Weekend Box Office Analysis: June 10-12

Well after several weeks of 2011 beating 2010, this weekend we revert back to getting beat off last years box office. Weeks ago, everyone thought Super 8 would clean up at the box office. J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg doing what they do best -- a sci-fi monster movie. After all, Cloverfield opened to $40M so Super 8 was certainly going to better that. Right??? Well....actually, no!

This weekend, Super 8 took: Friday $12.2M, Saturday $14M, and its estimated Weekend total is looking like $37M (plus $1M of Thursday previews = $38M). And actually, that aint half bad considering the secretive marketing campaign that has surrounded this project. Up until last week, tracking put this at doing $25M for the three day weekend. But Paramount clearly decided they wanted a bit more money coming in. So they leaked a bit more footage which really caught peoples attention. While the studio and brain-trust behind the film were saying the budget is at $50M, everyone else has said that is rubbish! Most industry experts conclude the budget to be closer to $80M - not including marketing. But all in all it's encouraging to see an original summer movie overperforming at the North American box office, especially after Hollywood has spent the past month relentlessly beating up on not just the secretive marketing campaign but also what it's been deriding as a throwback to E.T. meets Close Encounters meets Jurassic Park.

Super 8 received an overall B+ CinemaScore - equal to X-Men: First Class but lower than Fast Five's 'A' grade. A few things that will go agsinst this movie: next week Warner Bros. releases Green Lantern which really has been tracking off the charts. Lantern could turn out to be the surprise smash of the summer. So look for Super 8 to take a big hit next weekend. So all in all it was very important for the sci-fi flick to have a big opening weekend. Also in recent weeks studios have released their movies at the same time worldwide, meaning we report a big overall total on the first weekend - domestic and international combined. Paramount though are holding back its international release for now!! Why?? No one knows, but expect this to be downloaded illegally around the world which will have a negative effect on its overall worldwide takings.

Dropping from 1st to 2nd is the critically acclaimed Fox/Marvel reboot, X-Men: First Class. The superhero movie had a solid opening last week ($56M at domestic, $60M international). Fox were quite happy with that but the big question is, does this have legs? And the answer is yes. Dropping only 55% X-Men is on track for a $25M weekend ($98M domestic total), which would make it just shy of $100M - it will hit that on Monday. By the end of this weekend it will have done about $200M worldwide following a similar path to Thor but remember, this film has no 3D to boost ticket sales. So all in all, Fox should be very happy with this and with no big event movie opening on the international locations, X-Men should have a good second weekend everywhere. Sequel? I think so.

Third Place goes to the Todd Phillips directed sequel, The Hangover Part II, which had a weekend like this: Friday $5.7M, Estimated Weekend $17.5M, Estimated Cume $215.3M. Part II has now grossed over $200M in its first 16 days of release for bragging rights as the largest grossing film of 2011 at the U.S. box office, internationally though business is not as good. It certainly hasn't broken any records. But a $300M worldwide total is for sure. Fourth place this weekend is Kung Fu Panda 2: Friday $4.6M, Estimated Weekend $17.5M, Estimated Cume $128M. While this is a respectable total thus far, many Dreamworks execs are very upset that the Panda sequel has not done better. This has led many industry personel to question the importance of 3D and if in fact it is a good move for the industry. Expectations were that Dreamworks was going to be seeing alot more money by now for this movie. A third Panda flick is unlikely.

Rounding out the top 5 is Johnny Depp's Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides: Friday $3.1M, Estimated Weekend $11.5M, Estimated Cume $209.3M. While this figure is not to be sniffed at, many at Disney were expecting a higher domestic box office return on this. It is really the international box office that has powered this to being the highest grossing movie of 2011 so far. And will no doubt cross the $1B mark at some point. Look for a 5th and 6th movie to be released later down the line.

The rest of the top 10 looks like this:
6. Bridesmaids: Friday $3.1M, Estimated Weekend $10.5M, Estimated Cume $124M
7. Judy Moody: Friday $2.2M, Estimated Weekend $6.2M
8. Midnight In Paris: Weekend $6.1M Estimated Cume $14.2M
9. Thor: Friday $700K, Estimated Cume $2M, Estimated Cume $173.3M
10. Fast Five: Friday $550K, Estimated Cume $1.8M, Estimated Cume $205.2M

Next week look for Green Lantern to dominate worldwide. My early predicton is the Ryan Reynolds comic book movie will do somewhere around $75M - $80M.