X-Men: Days of Future Past and the Elusive $100 Million Movie Opening
Richard Corliss
$90 million-plus isn't bad for an all-star reunion of the X-Men freaks and geeks, but it leaves the movie year with no nine-figure blockbuster
Jennifer Lawrence runs around in a skintight scaly blue suit, with matching blue face, occasionally morphing into a U.S. Army officer or a Vietnamese general. Along with his fingernail cutlery, Hugh Jackman sports veins that pop out of his arms like the 3-D detailing on a muscle car. Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy exchange meaningful glowers while their older selves, played by Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, gaze at them from a half-century into the future with the indulgent perplexity of grandfathers watching a couple of crazy kids they cant help loving.
These attractive folks are part of an all-cool cast that unites the stars of the first X-Men trilogy (200006) and the prequel series launched three summers ago with X-Men: First Class. That Marvel franchise fusion plus a fabulous scene where superfast-mo Peter/Quicksilver (Evan Peters) zips around the Pentagon kitchen deflecting bullets, saving lives and pulling pranks to the tune of Jim Croces Time in a Bottle should have been enough to cue a lemming rush to the multiplexes and make X-Men: Days of Future Past the first $100 million three-day weekend of 2014.
Instead, director Bryan Singers freaks-and-geeks reunion earned only $91.4 million from its Thursday evening previews through Sunday. Thats a smaller haul than the $93.2 million amassed last weekend by the Godzilla remake or the $91.6 million for Marvels The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in early May. Add in the Memorial Day gross, and Days of Future Past will have a four-day estimated total of about $111 million, which puts it a mediocre 34th on the all-time four-day list, behind seven other Marvel movies.
Most humbling of all, the new X-Men movie couldnt crack the $95 million tally for yet another Marvel sibling, Captain America: The Winter Soldier. That picture portrays a lesser entry from the comics companys superhero stable and Winter Soldier opened in April, an unlikely month for box-office behemoths.
All this firepower, and no $100 million three-day weekend yet. In the past decade of blockbuster action films, that has happened only twice: in 2009, when the first nine-figure movie was Transformers 2 in late June, at $109 million; and in 2011, when the finale of the Harry Potter films took in nearly $170 million in mid-July. Hollywood loves to play the numbers game, and $100 million first achieved by the 2002 Spider-Man has a nice, round glow and a luscious scent. To moguls with an expensive film to market, it smells like victory.
Of the 26 movies to score at least a $100 million three-day debut, 13 opened before Memorial Day, and 11 of those in May, which Hollywood considers the beginning of the summer season. By this time in 2007, three May releases the third episodes of the original Spider-Man, Shrek and Pirates of the Caribbean franchises had enjoyed $100 million-plus openings. In 2010, both Alice in Wonderland (in March) and Iron Man 2 (early May) had exceeded the magic figure. And in March of 2012, Lawrences The Hunger Games blasted out of the gate with $152.5 million, followed six weeks later by Marvels The Avengers, which set the current three-day record: $207.4 million.
By X-Men standards, Days of Future Past is in the middle of the litter: well above the $54.5 million earned by the first film plain old X-Men in 2000 and the $55.1 million tallied by the 2011 First Class relaunch, but dwarfed by the $102.75 million for the 2006 X-Men: The Last Stand. In real dollars, Future Past also lags behind the 2003 X2: X-Men United. Its $85.6 million opening would be $113.7 million today. And thats not figuring in surcharges for 3-D and IMAX projections.
With higher ticket prices and familiar superheroes, why cant this years movies open to a measly $100 million? Perhaps the heroes are too familiar: both of this months Marvel offerings, Spider-Man and X-Men, are recast recyclings of popular series that concluded a mere seven and eight years ago. Some viewers see these as the bus-and-truck versions of stories they loved not so long ago. And so they dont see the new ones.
Aside from superhero fatigue, these audiences may also be suffering from Marvel overload. Marvel Entertainment is the canniest movie company around, with near-genius amalgamation of the creatures spawned in their comic books. But three Marvel movies in two months may be one of two too many. Didnt Captain America just save the world in a fashion similar to that used by the X-Men to prevent a mad scientist (Peter Dinklage) from giving the ultimate weapon of a sentinel army to Richard Nixon? Is the movie world in danger of overpopulation by shape-shifters and twisted geniuses?
We hope not. We like many of the Marvel movies, including the latest Captain America. But the superhero surfeit may cause consumer resistance, and keep the $100 million weekend a pipe dream until a month from now, when the fourth Transformers opens. If Michael Bay and Optimus Prime cant save the movie blockbuster, who can?
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