http://www.worldofkj.com/boxoffice/Wrap ... 7_2006.php

Enjoy!

Please comment, any discussion is welcome

C'mon! 45 views an no replies?

Indded, indeed.

Your SR analysis made me cry therefore the whole thing sucked.

Yeah, I mean most here expected it to beat Spidey, it was just a question by how much. I doubt anyone really expected Spider-Man to beat Harry Potter back then...

Good article!

Great read once again, Doc. I think you're underestimating Pirates, but that's a reasonable gross.

pessimisticly low prediction for Pirates, pretty damn good otherwise.

Nice article.

The development cost prior to Singer started on the movie should not be counted against Superman Returns. That cost would have been there whether SR would have been made or not.

Cars has performed better than its OW indicated and I was wrong about the movie not passing $220M. Primarily Disney making a concerted and a successful effort in retaining majority of the theaters and screens is the main reason. The movie is still a major disappointment considering it was specifically moved to 2006 Summer from 2005 winter to get Nemo/Shrek2 type grosses after Pixar felt The Incredibles underperformed in Winter of 2004. There is no spinning that fact.

I agree with your take on the rest.

Who gets to be Depp's Brutus?

I think Pirates with have shorter legs than you guessed. With 390 being the top end, and 375 being the lower end.

Ha-ha. Supes cant even reach 2/3 of its production cots *points...snickers* And I agree it won't make it there.

High for Prada. You think its still going to double what it has now? I think it might reach 100, but not north of 110.

How in God's name did Click make 140? Someone please answer me this

Nice to see Inconvenient Truth wasn't overlooked. Its been hovering around the top 12 for ages. 20 million is pretty good for it.

What do you think next week for Scanner Darkly's expansion?

Um...what? Major disappointment? Okaaaay. I have a hard time believing that Disney expected another Finding Nemo or especially Shrek 2 from Cars. Sounds like more of an assumption or spin from you than anything else.

And if they did expect that, they're ridiculous, along with anyone who thought it would.

I'm with BJ.

BOM

Those are the Disney Chairman's words. Check the facts before you write something. I leave the spin to others.




BBC

Those are Steve Jobs' words. Try to spin that.

Further all these developments took place after The Incredibles finished well behind Shrek 2 in 2004 and Shrek 2 blated off to a 12.1 mil. home video sales in the first three days (late 2004).

I understand that point, but I disagree. It is still money. Money that was spent and that the studio never got back. That should count towards something and I am pretty sure that the studio was at some point hoping that the success of the film would make up for the earlier losses as well.



It may seem disappointing to some idiots in the studio because of sky-high expectations or whatnot, but in the time in which CGI movies are on a general decline (the highly anticipated Ice Age: The Meltdown opened higher and despite all the anticipation didn't pass $200 million, Over the Hedge, despite better reviews, can't pass Shark Tale etc.) a $240+ million gross for Cars is MORE than amazing. I know that with your general dislike for Pixar and you favoring DW, I shouldn't expect a different comment, but it is a big success. Worldwide it should be at well over $500 million when all is said and done. I mean, it'll most likely be #2 of the year. That is great.

Oh and as for Jobs' comments, he meant the LEGS of the movie, not the final gross. And its legs are amazing.

The summer weekdays are especially kind to chick flicks. Moreover, as I said, any frontloading should level off in the upcoming weeks and I expect the next drops for Prada to be around 35-38%. It'll be at $80+ million by the end of the next weekend. I'll be surprised if it doesn't cross $110 million.

Click just displays what is typical of all Sandler flicks. Despite a fanbase and big openings, his films also usually manage to have decent legs.

Scanner Darkly is expanding to roughly 190 locations next weekend. It should be a bit frontloaded after all the anticipation, so I expect a rather big drop-off in the PTA. It should make around $1 million next weekend, though. I see a 2nd weekend PTA of about $5,000.

Thanks to everyone for the comments.

Well, Lecter answered the first part. Jobs' is clearly referring to the legs of Finding Nemo, which it won't reach, but it'll exceed The Incredibles' legs pretty easily. As for Shrek 2, he mentions nothing about it, so I don't know where you got the idea that they expect Cars to exceed Shrek 2 in box-office sales (as well as Finding Nemo). Making bold statements like "it'll pass Finding Nemo and Shrek 2 if we move it to June" to the public can only come back to bite them in the ass. The fact that it held so well against Pirates shows that there's still interest in the film, especially with Pirates' sell outs. Notice how people didn't flock to Over the Hedge with Cars' sell-outs.

Unlike Pixar apologists, I have no problems calling spade a spade. I consider OTH a box office disappointment.

@Dr.L: Some people put Pixar at such a high pedestal, how can you compare their Cars to underperforming IA2 (relative to its opening and overseas gross) and OTH. (Anyway, IA2 will beat Cars WW easily).

As for the studio heads, they did expect Cars to (using their top man's words) replicate Nemo's success. The expectations are set by the studio. Not by some BO lovers' predictions.

As far as people flocking to Cars, As I mentioned before and a MTC dude reported on HSX, Disney made sure that Cars retained most of its theaters and screens. It lost only 327 theaters in its 5th week. In more theaters than Shrek 2, FN, SM2 and ROTS all of which grossed way more than this movie.

Well, I think you are wrong. I don't think Over the Hedge is a disappointment either. I mean what were you expecting? CGI movies are on a decline, slowly but surely. Over the Hedge passed Chicken Little, it passed Robots and it came close to Shark Tale. Cars did splendidly considering there wasn't nearly as much anticipation for it as for Ice Age.

I agree with Lecter. Perhaps your expectations were too high, jb, but I think Over the Hedge did quite well. It had some great legs after a somewhat underwhelming weekend, and had it not been for Cars, it could have made more than Shark Tale.

Cars did excellent. After the $60 million weekend and higher-than-expected second weekend drop, I thought it'd inch past the $210 million mark. It's going to make close to $250 million, and no matter how you want to interpret Disney, I'm pretty sure that they're very pleased with it. When five of your seven released films make over $200 million, you can't be anything but happy, really. Just because one of their films went above and beyond to $339 million doesn't mean they expect all their films to do the same. Cars was moved to the summer so it could achieve better legs, obviously. Harry Potter would have hurt Cars a lot more than Pirates did. And it's not like "oh, Disney kept it in theaters longer than other films" is a good excuse for its success, because if people weren't interested, they'd avoid it like you. Instead, Cars has some excellent WOM (I think it's the only film so far this year to get an A on CinemaScore, but I'm not 100% sure) and its going to make it all the way to $250 million. Hardly a disappointment. I actually find that kind of laughable.