Weekend Box Office June 15-19
 

Wednesday estimate for Batman Begins...

Wednesday and Thursday alone; I predict Batman Begins will have a two day gross of $27 million.

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday alone; I predict Batman Begins will have a weekend gross of $55 - 60 million (around $85 million total for the five days).

Obviously not Star Wars numbers, but that's not bad for a Wednesday. I'm assuming that includes midnight showings too.

I do worry if Batman is going to be the "Hulk" of this summer, box office wise, big opening, fast drop. I haven't seen it yet, going to tonight, and am very psyched for it -- but the word I've seen seems to indicate it's less "summer action flick" than people might expect. Particularly, the under-18 crowd... $15 million on one day is good, but compare that to Spider-Man, which made $40 million a year ago on a Wednesday opening day. I do wonder how it will do in the long run. It's not the slam-dunk I think it might have once been assumed as.

(Obviously none of this has to do with the quality of the movie, so please no snarky "since when does how a movie does financially mean how it is artistically" comments...)

While Star Wars basically had from May 19th until June 15th to rake it the majority of it's cash, Batman Begins has a shorter window...until the June 29th release of War of The Worlds. Still, I think it's a safe bet it will break the 200 million mark (probably well over) when all is said and done...

I've seen a lot of folks go in yesterday that were just casual batman fans. But the hero name alone is very recognizeable. So I don't see how it could fail.

But I think this will get a decent number of return viewings.

Howl's Moving Castle is getting a little bit wider release this week. Only 200 screens, but it's better than 30. I'd like to see it crack into the Top 10 this weekend.

Everyone who walked out of the showing I went to last night seemed to enjoy it. I highly doubt it will face a big drop. I actually think WOM will carry this sucker pretty far.

Just wait for the weekend and the families...

Expect the word of mouth $$$ to be strong w/ this Batman.

I get the feeling most people didn't relaly even know the film was out on Wednesday. And considering the positive buzz, I think a solid opening this weekend is to be expected (perhaps 60 million) and decent drop offs leading to a good overall gross.

Yeah, I got that feeling also that it wasn't really pounded into everyone that it was a wednesday release.

*cough*Shrek 2*cough*

This will not be the Hulk of Summer 2005. What differs the two is that Batman Begins is getting praised by both audiences and critics alike whereas Hulk was hated by a majority of the audience. Hulk opened big and dropped huge. I think Batman Begins will have a slow start out the gate (I predict it'll break the $100 million mark right before the June 24th weekend), but unlike most summer films, I think it'll have some stability over the weekends instead of just fading into the limelight (mostly due to the positive word of mouth). While some (if not a lot) still have the awful taste of the last two Batman films in their mouth, I think most will warm up easily to see it due to the word of mouth.

And unless you're an already established franchise (Jurassic Park, Spider-man, Lord of the Rings, Matrix, etc.) or just a Christian (Passion of the Christ), most films don't open big on Wednesday. As Shrek 2 provided to us last year, you can totally bomb out on your opening Wednesday and Thursday and kick complete ass on what actually constitutes as the weeeknd.

And before anybody says, "But Batman is an already established franchise." I'd disagree, especially after Batman and Robin.

:)

Those mid-week numbers on SMITH are fantastic.

Thursday estimate...

I'm predicting a weekend gross of $71,500,000 million. Just throwing that out there...

I'm going to see Batman Begins on Sunday night hoping to avoide a huge crowd. I don't think I've ever done the Sunday night thing before.

1 Batman Begins 15.194 - 3858 3,938 39.31
2 Mr. and Mrs. Smith 8.187 -56% 3451 2,372 78.90
3 Madagascar 3.272 -34% 3533 926 139.34
4 Longest Yard 2.667 -39% 3312 805 126.59
5 Revenge of the Sith 2.482 -38% 2923 849 340.58
6 The Perfect Man 2.167 NEW 2084 1,040 2.17
7 Shark Boy & Lava Girl 1.946 -51% 2655 733 19.27
8 Cinderella Man 1.567 -46% 2612 600 39.89
9 Sisterhood...Pants 1.202 -39% 2206 545 28.26
10 The Honeymooners 0.876 -52% 1912 458 7.80

A little on the low end, but after Batman and Robin... I wouldn't have expected more.

Based on the Friday estimate, let me state the obvious and say that Batman Begins will not reach $50 million for the weekend gross.

Not particularly impressinve Friday numbers - that's no more than Mr. and Mrs. Smith did last weekend. I hope it picks up, but I think we're looking at under $200 million and around $50 million for the weekend for sure at this rate.

Definitley won't hit 200m IMO, and like stated above: it's certainly not the summer blockbuster many people might make it out to be.

Well, I'm disappointed by that number. I liked Begins a lot, and think it is a fine film. Thus, I'd like to have seen it do much better. Hopefully it will show some legs and jog past 200 million.

Yeah, unless it has a monster day today and keep in line w/ Friday's numbers on Sunday it won't make it. I think this is a flick that'll have legs, though. It should get to $175 - $200 million by the end of it's domestic run.

Poor Batman Begins. :(

Then again, that goes across the board. there really hasn't been any summer block buster that hit to real summer fashion. Star Wars was a thing all its own. Smith had good numbers, but that to wouldn't be Summer numbers.

I'm sure the studios are bit concerned about War of the Worlds and Fantastic four.