What movie took the top spot at the weekend box office?
Executives at 20th Century Fox are thanking their lucky stars for the huge overseas demand to see The Wolverine. Why? Because honestly, the film didn't perform all that well in the U.S. It did come on strong elsewhere, in fact, it did better than any other X-Men film ever has on a worldwide scale.
I've said this before, but I feel it's worth reiterating: I don't think that a movie pulling in tens of millions of dollars is a "bomb" per se, but it is when you take into consideration the budgets of some of these summer blockbusters. So yes, while The Wolverine did win the weekend box office race, with a take of $55 million, it's still lower than the general projections - and the film had a budget of around $120 million. Considering that The Wolverine had absolutely no major competition (other new releases were limited), this isn't exactly great news for the industry. Globally, The Wolverine did really well, taking in an additional $86 million: enough to keep the studio from hyperventilating, but the U.S. numbers are just not that great.
What happened? Why didn't we see The Wolverine making at least as much as the last Wolverine film ($85 million)? I can't speak for all of you, but I can speak for myself: I'm just kind of tired of super hero movies at the moment. I am in the throes of summer blockbuster fatigue, I guess. And also, I've now seen this past weekend's number two film, The Conjuring, twice.
Didn't I just say not long ago that I would "absolutely not" see The Conjuring ever again? I'm a liar. One of my best friends in the world came to town, requesting a non-kid movie (she's a mom of two little ones) and preferably something suspenseful and/or scary. What else could I possibly suggest? And for the record, even though I knew what was coming, I still jumped and screamed with the best of them watching The Conjuring again.
Back to the weekend box office: The Conjuring was second with $22 million domestically, followed by Despicable Me 2 ($16.4 million), Turbo ($13.7 million) and Grown Ups 2 ($11.6 million). That's not a bad weekend overall, but it's certainly not in line with what we saw in June (when a whole heap of summer blockbusters rolled out seemingly at once).
What, if anything, did you all see this past weekend? And, if you stayed away from the theaters, why did you?
Photo courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter