Steven Soderbergh rolled the dice again this weekend with his third movie starring the Ocean gang. It's the fourth "third installment" movie to roll out this summer (Spider-man 3, Shrek 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 have also debuted) and so far it's the only one to actually improve the franchise. Of course, that wasn't hard to do. While Shrek 2 and Spider-man 2 were some of the best movies to recently hit screens, Ocean's Twelve pretty much bored audiences out of their skulls. While Ocean's Thirteen may be a step up in quality, it was a small step back at the box office.
Ocean's Thirteen was the number one movie but certainly not with a bang. At $37 million it's the weakest weekend opening for an Ocean's movie. Not by much, mind you. Ocean's Eleven bowed in at $38 million and Ocean's Twelve nudged it out at $39 million. A small step backwards, perhaps, but not a bad hand to be dealt. Let's just hope that most of the cast agreed to be paide a little less than usual. Typically guys like Pitt, Clooney, Damon and Pacino don't come cheap.
Eli Roth's complete waste of time, money, and talent (OK, just double checked the cast list...not too much talent was wasted) also opened this weekend with appropriately dismal results. Hostel Part II, a major contender for most unnecessary sequel ever (much less this summer) made just $8.7 million. Unfortunately, it only cost around $10 million to make which pretty much guarantees a tidy profit and a default green light for a Hostel Part III if Roth feels like wasting more time and resources. Yay.
Surf's Up may be lacking in the content department, but there's no denying that looks rather dazzling, which translates to big money in the budget department. That's bad news since the movie only pulled in $18 million at fourth place. It looks like the penguin rage is finally dying off (thank goodness) and we can move on to the next major kiddy trend. Expect Pixar's Ratatouille, which comes out later this summer, to be absolutely brilliant but spawn three or four unnecessary movies about animals posing as chefs. For the full weekend cash flow info check out the chart below.
Next weekend promises to be a lot of fun. Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer joins the summer sequel parade and the trailers look like it might actually be just as entertaining as the first. For those of you comic snobs out there who hated that the first Fantastic Four for not taking your characters completely seriously: get a grip. It's a franchise that is finally daring to enjoy itself instead of turning into a self-important soap opera. Nancy Drew will also step out and promises to be a solid summer adventure for the younger set. While Nancy Drew will be wonderful and no doubt sleuth her way into second place, look for the Fantastic Four to charge all the way to the top.
June 8 - 10, 2007
THTRS = Number of Screens
* Denotes new release.
Click on title to read CB Review
| 1. | Ocean's Thirteen * | $37,080,000 - Total: $37,080,000 | LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 3565 |
| 2. | Pirates of the Caribbean:At World's End | $21,316,000 - Total: $253,614,000 | LW: 1 WR: 3 THTRS: 4002 |
| 3. | Knocked Up | $20,017,000 - Total: $66,241,000 | LW: 2 WR: 2 THTRS: 2876 |
| 4. | Surf's Up * | $18,000,000 - Total: $18,000,000 | LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 3528 |
| 5. | Shrek the Third | $15,750,000 - Total: $281,892,000 | LW: 3 WR: 4 THTRS: 3925 |
| 6. | Hostel Part II * | $8,750,000 - Total: $8,750,000 | LW: N WR: 1 THTRS: 2350 |
| 7. | Mr. Brooks | $5,000,000 - Total: $18,682,000 | LW: 4 WR: 2 THTRS: 2453 |
| 8. | Spider-Man 3 | $4,400,000 - Total: $325,680,000 | LW: 5 WR: 6 THTRS: 2570 |
| 9. | Waitress | $1,650,000 - Total: $12,016,000 | LW: 6 WR: 6 THTRS: 708 |
| 10. | Disturbia | $550,000 - Total: $77,795,000 | LW: 10 WR: 9 THTRS: 568 |
