Warner Bros. big-budget
Green Lantern, which cost an estimated $300 million including marketing costs, made a mere $52.6 million over the weekend. This is, by anyone's estimation, a huge disappointment. Not only was the film incredibly expensive to produce (including Warner Bros. being forced to, late in the game, hire on more visual effects houses and inflate the budget by close to $10 million) but the advertising campaign and promotional tie-ins seemed to be going on for years practically (Green Tea! Get it?)
What's more, the film will undoubtedly do a lot worse this upcoming weekend, facing heavy
competition from Disney/Pixar's
Cars 2 (which is going after a similar young-male audience) and the generally
lackluster response both critically and from audiences. Warner Bros. desperately wanted this
thing to be a franchise. They'll be lucky to get one more movie out of it before having to
mount an even-more-lukewarm "reboot."
What's really telling is that
Green Lantern's failure may offer up the death knell of
two recent cinematic fads – one, the superhero movie and two, the 3D film (since, for the
third time this year, the 2D version of the same film is outpacing its 3D counterpart). Let's
hope that the tide is turning in the opposite direction – away from brightly colored
concoctions for 12-year-old boys and having to wear those silly Buddy Holly glasses every
time you visit the multiplex.
In the #2 slot, slipping just 40%, is J.J. Abrams' wonderful, homage-dipped
Super 8
, with $21.2 million, bringing its total to more than $72 million. Not bad for a little (relatively
speaking) movie with no major movie stars and a storyline that was, until very recently,
almost completely shrouded in mystery. Strong word-of-mouth clearly seems to be carrying
this one, and it hits that sweet spot of being edgy and scary enough to warrant a PG-13
rating but sweet enough that younger kids will want to go too.
Something younger kids clearly weren't interested in seeing was the Jim Carrey-starrer
Mr. Popper's
Penguins, which made just $18.2 million, enough to place it in the #3 spot.
Honestly, this thing isn't going to have any kind of theatrical life, with its audience being
cannibalized by
Cars 2 this weekend. But I'm not sure if it matters, since the movie
has a big star, a recognizable title (it was based on a beloved children's book), and adorable
penguins, which means that it will have a long shelf life for decades to come (including on
glittery high-definition Blu-ray!)
More distressingly, the abysmal comedy sequel
The Hangover, Part II
made another $9.6 million, which is enough to add to its total ($256 million domestic and
$488 worldwide) and officially make it the highest grossing R-rated comedy of all time. That
means it has surpassed the original film's haul in four short weeks (it took the earlier film's
entire theatrical run to amass that much cash).
Oh, and
Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides has become one of
the top 10 highest grossing films (in terms of international box office) of all time. Now we all
have to live with that.
- #1 Green Lantern (Warner Bros) - $53.1 million
- #2 Super 8 (Paramount) - $21.4 million
- #3 Mr. Popper's Penguins (F0x) - $18.4 million
- #4 X-Men: First Class (Fox) - $11.9 million
- #5 The Hangover, Part II (Warner Bros) - $10 million
- #6 Kung Fu Panda 2 (DreamWorks Animation) - $9 million
- #7 Bridesmaids (Universal) - $7 million
- #8 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Disney) - $6.6 million
- #9 Midnight in Paris (Sony Pictures Classics) - $4.8 million
- #10 Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer (Relativity) - $2.1 million