The summer movie season of 2010 kicks off in high style as Paramount/Marvel’s “Iron Man 2” posts the fifth biggest opening weekend of all-time!
With speculation all over the map as to how “Iron Man 2” would perform in the weekend box office derby (with estimates ranging from $120 million to a record busting $165 million), the film becomes only the fifteenth film in box office history to debut with over $100 million in a single weekend. With $128.1 million for the three-days, this places it just ahead of “Shrek the Third” ($121.6 million) and just behind “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” ($135.6 million) as it now enters the pantheon of great movie openings.
Of course no conversation of the film would be complete without mention of the IMAX component which generated a 3-Day domestic total of (est.) $10,200,569; a per-screen take of $56,357. IMAX’s weekend is approximately 8% of the film’s overall box office.
This is an IMAX 2D opening weekend domestic record, surpassing Star Trek’s $8.5 mil a year ago. Interestingly, it also out-grossed Avatar’s opening weekend of $9.5 mil. This suggests that offering fans the IMAX Experience with a mix of programming is the way to go – 2D, 3D, CGI animation, action adventure – – avid moviegoers like all genres and they’re clearly seeking out the giant screen experience.
Slashing its way into the number two spot is the Warner Bros. re-boot of the Freddy franchise with “A Nightmare on Elm Street” scaring up another $9.1 million in its second weekend of release. After a chart topping debut last week of $32.9 million (which made the film’s profitability a slam dunk), a 72% second weekend drop is realized, but is perfectly in-line with what is typical for this genre. A perfect release date that sandwiched the film between spring and summer made this another profit center for Warner Bros.
The “go-to” movie of the spring continues to impress in the summer as Paramount/DWA’s “How to Train Your Dragon” takes the third spot with $6.7 million in its seventh weekend of release! The title of this film should be “How to Train the Audience to Love 3-D and Keep Coming Back for More” as this family favorite drops a mere 36% and crosses the $200 million mark.
Another “energizer movie bunny” is Fox’s “Date Night” which also continues as an audience favorite as it earns $5.5 million against a small 28% fifth weekend drop. Much like “Dragon,” “Date Night” is the film of choice for its target audience (in this case, appropriately enough the date crowd) and is now up to $81 million in domestic dollars.
The top five is rounded out by CBS Films’ “The Back-Up Plan” as it shows the naysayers that its has some staying power. With a third weekend drop of 31% and a weekend take of $5 million, the Jennifer Lopez romantic comedy is still drawing an audience and is near the $30 million mark.
Last but not least is “Babies” from Focus Features in the tenth spot. The film earned $2.2 million in 534 theatres and should benefit from strong word-of-mouth in the coming weeks. A gutsy move to go up against “Iron Man 2” could pay off as the Mother’s Day audience lines-up to see this unique documentary.
A great start to the Summer Movie Season of 2010 as the audience gets itself in the movie-going frame of mind. Next week: Universal’s “Robin Hood,” Summit’s “Letters to Juliet” and Fox Searchlight’s “Just Wright” enter the fray.
