The super hero summer continued with the third comic book film of the season debuting at number one as Green Lantern shot to the top of the box office with a less-than-stellar opening weekend of $52.7M, according to studio estimates. The pricey Warner Bros. release averaged $13,806 from 3,816 theaters including ones offering the PG-13 film in 3D with extra surcharges. Although the amount of the weekend take would be welcomed by most films, Lantern carried a reported pricetag of about $200M plus was backed by one of the most expensive marketing campaigns of any summer movie so far.
Opening day Friday delivered a solid $21.6M including $3.35M from Thursday night’s post-midnight shows. But Saturday fell a disturbing 22% to $16.8M and the studio is optimistically projecting a slim 15% Sunday decline to $14.3M helped in part by Father’s Day. This summer’s well-reviewed super hero films Thor and X-Men: First Class both fared better with audiences. Each dipped by only 8% on Saturday and scored a B+ CinemaScore. More students were out of school for Lantern’s opening day, but the Saturday fall was still very troubling.
With bad reviews, an alarming Saturday decline, and a low audience score, it seems that Green Lantern will burn out quickly at the box office. Even 3D did not help too much as only 45% of the weekend gross came from those screens. That was a lower rate than Thor’s 60% and The Green Hornet’s 61% and more in line with the 46% of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. The Hal Jordan film played as expected to the demographic most familiar with the character – adult men. Males made up 64% of the crowd while 63% were over 25. Generating true excitement with teens and younger adults has been a consistent problem for all Hollywood studios this year.
For the Friday-to-Sunday opening weekend, Green Lantern managed to fall behind the $55.1M of the recent X-Men reboot from just two weeks ago and was far from the $65.7M bow of Thor from the first weekend of May. Moviegoers may only have an appetite for so many comic book flicks and three big ones within seven weeks may have been too much. Lantern had arguably the biggest character among the three and certainly the most starpower with Blake Lively, Tim Robbins, and the voice of Geoffrey Rush all in the same package. Next month’s Captain America will face challenges of its own being another 3D introduction of a new big-screen hero.
Warner Bros. was keen on developing Green Lantern as a franchise that could spawn lucrative sequels in the years ahead. Those hopes, however, were not crushed this weekend as super hero films are designed to be rebooted over time. Superman, Batman, and The Hulk all saw their movie franchises crash and burn, only to be resurrected later with new directors and lead actors.
Overseas, Green Lantern debuted in a dozen or so markets – many small – and grossed a moderate $17M with about half of that coming from the U.K. and Russia. As a very American super hero character, it may not generate the types of numbers overseas that recent summer action tentpoles have.
On the other end of the word-of-mouth spectrum, Super 8 posted a remarkable hold in its second weekend dipping only 40% to an estimated $21.3M. Paramount’s $50M production has collected a solid $72.8M in its first ten days and could be headed for the vicinity of $130M allowing it to possibly outgross Green Lantern at the end of the day at a fraction of the cost. The J.J. Abrams-directed action drama rolled into more of the international marketplace with debuts in 20 more territories for a weekend estimate of $12.5M from 29 total markets led by a number one opening in the increasingly crucial market of Russia. Super 8 is showing that a well-made summer action film with a moderate pricetag can go a long way, even without bells and whistles.
Two big worldwide hits followed. The Hangover Part II fell 46% to an estimated $9.6M boosting the domestic cume to $232.7M for Warner Bros. The raunchy sequel collected an estimated $21.5M offshore for a muscular international total of $256M. The global gross now stands at $488.7M surpassing its predecessor to become the world’s top-grossing R-rated comedy ever. Paramount’s 3D toon Kung Fu Panda 2 grossed an estimated $8.7M, off 47%, giving the DreamWorks sequel $143.3M to date. Overseas, where the Jack Black film ranks number one this weekend, kicked in an additional $52.5M for an international take of $280M to date led by China’s exceptional $77M.
Slipping by a small margin once again, Universal’s sleeper hit Bridesmaids dipped 26% to an estimated $7.5M lifting the sum to $136.8M. Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides followed with an estimated $6.2M, down 43%, for a $220.3M cume from North America. Overseas markets contributed an estimated $25.9M pushing the international take to a towering $731.9M. That makes the Johnny Depp sequel the fourth biggest overseas blockbuster in box office history trailing just Avatar, Titanic, and the final Lord of the Rings pic which it will surpass at the end of this week. With an eye-popping $952.2M globally, Tides will break the magic $1 billion mark before the end of this month.
With only a slight expansion, Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris continued to hold up very well slipping a mere 10% to an estimated $5.2M giving Sony Classics $21.8M to date. It could very well double that amount by the end of its run. Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer fell apart in its second weekend tumbling 63% to an estimated $2.2M for a $11.2M total.
The top ten films grossed an estimated $143.2M which was down 24% from last year when Toy Story 3 opened in the top spot with $110.3M; but up 2% from 2009 when The Proposal with Ryan Reynolds opened at number one with $33.6M.
Author: Gitesh Pandya, Box Office Guru!
