June 30 - July 2, 2006
THTRS = Number of Screens
* Denotes new release.
Click on title to read CB Review
| 1. | Superman Returns * |
| $52,150,000 - Total: $84,208,000 | |
| LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 4065 |
| 2. | The Devil Wears Prada * |
| $27,000,000 - Total: $27,000,000 | |
| LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 2847 |
| 3. | Click |
| $19,400,000 - Total: $77,918,000 | |
| LW: 1 WR: 2 THTRS: 3764 |
| 4. | Cars |
| $14,035,000 - Total: $182,056,000 | |
| LW: 2 WR: 4 THTRS: 3706 |
| 5. | Nacho Libre |
| $6,186,000 - Total: $64,959,000 | |
| LW: 3 WR: 3 THTRS: 3082 |
| 6. | The Lake House |
| $4,510,000 - Total: $38,735,000 | |
| LW: 6 WR: 3 THTRS: 2645 |
| 7. | The Fast and the Furious:Tokyo Drift |
| $4,432,000 - Total: $51,666,000 | |
| LW: 4 WR: 3 THTRS: 2670 |
| 8. | Waist Deep |
| $3,312,000 - Total: $15,175,000 | |
| LW: 5 WR: 2 THTRS: 1006 |
| 9. | The Break-Up |
| $2,830,000 - Total: $110,069,000 | |
| LW: 7 WR: 5 THTRS: 1912 |
| 10. | The Da Vinci Code |
| $2,300,000 - Total: $209,793,000 | |
| LW: 10 WR: 7 THTRS: 1384 |
Traditionally Superman is known as the guy who can leap tall buildings in a single bound. This weekend he got about half way up and smacked right into the side of it.
Opening on Wednesday, Superman Returns brought in a respectable but unexciting $21 million. Over the three day weekend the movie only managed $52 million, bringing the to-date total box office take to $85 million. For most movies that would be an exciting start, but Superman and director Bryan Singer have more than the weight of the world on their shoulders: they've got a big budget to worry about. Red may be a great shade for Superman's speedo, but it's not the kind of color you want to see at the box office.
Actual numbers for Superman Returns' total cost have been sketchy since rumors early this year began tossing out totals near $300 million. The guys over at Box Office Mojo are reporting $260 million for the production costs. Tack on another $40 million for advertising and marketing costs and it seems like those rumors may not have been so far off. If that's the case, turning a profit may be too tall a task for the Man of Steel.
A lot of films are able to recover their costs through foreign markets. There's not much hope there so far for Superman. He is, after all, the hero who stands for the American way in a world where the American way isn't very popular. In what I hope is a relatively limited release in foreign countries Superman Returns has only banked a meager $2 million. At this rate the studio is going to have to fall back on the merchandising and DVD sales markets to break even. That's not what the WB executives were hoping for.
There's been talk of a slight rebound for Superman over the 4th of July holiday. Don't bank on it. While Labor Day, Memorial Day and Thanksgiving send Americans to the theater in droves, most people are too broke from buying fireworks and too excited about firing them off to spend money at the movies. The Fourth may be an all-American holiday, but the all-American hero shouldn't expect too much help from it.
Execs over at 20th Century Fox are singing a different tune and not just because The Devil Wears Prada made a strong showing despite being under the shadow of Superman's cape. No, Prada's $27 million opening was only part of that celebration. Bryan Singer royally screwed Fox two years ago when he announced he was abandoning the studio's X-Men franchise (Singer directed the first two X-Men stories) to go make a Superman movie for Warner Brothers. Fox scrambled to stick to their production schedule and even pushed things up a bit to release before Singer's movie came out, a gamble that paid off big time. While X-Men: The Last Stand lacked some of the luster that it might have enjoyed under Singer's able hand, it was still a strong movie in its own right and banked nearly twice what Superman Returns mustered on its opening weekend. You can bet that right now there's a secret little party going on somewhere at the Fox studios.
Fox may have dared to put The Devil Wears Prada up against Superman, but no one is challenging next week's release of The Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. The sequel to 2003's surprise smash success Curse of the Black Pearl is the only big release next week and is poised to rock the box office boat, perhaps finally giving X-Men a run for its money for best opening weekend of the year. Black Pearl only managed $46 million its opening weekend, but at that point no one was expecting it to be such a terrific film. It was, after all, based on a Disneyland ride. Once the buzz got going the movie went on to earn an impressive $305 million domestically. This time around Captain Jack Sparrow has everyone's attention Dead Man's Chest is poised to take the cinema by storm. What isn't for certain is how well Superman will be able to hold up against that kind of competition.
