THE BOX OFFICE REPORT: JULY 1

I’m going to begin this week’s Box Office Report with how I completed last week’s:

“Next week we get a quartet of new releases, with none of them likely to take the top spot from Brave (although we might see a small upset if Ted gets all of the “Family Guy” fans to leave their homes). And I guess we should never count out Madea. Although damn it all, I wish we could…”

Well folks, we didn’t just get a small upset. We got a good old fashioned butt-whoopin…

1. Ted - $54.1 (first week)

Wow. Seth Macfarlane has some kind of mass appeal. Don’t get me wrong, I am very much looking forward to checking out the comedy (it’s getting great reviews and those I know who have seen it say it’s hilarious) but it wasn’t one of those opening-weekend type movies for me. But boy was it ever for the general public. Raking in the 8th biggest opening for an R rated movie, Ted benefited from a brutally hot weekend on the East coast as people were willing to spend a few bucks to enjoy OPAC (what I like to call “Other People’s Air Conditioning”). The budget for the comedy is listed at $50 million. Let’s just say that Seth isn’t going to be looking for work anytime soon. Congrats to him and his creative partners for coming up with something truly original and (apparently) very funny. What’s also interesting is that Ted was originally slated for July 13 but when G.I. Joe 2 postponed to next March (I’ll mention this again in a second) Ted got bumped up two weeks. Whoever pushed for that idea needs a raise and stat!

2. Magic Mike – $39.2 (first week)

If Ted hadn’t surprised everyone by bringing in the crazy dough it did, we would be talking about nothing but the power of Channing Tatum. You might remember my prediction back in January that this could be the year of Tatum and I couldn’t have been more right on that one. Tatum has now three straight opening weekends of at least $36 million under his belt and now it doesn’t seem so ridiculous to push back the release date of the G.I. Joe sequel in order to give more screen time to Channing (link potentially spoilerish just so you know). The stripper drama (still feels weird to describe a movie as such) did most of it’s business on Friday with Bachelorette parties and Ladies Nights (and if you’re in my neck of the woods, just a Friday) pushing it’s total upwards. I am still interested to check it out (and am supposed to review it too…) and hope to see it soon. And it seems I won’t be alone by any stretch.

3. Brave – $34 ($131.7 total)

The usual 50% drop-off doesn’t help Pixar’s chance of a huge success. At this point, they’ll be lucky to get to $200 and it seems much more likely that it’ll hit that $170-180 zone that I said last week. Like I said before, it’s not surprising that their next film is Monsters University. They need a HIT and not just a hit.

4. Tyler Perry’s Madea’s Witness Protection – $26.4 (first week)

I don’t even want to discuss this film, but I suppose I must. Gaining only a 25% on Rotten Tomatoes, Perry continues to make money despite his absolute hatred for the psychoses of the intelligent American. And he will continue to get the money to do so, because this film only cost about $20 million to make and it will easily double that before all is said and done. And this is why those like Eugene Levy, Denise Richards, and even the former Lil’ Romeo will agree to hop in a movie with him. There’s going to be a good-sized paycheck coming. Every. Single. Time…. (Sigh)

5. Madagascar 3 – $11.8 ($180 total)

Seems like I called this fight a bit early. It’s now looking like this threequel is headed for $200 million, thanks in large part to school having let out and kids everywhere not being as interested in Brave. It might take it’s full theatrical run to get there, but it should cross in a couple weeks with the help of the 4th of July traffic.

6. Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter – $6 ($29 total)

It can now be called a bomb. A near-$70 million budget and you’re barely hitting the halfway mark. Not even a potential bump in the director’s homeland of Russia is going to make this one profitable.

7.Prometheus -$4.9 ($118.3 total)

While not the huge hit that Ridley and Co. had hoped for, the Alien prequel is now far and away the most successful of the series and will eclipse the film’s budget in domestic gross alone. Throw in it’s over-$160 million international gross so far, and this has been a success. At least commercially…

8. Moonrise Kingdom – $4.9 ($18.4 total)

The Wes Anderson film has started to expand a bit more and more money is starting to come in. It now has it’s sights set on The Royal Tenenbaums $52 million gross as the highest grossing film of Anderson’s career. Fantastic reviews (94% on Rotten Tomatoes) will push that number higher and I think when all is said and done, Wes is going to have quite the success on his hands. I mean, hell, the budget has already been eclipsed! And while it doesn’t fully interest me, I’m glad that those that do love them some quirk have enjoyed Moonrise.

9. Snow White and the Huntsman – $4.4 ($145.6 total)

Five weeks in and still chugging along. Can I just mention how much I love/hate Chris Hemsworth? Dude is awesome, looks awesome and is crazy successful. Gotta be jealous of a guy like that…

10. People Like Us – $4.3 (first week)

Not even Captain Kirk could save this sappy drama from the bottom of the Top 10. It just barely squeaked out ahead of The Avengers which you might have heard came out about 2 months ago (and ohbytheway just passed the $600 million mark). You can’t say this necessarily bad for Chris Pine, but it’s certainly not good. But, given it’s bad title, bad marketing, and (probably) bad follow-through in making a decent movie, well, I guess you can go ahead and call this all bad.

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That’s it for this week at the Box Office. Next week sees a staggered release schedule with The Amazing Spider-Man hitting theaters on Tuesday, some Katy Perry nonsense arriving Thursday, and then the Oliver Stone-directed Savages releasing normally on Friday. So how much will the reboot make in it’s opening weekend? It’s hugely important to it’s success, obviously, with a little film called The Dark Knight Rises out in just 18 days (18 days!!!!). It’s hard to predict with it’s Tuesday release, but with the 4th of July in the mix, anything really is possible.

I’ll see you next Sunday to discuss!