SUNDAY 8:00 a.m. (Pacific): Pouring through the numbers and working the phones this morning has led me to revise the numbers I released Saturday night. In addition to playing huge with family audiences on Saturday, there was a huge boost in teen business on Saturday night, as Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Paramount) surged 19 percent. That improves Crystal Skull‘s Saturday take to an estimated $38.69.
Studio sources tell me that, although teens did not come out in the hoped-for numbers on Steven Spielberg‘s latest blockbuster on Thursday, that audience was still looking for a movie to see this weekend. After all, how many times can the Under 25’s see Paramount’s other May tentpole movie Iron Man.
With a $35.52M Sunday, the new Indy will finish with an excellent $103.3M for traditional three-day weekend. With a 19 percent drop on Monday, Crystal Skull could reach $132.29M for the official four-day Memorial Day weekend, leaving it about $7M shy of the record for the frame set by Pirates of the Caribbean 3 last May. When the $25M Thursday is added, Crystal Skull will have registered $157.33M by Tuesday morning, probably the all-time fourth-best 5-Day performance in movie history.
Please note that when Paramount reports numbers on Sunday, they may very well come in a bit lower than my numbers. They will likely be a bit more conservative and are probably planning to come in with higher actuals.
Saturday night also proved stronger for Prince Caspian (Disney) and Iron Man. Prince Caspian appears to have fallen just shy of $9M, and it will likely finish with a $23.26M three-day and a much-improved four-day of $30M. That should give the Walden Media sequel a new cume of $98.15M. Meanwhile, the Marvel-produced Iron Man seized another $7.72M and a revised three-day projection of $20M. Tony Stark and his alter ego will probably top $26M for four-days, pushing to a new cume of $258.21M.
On an interesting side note, Paramount is enjoying a spectacular weekend. With two of the top three movies, the studio is set to rack up about $160.7M of the $221.75M or so earned by the top 12 grossing films. That means that Paramount generated an astounding 72 percent of the total Memorial Day weekend box office. The Melrose gang has now generated an estimated $530 billion, and, with Kung Fu Panda and Mike Myers’ Love Guru both due in June, the distributor will top $1 billion in domestic sales for the year well before the Fourth of July.
ALL-TIME TOP 10 FIVE-DAY PERFORMANCES
1. Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith – $172.8M opening
2. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest – $169.5M opening
3. Spider-Man 3 – $169.4M opening
4. Spider-Man 2 – $152.4M opening
5. Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – $148.24M opening (estimate)
6. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End – $147.5M opening
7. Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix – $139.7M opening
8. The Matrix Reloaded – $139.3M opening
9. Shrek the Third – $137.7M opening
10. Spider-Man – $135.8M opening
In the shadow of Crystal Skull, Prince Caspian and Iron Man, Fox’s What Happens in Vegas continues to perform well. The comedy scored another $3.08M on its third Friday, and it will probably top $15.5M for the four-day frame. The comedy will have quietly racked up almost $61M domestic by the end of the long weekend.
The Wachowski’s Speed Racer (Warner Bros) will likely spend its final weekend in the top five. The expensive CGI spectacle managed $1.3M or so Friday, and its four-day will probably be about $5.25M for a disastrous new cume of just $37.45M.
The best per theater average (PTA) of the long weekend will, of course, be posted by Crystal Skull with something in the neighborhood of $29,000. 2007 Cannes Film Festival Best Screenplay winner Edge of Heaven (Strand) enjoyed a strong $4,000 opening day at The Film Forum in New York, its only location, and it could be headed for an impressive $20,000+ by Monday night. First Look’s War, Inc., starring John Cusack, and The Children of Huang Shi (Sony Classics) are both off to solid starts on the specialty circuit.
The schlock master Uwe Boll has unleashed another ridiculous bomb, although his movies seem to be starting on fewer and fewer screens. The German ‘auteur’ who gave the world Bloodrayne, only secured 13 screens for his new movie Postal (Event Films), and its four-day PTA will likely be less than $500.
