Weekend Receipts: The Expendables Eat Pray Love and Scott Pilgrim for Dinner
Looks like the agents for Hulk Hogan, Mr. T, Carl Weathers and Steven Seagal should wait by their phones: The Expendables exploded the box office this weekend, meaning Ari Lerner's dream of a sequel remains quite alive. In other box office news: Julia Roberts will have to hope for Julie & Julia-like legs and Scott Pilgrim ran out of quarters. Click ahead for the weekend receipts.
1. The Expendables
Gross: $35,030,000 (new)
Screens: 3,6270 (PSA: $10,713)
Weeks: 1
If the success of The Expendables proves anything, it's that people still love Sylvester Stallone. This marks the fifth decade in a row that the musclebound star has seen one of his film's lead the box office. As for what else to take out of this opening: Give it up for the Lionsgate marketing department, which didn't worry about spoiling the film's big cameos, so long as it meant getting fannies in the seats.
2. Eat, Pray, Love
Gross: $23,700,000 (new)
Screens: 3,082 (PSA: $7,690)
Weeks: 1
Who knew Eat, Pray, Love would perform like a geek movie? There was a huge upfront gotta-see factor for fans of Elizabeth Gilbert's source memoir -- almost 40 percent of its weekend total came from Friday night. In the end, Julia Roberts' return to the big screen wound up grossing about $3 million more than Julie & Julia opened to last summer. That film, with great reviews and strong word of mouth, topped $90 million before shuffling off. Whether Roberts can turn a similar trick remains to be seen.
3. The Other Guys
Gross: $18,000,000 ($70,543,000)
Screens: 3,651 (PSA: $4,930)
Weeks: 2 (change: -49.4%)
Not even the release of those incredibly out of place closing credits could slow down The Other Guys this weekend! Ahem.
4. Inception
Gross: $11,370,000 ($248,554,000)
Screens: 3,120 (PSA: $3,644)
Weeks: 5 (change: -38.6%)
Inception still hasn't dropped more than 40 percent during any weekend in the last five, so its staying power domestically continues to be quite remarkable. People love this thing -- just not 11-year-old film critics. Worldwide, Inception is closing in on $560 million in ticket sales, which sounds like a lot of black ink for Warner Bros. until you realize that Sherlock Holmes grossed $523 million worldwide for the studio on a budget that was roughly 56 percent smaller than what Christopher Nolan had to play with.
5. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
Gross: $10,525,000 (new)
Screens: 2,818 (PSA: $3,735)
Weeks: new
And you thought Kick-Ass was a box office disappointment. Not even the near unanimous love of every person on the Internet -- though not Jeff Wells; get off his lawn, you effete kids! -- could give Scott Pilgrim vs. The World a bigger opening weekend than Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, despite the fact that it appeared on over 400 more screens and cost anywhere between six and nine times as much. That, friends, is bad. On the bright side, the film is great, so long as you're a fan of the graphic novel. And $10.5 million is double the opening of Edgar Wright's previous film, Hot Fuzz. Continue? 5, 4, 3, 2...
[Numbers via Box Office Mojo]
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Comments
Chris,
You're comparing apples and oranges. 'Sherlock Holmes' is breezy popcorn cinema starring Iron Man. What's amazing about Inception's box office take isn't that it made $500 mil (ok, that's KIND OF cool), but that it made $500 mil considering the kind of movie it is. Usually the kind of movies that make that kind of money are, well, 'Sherlock Holmes'.
Are you counting Spy Kids 3-D as Stallone's chart topper for the 00's?
Did I really just write "The oo's"?
Quijibo, I've always felt like apples and oranges are too similar, as they're both fruits. Comparing Sherlock Holmes and Inception is like comparing apples and Tom Berengers.
Because they are so dissimilar.
Not to start another Inception war, but: I think Inception is precisely the kind of movie that makes lots of money worldwide: Big stars, big director, big action. The reason I thought it wouldn't play as well domestically as it has (though bear in mind, I thought it would gross around $170 million), is because I mistakenly assumed it would be too cerebral for audiences. It isn't. It's big, loud, fun and action-packed. And in that regard, it is very much like Sherlock Holmes... just way more expensive.
PS, I fixed your comments so there is only one!
The kind of movie it is? You mean a sci fi version of Oceans Eleven? It's a big, flashy, commercial movie. Not a think piece. Let's stop pretending otherwise.
You rock, dude, thanks!
RE: "Scott Pilgrim" - $90 million cost(not including P&A), $10.5 million opening.
Does this FINALLY put the nail in the coffin on making "Comic Con Geek Only" skewing movies??
Yes the geeks are hardcore, but if every person who goes to SDCC went to see the movie TWICE, that only comes to about $4 million (the rest being made up of the geeks who couldn't get out of their parents basement to go to the con and watched the con from the interweb).
As every "geek centric" movie that doesn't try for "mainstream crossover" has shown ("Fanboys, "Kick Ass", pretty much every Kevin Smith movie barring the horrible "Cop Out"), the Internet/comic con geeks are loud and proud on the web, but in reality, aren't an economic box office force to cater to. Yes every super hero movie wants them on side but the big hits, (Spiderman, Iron Man, Batman) are "4 quadrant" crossover movies, not "fanboy only" flicks.
As a studio exec said recently (paraphrasing a bit) about a comic book movie in production: "Geeks? who CARES about the Geeks, we've GOT the geeks. I want a big wide mainstream audience."
$90 million for a geek movie? What moron at Uni greenlit this??? Comcast should "disconnect his cable" ASAP.
Aww, mutual love-in Winchester. Keep up the good commenting.
Thank you. Best comment I've read about Inception.
Who greenlit this? Someone who wanted to make a good movie and something a bit different from the norm.
Sometimes it works (District 9) sometimes it doesn't.
If they didn't greenlight unique and different movies, movie-going would be an even more frustrating experience than it already is.
In other words, Inception is a popcorn movie, albeit one with lofty pretensions.
RE: "Meh's" comment.
"Someone who wanted to make a good movie"?
I guess all the Coke and Whores at Universal blinded him as to what constitutes "good".
The movie is all flash, ADD cutting and overdone VFX. No characters to care about(just carcartures), no arcs we can believe in, nothing but "visual eye candy junk food".
And nothing you can say changes the fact that THERE IS NO AUDIENCE FOR THIS MOVIE to justify spending $90 MILLION plus P&A (probably another $80-90 million). For all their "internet noise", the hardcore Geekboy/girl audience is TINY...This isn't Batman or Superman (fanboy friendly properties with a wide fanbase going way beyond the "cult of geekdom")...this thing looked about as palatable as "Speed Racer" from the trailers/commercials and the trailers didn't lie. That was EXACTLY what the movie was. Loud, colorful, annoying, ultimately BORING and non sensical.
Given the massive marketing push on this and it barely mustering $10 million on it's opening weekend just shows how insignificant the geek audience is when a movie is just targeted to them. You want to make a "geeks only" movie, do it for $5 million guerilla style and you might have a success.
I haven't seen Scott Pilgrim yet, but I agree that it's nice that some studio heads out there are trying to make quality movies.
The problem here is throwing $90 million at a niche movie. District 9 is a great example of a "different" type of movie, but it also disproves your point. District 9 cost $30 million to make.
If Scott Pilgrim was budgeted at $30-$40 million, it would be well on its way to turning a nice (albeit small) profit. I like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, but those movies have a very limited audience, as does Scott Pilgrim. Giving Edgar Wright that much money to make a movie starring Michael Cera and based on a graphic novel is never going to pay off.
Indeed, Micheal Cera has played his last 2D geek character. Enough is enough. The grosses are getting worse and worse (remember Youth In Revolt, another bomb starring Micheal Cera as a geeky dude?)