Oliver Stone’s World Trade Center is not off to a blockbuster start. The controversial filmmaker’s well reviewed 9/11 themed movie opened in theaters on Wednesday and even without any other newly opening competition it couldn’t manage first place.
Box Office Mojo is reporting that in it’s first day out of the chute WTC narrowly missed capturing number one and instead landed in second place behind last weekend’s big audience winner Talladega Nights: The Legend of Ricky Bobby. Single day estimates put WTC at a total take of $4,403,386 while Ricky Bobby earned $4,537,732.
With more new wide releases opening this Friday to compete for audience attention, it seems pretty unlikely now that World Trade Center will make much of a box office dent. Still, it’s well on its way to outdoing the year’s other September 11th based film United 93. The slick Hollywood sheen of big name stars and the potential (though in this case nonexistent) controversy of a movie by Oliver Stone has been enough to guarantee that the film finds a slightly wider audience. United 93 managed only $11 million in its first weekend. With a $4.4 million first day, Stone’s movie should be able to top that, though perhaps not by much.
However, unlike more cheaply produced United 93, the star-glutted WTC comes with a much heftier production budget of $65 million. All the controversy about how much of the film’s profits should be donated to the now rather wealthy 9/11 families may have been for naught.
Everyone keeps saying it, but perhaps now here there is incontrovertible proof. It’s too soon. Audiences aren’t ready. Five or ten years from now when they are, great movies like United 93 and to a lesser extent World Trade Center, will be there waiting for them on DVD.
