http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/box-office-update-smurfs-gaining-217350Box Office Update: 'Smurfs' Gaining on 'Cowboys & Aliens'
2:46 AM 7/30/2011 by Pamela McClintock
The two films were in a surprisingly close race Friday; "Crazy, Stupid, Love" off to good start.
Jon Favreau’s big-budget Cowboys & Aliens ended up in a relatively close race with Sony’s 3D kids pic The Smurfs for the Friday crown, and possibly the weekend.
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Observers say Cowboys and Smurfs both looked to gross $13 million to $13.5 million for the day, with Cowboys -- from DreamWorks and Universal -- falling short of reaching its projected $15 million opening day take.
Cowboys may now gross roughly $38 million for the weekend, less than expected. If Smurfs continues to do overperform, it could come close to the $38 million mark as well.
Coming in No. 3 at the domestic box office on Friday was Paramount and Marvel’s holdover Captain America: The First Avenger, which was on track to gross $7.5 million for the day and roughly $25 million for the weekend.
The third new film of the weekend, Warner Bros.’ Steve Carell-Ryan Gosling comedy Crazy, Stupid, Love got off to a solid start, likely grossing $6.5 million on Friday and $18 million or $19 million for the weekend.
Cowboys, starring Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford, couldn’t have better pedigree. Stacey Snider and Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks oversaw production and co-financed the $163 million pic with Universal and Ryan Kavanaugh’s Relativity Media. Brian Grazer and Ron Howard’s Imagine Entertainment also produced the film.
But original stories are always a risk, not to mention mixing the Western and sci-fi genres. Westerns generally draw older moviegoers, and Cowboys has indeed been tracking best among males over 25, followed by males under 25, who are Favreau and sci-fi fans.
Cowboys grossed a soft $700,000 in midnight runs Thursday night, suggesting that younger fanboys weren’t rushing to see the film.
Earlier this summer, Super 8 grossed $13.1 million on its first Friday, along with $1 million in special sneaks the previous Thursday night. Super 8 went on to post an opening weekend gross of $36.5 million.
The big difference between the two movies is their price tags. J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 reportedly cost $55 million to make. DreamWorks financed half of Cowboys’ pricey $163 million budget, while Universal and Relativity Media each put up 25%.
Smurfs cost $110 million to produce.
Maybe this year won't be seen as the bust it was said to earlier.
I can't remember any article that said it was a bad year worldwide. It was more about the domestic market.
Aside from Fast Five, I hope Universal gets successful adventure films again someday.
It saddens me because Universal is remembered so well for their adventure/summer blockbusters. A good amount of them being good and some of their most notable from Steven Spielberg.
The big difference between the two movies is their price tags. J.J. Abrams Super 8 reportedly cost $55 million to make. DreamWorks financed half of Cowboys pricey $163 million budget , while Universal and Relativity Media each put up 25%.
but isnt this a normal budget for a summer movie with so many known actors?Am I reading this correctly that Smurfs may in fact come out on top this weekend? How much was spent on C&A again? Upward of 160 million, yikes. And if that Cap Am projection holds that's a bigger drop than I imagined.
Off topic but I saw Face/Off for the first time yesterday...
One word to describe: What?
with Travolta and CAge both trying to out-Nic Cage the other--that it is brilliant. Plus, unlike some popular action director's today (coughBaycough), that movie knew how to have stupid fun without insulting/boring the audience.
My opinion, of course.
Uh yeah, well, he makes movies for ****ing children, and anyone who wants not not be a nitpicky uptight adult for 2 hours.
Thats a bigger drop than I expected for CA. Eh, no skin off my back as I still dug the movie. It's funny how none of these comicbook movies broke out this year. I still expect it to end with about 170mil as it should stablize next weekend. Sigh none of the comicbook or action movies had legs this summer.
Cowboys and Aliens is a huge flop and might not even open as well as Super 8. I believe that Smurfs is coming out on top.
3D surcharges aren't helping things, they are hurting them in the domestic market. Unfortunately hollywood makes more money from the domestic boxoffice so yeah, they want movies to succeed here first and foremost.
Despite 3D prices Transformers 3 isn't going to make as much as Transformers 2. So 3D is good internationally but domestically it doesn't seem to be bringing people out to the theaters.
Next year is going to look good for comicbook movies because of Batman and the like but it's a fluke year. And I'm sure that despite a record opening that TDKR's will not be making as much as TDK domestically and TASM is a reboot so it has no chance of making the amount of money Raimi's Spider-Man movies made despite what the haters what to happen.
Thats a bigger drop than I expected for CA. Eh, no skin off my back as I still dug the movie. It's funny how none of these comicbook movies broke out this year. I still expect it to end with about 170mil as it should stablize next weekend. Sigh none of the comicbook or action movies had legs this summer.
Fatigue has definately set in. Thor's legs were decent and so were First Class (CA's remains to be seen but obviously it's legs won't be good) but they still weren't even as good as the first X-Men's and the first X-Men did not have good legs. Even with Thor you would think that a movie that had a 48% drop in it's second weekend would have had a 3.0multipler. But yeah, Thor wins the legs sweepstates eventhough it itself didn't have a great run. And 3D ticket sales are the only reason for that 270mil number.I don't think it's funny at all, I think it's proof that the audience is limited and anyone who thinks fatigue hasn't played a part is kidding themselves. If we look at all the superhero flicks this year they all opened in roughly the same $55-65 million range, the only one that had decent legs was Thor and that was mostly due to overseas audiences, very telling. Films like IM and TDK are a fluke, they're not the rule.
Fatigue has definately set in. Thor's legs were decent and so were First Class (CA's remains to be seen but obviously it's legs won't be good) but they still weren't even as good as the first X-Men's and the first X-Men did not have good legs. Even with Thor you would think that a movie that had a 48% drop in it's second weekend would have had a 3.0multipler. But yeah, Thor wins the legs sweepstates eventhough it itself didn't have a great run. And 3D ticket sales are the only reason for that 270mil number.
I'm not trying to pick on these films but it's strange that none of them could make 200mil domestically. Not Thor with it's coveted first weekend of May slot, not GL, not First Class with it's amazing reviews and not Captain America with it's good reviews. I'm not expecting Iron Man numbers but the fact that none of these films even cracked 200mil says a hell of alot.
The party is over and I think that studios will eventually realize that Batman and Spider-Man and the like will always survive but those are exceptions to the rule.
I agree with you.Either that or the budgets for these second tier characters are gonna need to be reduced significantly. IM has become to some extent a false expectation for second tier characters, but the truth is it's nothing more than being one of those movies that was around at the right place at the right time with the right actor in the lead, the perfect storm in other words.