The OtherArena

[Bob Morris]

[jdw]

[Rian]

Cowboys & Aliens looks absolutely terrible, had they left the storyline going without the aliens involved, I think it would have been a blockbuster. It'll be out of the theaters within about six weeks.

[Bob Morris]

Rotten Tomatoes has eight reviews counted so far with six of the reviews being positive.

I think the buzz that's going to surround the movie is people curious to see how well the combination of Western and sci-fi movies works out. After that, if it's going to have any success, it needs strong word of mouth like Iron Man got.

Either way, C&A getting to $300 million is a long shot, but a strong buzz could certainly make it a $250 million to $275 million flick.

[Jeremy Billones]

Man, if a different sci-fi western gets to $300M there are going to be a lot of POed Firefly fans out there.

[jdw]

:)

I don't think it's doing $300M.

Was in the earlier post wondering if the buzz could help it get to a sleeperish $200M, which would be very good for the movie.

John

[Steve Yohe]

The PR and the trailer for Cowboys & Aliens has been terrible & I can't see a big rush to see it. Has bomb written on it. Cowboys are cliches and Ford seems to have the part of the old fart that runs the city usually reserved for Lee J Cobb. They haven't shown the alien, which is the same mistake 8mm made. So good luck.

If & when it bombs, everyone will be saying that westerns don't draw and this really doesn't seem like a true western.---Yohe

[jdw]

[Steve Yohe]

Potter after 12 days world wide=$881,995,885

[jdw]

As said ealier in the thread, it's chasing this number:

$1,119.1 The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
$1,066.2 Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
$1,063.2 Toy Story 3
$1,032.6 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides
$1,024.3 Alice in Wonderland
$1,001.9 The Dark Knight

Because it's not getting to these two:

$2,782.3 Avatar
$1,843.2 Titanic

It was down 72% in the US, and down 62% overseas.

$377M / $742M ROTK
$286M / $596M Potter 7.2

Potter 7.2 may get to $400M in the US. Not too far past $400M if it does, given the bleeding it's doing relative to Pirates-2... but it's possible.

It's declines Sat, Sun, Mon and Tue are all consistent with the rate at which Potter 6 declined in it's second week. Potter 6 didn't decline badly on it's third weekend (-39.2%), but in contrast Potter 7.1 was down -65.3% it's third weekend. Different time of year, though whereas Potter 6 was also a summer movie. Doesn't seem likely that Potter 7.2 will do *that* strongly.

Anyway, $800M overseas is possible. Only Avatar ($2022M), Titanic ($1242M) have gotten to $800M overseas. Pirates 4 ($794.6M) is just shy, but Mojo has it taking in just $900K last week, so getting another $5M might be tough.

I was thinking in the range of $350M/$700M split. $400M/$800M is possible. I'd be surprised if it's much higher than that.

John

[Bob Morris]

Potter 7.2: $291.6 million entering the weekend. Way behind the pace of he Dark Knight, but still slightly ahead of Pirates 2. The question is how much more it drops this coming weekend, with Cowboys vs. Aliens and Smurfs opening.

Captain America is at $86 million. It's staying ahead of Thor's pace but it doesn't look like it's going to be this summer's Iron Man, unless it has a strong second weekend.

Transformers 3 hit $330.5 million. It will reach $350 million, possibly $375 million.

If Potter 7.2 stays ahead of Pirates 2's pace for the next couple of weeks, then it could take the summer box office crown, even if it doesn't reach $400 million.

[jdw]

Potter 7.2 is bleeding over $1M a weekday,and runs into Pirates 2's strong $35M third weekend coming up.

$296,534,509 Potter 7.2
$286,684,032 Pirates 2

Potter is likely to be somewhere in the $20M's range, so it could lose all of it's $10M lead on Pirates 2 by Sunday. That said, Pirate 2 went more then $23M beyond $400M, so Potter 7.2 still has margin to work with to get to $400M.

I'm skeptical of it getting to $400M, but even if it doesn't, it has a ton of margin to stay above $375M.

Looking at it in another direction:

To date (through Thu)
$296,534,509 Potter 7.2
$237,762,860 Potter 6

Potter 7.2 has been ahead every day, killed it last weekend, and had big leads Mon-Tue before a tighter $600K lead on Wed, then back up to $1M on Fri. Coming weekend:

$17,909,385 Potter 6

Potter 7.2 is going to crush that barring total collapse (which doesn't seem to he happening on the weekdays). So it's nearly $60M ahead of the pace of Potter 6 and on a daily level adding to that lead.

Total
$301,959,197 Potter 6

So it's $60M ahead and increasing against a $300M movie. It's hard to see that lead ending up anything less than $75M, which would give Potter 7.2 a "low" of $375M.

I think Potter 7.2 is going to win the summer. Though I confess that Trans-3's staying power is surprising me. Another $1.4M on Wed & Thu each. Trans-1 had another $29M left in the tank at this point, and Trans-3 isn't showing any worse legs. Pretty clear $350M movie, and probably $360M.

John

[jdw]

Edited the post above to include Thursday.

Looking at the other Potter 7.2 comp to keep an eye on for the match towards $400M is Spidey:

This Week
$88,914,252 Spidey
$70,417,440 Potter 7.2

Last Weekend
$71,417,527 Spidey
$47,422,212 Potter 7.2

Mon-Thu
$17,496,725 Spidey
$22,995,228 Potter 7.2

So Potter's summer week days were able to make back some of that weekend hammering, cutting the weekend loss of $24M to just a weekly loss of $18.5M.

To date:

$296,534,509 Potter 7.2
$240,536,756 Spidey

It's a huge $56M lead. Of course Spidey still had a strong $163M left in the tank at that point. It's going to be closing, starting with the next two monster weekends:

$45,036,912 Weekend #3
$28,508,104 Weekend #4 ($35,814,844 including Memorial day)

For some context, those weekends were even better than The Dark Knight's great legs.

Spidey could knock $20M right off Potter's lead this weekend. And even after Memorial Day, it still had another $70M in the tank. It also eventually got some Summer Weekdays that will let it close he weekday gaps, though those are likely to be much smaller next week.

Still, $56M lead with a $3M marging that Spidey went above $400M... much like vs Pirates-2, it's something to work with if there isn't a big drop.

I do tend to think there will be a big drop and that $380M will become the new more reasonable number to eyeball.

John

[jdw]

About $13M estimates each for Smurfs and Cowboys. I think Brandon at Mojo might be quite off on his estimates unless these two were frontloaded:

[jdw]

Second Weekends
$34,703,035 Thor
$24,905,000 Cap-Am
$24,128,986 X-Class

-61.7%

Basically ran through all it's summer weekday gains against Thor and is now down $3M. It will pick some of that back up during the week, but we can conservatively say that it's not going to get to $200M.



Third Weekend
$45,036,912 Spidey (-36.9%)
$35,215,201 Pirates 2 (-43.5%)
$21,925,000 Potter 7.2 (-53.8%)

To Date
$321,899,233 Pirates 2
$318,460,000 Potter 7.2
$285,573,668 Spidey

Pirates 2 passed it and left it in the dust. Spidey has another low -36.7% down to $28M next week. Again, Potter 7.2 will hold some of that off via weekend gains, but will get hammed on every weekend from here on out.

Pirates-2 has just a -41.5% drop next weekend to $20.9M, essentually what Potter 7.2 did this weekend. Potter pulling a 50% drop would add another $10M to the gap.

On the flip, it continues to move away from Potter 6. About $4M above what Potter 6 took in it's third weeked, it's about $63M ahead.

$400M is out. $380M+ looks pretty reasonable.

It did go over $1B world wide. #3 all-time remains very doable.

Cowboys and Smurfs look like they're neck and neck for the weekend, though at low $30M levels.

John