This is of course a question of taste, but there was one thing that M:I-1 and M:I-2 had, but M:I-3 didn't. Kickass trailers. The trailer for the third film is certainly good, but the two first flicks had much more effective trailers with much more impressive action, IMHO. They offered the idea that people were going to see something fresh and excting, while the trailer (and TV-spots) made the third film look more like a standard actioner.

I think what certainly didn't help matters was that Cruise's female lead looked like a Katie Holmes clone....

Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

That was not a straightforward, serious actioner. It was more of a comedy. At least that's how I perceived it.

You are correct. The film was an absolute joke.

Yes, that was more an action comedy.

Um, those are better release dates for TOTALs. But opening weekend, first weekend of May outdoes half of those. Look at July 4th, its opening weekends have been relatively subdued over the years, and have only started to become more potent recently...

July 4th was a big opening weekend, and then lost its lustre, and then started coming back to rephrase that. It was a big time before, but massively cooled as the first weekend of May heated up:

Pre 1997: July 4th was one of the "big weekends"

1998: Armageddon Underperforms opening weekend
1999: Wild Wild West massively disappoints
2000: Perfect Storm did well, but the weekend's weekend wasn't that much bigger than the non-big effects extravangza of Gladiator, which opened the summer and was an adult historical drama, so wasn't expected to have a huge opening.
2001: Cats and Dogs and Scary Movie 2 both fail to top $22 m.
2002: MIB2 did strongly, but it was the EIGHTH biggest opening weekend of the year, not top 3 or even top 5. For a sequel to a $250 m film, it should have opened stronger, so it wasn't the best opening. Even if it did have a 5 day weekend, comparatively to 2002, the July 4th weekend wasn't all that ahead of the pack.
2003: T3 and Legally Blonde 2 disappointed this weekend. They had predictions much higher than how they did.
2004: Spiderman 2 starts to return the weekend to its old lustre.
2005: WOTW helps with the turnaround.

Over the past eight years, only recently as the weekend been the home of big openings again, but we haven't really had one for 6 of the past 8 years, with lots of event films underperforming.


You were arguing that the July 4th weekend leads to better openings than the first weekend of May. It's hard to use T2, etc as examples, because we're comparing first weekend of May to Indep. day weekend, and May's first weekend wasn't bankable until the past 10 years.

Here are the opening weekend rankings for their respective years for the first weekend of May and July 4th:

July 4th:

1990: Days of Thunder 10th biggest opening
1991: T2 1st
1992: Weekend did not rank in top 10 openings for the year
1993: The Firm, 2nd
1994: The Lion King's 2nd weekend, would rank as #3 weekend for the year
1995: Apollo 13, 5th
1996: ID4, 1st
1997: MIB, 2nd
1998: Armageddon, 4th
1999: Wild, Wild West did not rank in top ten openings
2000: Perfect Storm, 6th
2001: Scary Movie 2, Cats and Dogs did not rank in top 10 openings (likely not top 15 either)
2002: MIB2, 8th
2003: T3, did not rank in top 10 openings
2004: Spiderman 2, 3rd
2005: WOTW, 4th
2006: Superman, maybe top 5 for the year

As people can see, July 4th was in the big 3 of the year pre 1996, but then went downhill, and only in the past 2 years has returned to its previous top for the year ranks. But I think my term "subdued" for the weekend is more than merited given how the past 8 years have been.


Here's the first weekend of May at the same time as July 4th slipped from top openings.

1990: $6.8 m from Pretty Woman
1991: $4.2 m from Oscar
1992: $4 m from Basic Instinct
1993: $10 m from Dragon Lee
1994: $3.7 m from W/ Honors
1995: $9 m from French Kiss, $18.6 m from 2nd weekend of May for Crimson Tide (10th biggest)
1996: $6.7 m from The Craft, $41 m for Twister in 2nd weekend of May (3rd biggest)
1997: $12 m from Breakdown
1998: $7.6 m from He Got Game, $41 m for Deep Impact in 2nd weekend of May (2nd)
1999: $43 m from Mummy (3rd)
2000: $34.8 m from Gladiator (10th)
2001: $68 m from The Mummy Returns (3rd)
2002: $115 m from Spiderman (1st)
2003: $85.6 m from X2 (2nd)
2004: $52 m from Van Helsing (9th)
2005: $19.6 m from Kingdom (did not rank top 10)
2006: MI3 $48ish m (maybe 11th for the year)

Thus, a very, very odd box office pattern I've just realized, the weaker the first weekend of May is, the stronger that Independence Day weekend seems to be! So MI3 disappointing should help Superman!

Anyways, my main point is, right now, the first weekend of May has been one of the biggies for the year, and July 4th was subdued, only until recently have we been seeing a turnaround. But the first weekend of May for the recent past has been much more bankable than Independence Day has...

O, from 2000 on, the opener from the first wk of May only won 2001-2003. July 4th's opener has won 2000, 2004, 2005, and will win this year. Not very convincing. And don't forget July 4th openers usually open on weekdays, thus lowering the weekend gross.

What really counts is the type of movie released on these weekends, not necessarily the weekend itself. T3 was a cash in sequal coming a decade+ later, MIB2 was a cash in sequal coming 5 years later. Scary Movie 2 and Cats and Dogs are not the types of films that will have high weekends when opened on weekdays.

X2 and Spider-man were superhero films and highly anticipated.

It's more like 1998-2003 with 2000 as special circumstances. Btw, I'm equating first weekend of May/2nd weekend of May (in Deep Impact's case). Gladiator was NEVER going to have a huge opening weekend. $35 m opening weekend from it makes 2000 hard to compare. For an R-rated historical drama (which weren't exactly huge summer material), it still did close to 85% of The Perfect Storm's 3day. So I guess its more like 5 of the past 8 years the first weekend of May was more potent, and 3 with July 4th weekend, with only 2 of July 4th having stronger weekends with reason to conclude release date. But Perfect Storm was an effects extravangza, and Gladiator was a long historical drama starring a relatively unknown at the time to most mainstream audiences. For the other years (1998-2005), both release dates had high profile films throughout the time period. But 2000 is the hardest to compare.

Here are the opening weekend rankings for their respective years for the first weekend of May and July 4th:

July 4th:

1998: Armageddon, 4th
1999: Wild, Wild West did not rank in top ten openings
2000: Perfect Storm, 6th
2001: Scary Movie 2, Cats and Dogs did not rank in top 10 openings (likely not top 15 either)
2002: MIB2, 8th
2003: T3, did not rank in top 10 openings
2004: Spiderman 2, 3rd
2005: WOTW, 4th

All of these years had high profile special effects full films/big sequels. Considering Scary Movie 1 did such huge business, one would give it a huge profile as well for the July weekend.

Early May:

1998: Deep Impact in 2nd weekend of May (2nd)
1999: $43 m from Mummy (3rd)
2000: $34.8 m from Gladiator (10th)
2001: $68 m from The Mummy Returns (3rd)
2002: $115 m from Spiderman (1st)
2003: $85.6 m from X2 (2nd)
2004: $52 m from Van Helsing (9th)
2005: $19.6 m from Kingdom (did not rank top 10)

We're making an argument about release date. Spiderman made $115 m in 3day on the first weekend of May in 2002, and $116 m 4day for July 2004. It's an oxymoron to use Spiderman as an example of why Independence day weekend is stronger for films, considering the series itself is what has shown strength, on BOTH release dates. And what are we to make about Spider-man 3? Why did the studio go ahead and give it the first weekend of May, and not Independence Day weekend, despite the fact that Transformers/Fantastic Four 2 is relatively light competition compared to Spiderman 3?

Van Helsing was NEVER going to be able to compete with Spiderman 2's opening. Let's be realistic! WOTW is also bound to much more of a big opening than Kingdom of Heaven starring Orlando Bloom...

1998: Armageddon vs Deep Impact, these are comparable, and Deep Impact had the bigger opening.
1999: Wild, Wild West and The Mummy, both high profile films as well
2000: Perfect Storm, and Gladiator, see above for explanation, but very difficult to compare.
2001: Scary Movie 2 Cats and Dogs combo and The Mummy Returns Both Scary Movie 1 and The Mummy had similar openings, so I see them as more than comparable.
2002: MIB2 and Spiderman 1, both high profile films, they can be compared.
2003: T3 and X3, comparable.
2004: Spiderman 2 and Van Helsing, everyone knew anyway that on any release date, Spiderman was going to whoop Van Helsing...
2005: WOTW and Kingdom, an effects extravangza beating a historical epic with stars w/ little bankability, where have I see this happen before...

All of these years had high profile special effects full films/big sequels. Considering Scary Movie 1 did such huge business, one would give it a huge profile as well for the July weekend. I do believe that the first weekend of May still gives studios more confidence than July 4th weekend does. Spiderman 3's backers clearly think so as well...

I'm surprised no one else supports me on this point of May's early weekend strength? I thought more than just me might think that the first weekend of May has been more potent, with that tide turning just recently.

No, usually legs don't mean much in reflecting WOM. Legs are mostly determined by other factors besides a few each year that have great WOM or terrible WOM.



Not for 2000.



I disagree. Legs were normal given the type of films they were (You could add X-Men as well). They were however well graded, especially Underworld. It's #33 at yahoo for 2003, and #17 of 120+ wide releases. Furthermore, Underworld had 63m in DVD sales, which was amazing. Certainly strong WOM.

For Resident Evil I give more credit to marketing. One thing about a film like that is it only needs to keep one group of moviegoers happy to remain successful. So, it could lose part of the audience, but keep hold of a core fanbase. That's also what Scary Movie has done IMO by targeting teens looking for slapstick. Mission Impossible needs to keep everyone happy.

So, I'd say cinemascores (if available), DVD sales, and usually the Yahoo grade are the best indicators of WOM. Netflix is good as well.

MI2 had a Cinemascore of a B (low for a blockbuster), a B- at Yahoo (also low for a blockbuster), and a 3.3 at Netflix (below average).

BTW, Tomb Raider had a B cinemascore, B- at Yahoo, and 3.2 at Netflix. Result was half the original. For MI3 it's a bit more.

O, you keep forgetting the effect of July 4th openers opening on weekdays. Why? And as I said before, the type of movie matters more. All you're really shown is that people love superhero films.

Yeah, I think the main reason is that people are just sick of "shit blowing up" action movies at this point. That genre needs to smarten up it's game, because the audience have outgrown where it's at right now.

The sad part is that most of the heat will be pointed at Cruise, at the backlash.

There is something to it, with the audiences being sick of straightforward actioners.

I find it very weird, however, considering there are not even many of them coming out anymore nowadays. I also don't like this trend much because that means we'll keep getting more and more sci-fi and comedy actioners. Bleh.

I think people are forgetting that,w itht he franchise bloat we've gotten, a follow-up to a movie that was released six years ago is not going to cut it. The movie andscape has changed so much over the last couple of years.

Yeah guys - a few of us have been lamenting the audiences lack of interest in straight out actioners for some time especially as Lecter said - studios arent releasing many of them any more.

And to think - Van Damne and Steven Segal films used to make over $30m at one time

Those were the days when Steven Segal flicks would open at number 1 with 15 million dollars. He was being paid $10 million a picture and at one point being hailed as the next successor to action movies after Arnold. Segal and Van Damme now rest in straight to video land

Oh those 1990's - you gotta love em!!

I remember actually going to see The Glimmer Man. Its incredible how quickly they fell out of favour with auds. I mean even Arnold and Sly couldnt bring audiences in like they used to. The last stand for these type of actioners were the Bruckheimer/Cage type films - Con Air, The Rock, Face Off, Bad Boys etc. Now even Bruckheimer is moving away from the genre (now doing films like Pearl Harbour, Pirates, National Treasure etc).

Yeah the action heroes are a dying breed. The Rock and Vin Diesel are nowhere in Sly and Arnolds peak today. I guess the whole action genre needs something different perhaps a Metal Gear approach

True, I guess they may come back into vogue by themselves - just like horror films or musicals. It may take some time. I guess the big buff action star isnt as in as it was in the 80s and 90s. Diesel and Rock did show some promise for some time a few years ago but seem to have fizzled out aswell. Trying to make an action star out of Ice Cube was then rather laughable.