You'll notice our regular Box Office reporter, Scott Gwin, is absent this week. The lucky bastard decided to go off and get hitched, leaving me to report on this weekend's box office take. With that in mind I offer my congratulations to Scott and my condolences to the rest of you readers for having to deal with my less experienced take on matters, although we do a brief analysis of the box office each week in our Weekly Blend Audio Show. One paragraph in and I've already resorted to self-promotion.
Cars was the main new offering this weekend and it managed to grab the checkered flag as it raced into first place (second paragraph and I'm using bad appropriately themed comparisons). I know what you're asking though - how does the Pixar/Disney take compare to previous films? Down a little bit. The Incredibles, Pixar's last flick, broke $70 million on its opening weekend, as did their 2003 film Finding Nemo. You'll have to go back to 2001's Monsters, Inc to find an opening in the low $60 million range. It's a fine step up from the initial Pixar/Disney run, Toy Story which snatched less than $30 million on its opening weekend, but ever since it had been an increase in revenue with each film. Cars marks a bit of a decline for the company, but don't expect that to mean too much. The audiences have been loving Cars, even if they didn't drive in droves to see it. Besides, while $62 million may not be an increase, it's not exactly small change.
Also of note is The Omen remake which broke all traditions and opened on Tuesday in order to meet the 6/6/06 marketing campaign. The movie broke Tuesday records (not much of a feat) with a $12 million opening, but only beat that opening day by a few million over the course of the weekend. It would seem once that "date of the beast" passed so did a lot of interest in Damien. What DVD campaign Fox will be able to grab a hold of is anyone's guess, but I'm sure they'll find something.
Last but not least comes the last of this weekend's new openings, A Prarie Home Companion. The movie that makes Lindsay Lohan think she's big enough to drop out of small films made an extremely small showing at the box office. The film can't even brag that it made more per screen than other movies. Even though there's no reported budget to compare it to, I'd say Companion is in need of more viewers or it won't be long before Lohan starts looking at another Herbie sequel.
