its also in 4000 theaters so the multiplier would worse due to more abundant shows not selling out

You guys don't believe me that Tom cruise's popularity is way down and will continue on its way downwith his attitude.

Soon his films won't even be making $100 million anymore

Huh? I don't see how being in 4000 theaters makes a difference. Once you hit 3700 theaters, it's already super-saturated. X2 had the most theaters EVER at the time and a huge fanbase and still pulled off a 2.75x multiplier.

I seriously think the title for An American Haunting was a huge factor for it this weekend. There was 0 marketing, nobody knew it existed. I'd be willing to bet that a LOT of it's audience were random people walking past their Cineplexes, and saying "Hey, An American Haunting. I don't know what that is, but I'm really in the mood for a horror movie. Lets go!"

Disappointing for MI:3. Not a bomb obviously, but disappointing.

Hoot shocks me. I thought a $2500 PTA would be bad, jesus christ...

But remember people were still saying that X-2 seemed extremely frontloaded for a movie that had good WOM and critical response, it could be because the high theater count had something to do with it. I dont quite know the formula works but think of it this way, if you have 30 soldout shows and say around 1000 people got turned away from the shows they will return the following day or week. The more theaters there are the more people will get served.

Of course X2 was frontloaded. It had an $85 million opening weekend and The Matrix Reloaded as competition. But that's besides the point.

3,700 theaters was the record in 2003. It had a friggin' $31+ million opening day. Yet, it was still able to pull off an increase on Saturday and finish with a 2.75 IM. I don't see one good reason why M:I-3 would come out with a worse IM. And, obviously, theaters didn't exactly have to turn people away yesterday, based on crowd reports we recieved. The additional theaters makes the PTA a lot lower, but I don't see how it'll make M:I-3 more frontloaded than X2, especially after an underwhelming $17 million opening day versus an overwhelming $31.2 million opening day. That's kind of pushing it.

I might lose our M:I-3 bet, but at least U93 won't end up for total with what you predicted it to make for the opening, hehe, while M:I-3 is still a close call.

Its all about accombadation and history has shown it. Time again and again, multipliers for movies have been getting lower and lower. Total Recall a sci-fi action movie would of been extremely frontloaded today but back then it opened to something like 25 million but managed over 110 million. Its theater count was 2000, its multiplier is 4.4. Now look at I Robot. 52 million but a 145 million take in 3400 theaters, its multiplier is around 2.7, its the same genre as Total Recall. Im probably not explaining it well enough but theater counts has to do with supply and demand and any surplus will spillover on the holdovers. Its like having a band playing in one giant 50,000 stadium as opposed to 4 nights at an arena. Mdana and Scott is probably better at explaining this stuff

It's not like films weren't frontloaded in 2003. Hell, most people didn't even expect a $40 million weekend for King Kong and Batman Begins after their opening days, and both pulled it off (granted, both opened on Wednesday, but still...).

A higher multiplier than a comic-book sequel is not hard.

Like you said Wednesday opening but also BB had summer weekdays while Kong had winter holidays which were totally different, they also seem to be getting better response based on the yahoo reviews and cinemascore and those factors play into it also. I guess there are so many factors that may give MI3 a higher multiplier since its alot more media blitz for it than say BB. I guess we should probably one day look at some kind of experimental table about higher TC vs multiplier some day\\

I also still like to add that even though MI3 was in over 4000 theaters, didnt you say that at your area MI3 was still having sellouts and other posters posted it too. Wouldnt it be logical that for those people who were turned away from the sellout to either goto the next show or if they dont want to wait, see another movie and see MI3 at another day like that.

I don't think the title is a factor. According to IMDb, the real-life story is apparently very popular, as there are at least 20 books written about it. When I saw that, I thought it certainly has potential. The good Yahoo buzz number also indicates the awareness ahead of the time was reasonably high.

Kinda disappointing for MI-3. It could have good to decent legs and end up with a respectable total though.

OUCH for Hoot and United 93.

I just looked at old stats and realized, when MI1 came out it became the 3rd biggest 3day opening weekend ever. When MI2 opened it became the 3rd biggest opening ever. Though MI3 will still get a decent opening weekend, it might just barely make it into the top 60 opening weekends ever. It would have had to done $108 m to get 3rd biggest opening weekend this time around, so I guess the bar was just too high...

Actually 2.51. Almost exactly the same multiplier I'm predicting for MI3. Anyway, MI3 has weaker WOM with a B at Yahoo. It's behind movies like Stick It and The Benchwarmers.