Apr 3rd Tracking

i thought it was hi-larious

I also thought it was pretty fucking hilarious, myself. What made it great was that it was a parody of romantic comedies, yet was one at the exact same time.

71M weekend for Fast and Furious!

RECORD-WRECKER! Original Cast Starts 'Fast & Furious'-ly With $30M Fri/$24.6M Sat: $71M Wkd For Biggest April Opening

SATURDAY PM: The heated-up domestic box office just got even hotter... The lesson is that Hollywood should never underestimate moviegoers' tolerance for retread material. Even Universal knew when they announced a 4th installment of their worn-out street racing franchise that everyone else would say there was no life left. But they got the original 2001 cast together and made a true sequel that picks up the Fast & Furious story where it left off in The Fast And The Furious. ("New Model... Original Parts".) The result was a jaw-dropping $30 million haul Friday and $24.6 million Saturday (only -19%) jaw-dropping from 3,461 theaters for an unexpectedly humongous opening weekend of $71M. (And that's not even counting the Thursday midnight showings which I'm told made $1.8M.) That's a whopping 1/3 more than the studio thought possible, and now the biggest April opening ever by a mile (previous best was Anger Management's $42M in 2003). This just doesn't happen like this, folks, even with great trailers supervised by Adam Fogelson: Hollywood is in total shock tonight.

I wish I put it on Box Office slates, it might pass 200M! T2 will still be huge enough I guess.

Holy mother of cheese!

According to BOM, F&F had the 21st biggest opening day ever. I certainly didn't see that one coming.

I'm hoping for a Friday the 13th style drop off, otherwise my slates are in big trouble.

Box Office Mojo estimates:

1. Fast and Furious - $72.5 M
2. Monsters vs. Aliens - $33.5 M
3. Haunting in CT - $9.55 M
4. Knowing - $8.13 M
5. I Love you Man - $7.85 M

Adventureland busts at $6 M for 6th place.

PTA:

5 points - Fast and Furious - 20,950
4 points - Gigantic - 10,500
3 points - Paris 36 - 10,314
2 points - Sin Nombre - 8,435
1 points - Monsters - 8,155

Sugar falls short at 6,473, and Alien Trespass is a complete bust at only 1,073.

No word yet on The Escapist or Bart Got a Room.

Feel kind of stupid asking for Gigantic to be included then not putting it on my slates. But hey, at least I was right about it picking up PTA!

MCN has slightly different numbers: http://moviecitynews.com/columnists/klady/2009/090405.html ,they even have Anvil! opening this weekend to 10,3k PTA. I guess Monday will tell the tale.

I still think Fast and Furious is going to drop like a rock next week... I wouldn't be too surprised if it made under 30 million next weekend.

However, I am so glad I made the change and put it on my April-June Ultimate slates at the last minute.

Funny that MCN has Anvil... but I trust BOM a little more. Those two sources are way apart on Paris 36's PTA, though, if MCN is to be believed, Bart Got a Room won't make the top 5. And they don't have The Escapist either. That WAS supposed to debut on one screen, right?


Some preliminary Super League updates:

Ult FY R2 - I have moved into the Top 3, along with J-Man and Alyson. 30 Players have Lymelife and 27 have Observe and Report.

Ult HY R2 - J-Man moves from 11th place to 1st. What IS IT with this guy?

BO FY R2 - Here's where picking Watchmen is going to start to hurt. J-Man and Graywolf are still in the lead, but this will be the last week. Big, bad JohnErle has zoomed to within $1 million of the lead, and wcrew2000 isn't far behind.

BO HY R2 - Pretty much the same story as the FY.


February Regular Ultimate - I take the lead, but the Top 5 players are within 3 1/2 points of each other. Me, wesvolk, packpaljs, UDM and Alyson are all vying for the win.

February Regular Box Office - JohnErle is looking to put his stamp on another B.O. trophy, as he will pass Graywolf for the top spot next week.


And finally, only 11 players out of 65 haven't gotten their Round Four slates in. That's a remarkably low number! Way to go, Fantaverse!

Best choice ive made in a while putting Fast and Furious on every slate.

I don't know why people are bitching about F&F being huge. Movies are ENTERTAINMENT, that's what these loud action movies are for. Same thing goes for any form of media - movies, music, television. Things that are enjoyable always do better than things that are complex and ambiguous (sp).

Remember, these are just movies. Schindler's List is not going to cure cancer or anything, it's not that serious.

And yes, Buscemi, Avatar will flop. $300 million on some far out sci-fi alien planet type shit - what are they thinking? Just because Cameron had the surprise hit of the millenium doesn't mean he can do it again. Plus there's not stars in Avatar, Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana ain't gonna drive people to the theaters.

BanksIsDaFuture wrote:I don't know why people are bitching about F&F being huge. Movies are ENTERTAINMENT,

Same thing goes for any form of media - movies, music, television. Things that are enjoyable always do better than things that are complex and ambiguous (sp).

This is where our views differ, Banks. You may see these things as entertainment, but I (and probably Busc, as well as some others on here) see these things as ART. Art can be made for many different purposes, but is usually at least somewhat provoking. To a more intellectual taste, complex and ambiguous are better, as they have something to say. Seeing people do impossible things with fake cars on a big screen is, well, let's just say that some of us think movies can be (and sometimes are) better than that.

BanksIsDaFuture wrote:Remember, these are just movies. Schindler's List is not going to cure cancer or anything, it's not that serious.

No, but Errol Morris' The Thin Blue Line was a great help in getting an innocent man released from prison. And Paradise Lost and it's sequel helped to bring awareness and help to the West Memphis 3, who were wrongly imprisoned by bigotry in a midwestern town (DNA evidence, gotten as donations from awareness of the films and of artists like Henry Rollins speaking out about it, has now shown that no DNA of the three was at the crime scene, and now one of the mothers of the victims is saying she doesn't even think it's true anymore). Perhaps you should ask some of the above if movies are only entertainment, and shouldn't be used for anything more than seeing things blow up.

Anvil opened in Toronto. Some sites don't count Canada-only statistics.

It opens on Friday in New York and Los Angeles.

BanksIsDaFuture wrote:

... And yes, Buscemi, Avatar will flop. $300 million on some far out sci-fi alien planet type shit - what are they thinking? Just because Cameron had the surprise hit of the millenium doesn't mean he can do it again. Plus there's not stars in Avatar, Sam Worthington and Zoe Saldana ain't gonna drive people to the theaters.

If it was me doing the marketing though, I wouldn't even mention who is in the film. All you have to do is say "From James Cameron, the man who brought you 'Titanic' and 'Terminator 2'..." etc, etc. The studio will brand this as the next evolution in Special Effects and as a Cameron project that has taken ten years to develop. With a more insignificant director it looks tacky to say "From... etc, etc" but a big name like Cameron can pull it off. If nothing else, curiosity will earn it $100 million without even blinking.

Dang for Fast and Furious. I'm sure you've heard that it broke the April record by over $30 million, and the only opening weekends last year above that were Iron Man, Indy 4, and TDK. Also first April weekend ever to have two movies make over $30 million and almost doubles the same weekend last year.

The Sunday drop is too conservative. It should get $70-71 million with actuals. I think it will fall probably between 60-65% but should still get $165 million, while MvA will come pretty close to $200 million.

As for Avatar, it will be big. It's Fox, so we'll see a trailer probably before Wolverine, in IMAX before Star Trek, and then another one in front of Ice Age 3 3-D and Harry Potter IMAX.

Watchmen got a trailer before The Dark Knight and it still disappointed.

Meanwhile, expect the Avatar trailer with Terminator Salvation and Night At The Museum 2 (also on IMAX). But expect Alvin and The Chipmunks 2's trailer with Night At The Museum. The trailer for Alvin will probably make more noise since Fox will probably give a better campaign to that film. Fox will probably spend a light amount of promotional money on Avatar since it's not going to set the box office on fire.

J.I. wrote:Dang for Fast and Furious. I'm sure you've heard that it broke the April record by over $30 million, and the only opening weekends last year above that were Iron Man, Indy 4, and TDK. Also first April weekend ever to have two movies make over $30 million and almost doubles the same weekend last year.

The Sunday drop is too conservative. It should get $70-71 million with actuals. I think it will fall probably between 60-65% but should still get $165 million, while MvA will come pretty close to $200 million..

According to a news report this morning, F and F made 72.5 Million. Umm, I am both obscenely upset and glad I took it on a few slates.

Spectre wrote:Don't look now but Mase is calling for $70M

Yeah well Mase called for 43 M on Thursday, then sees that the movie made 26 M on Friday so now he says 70M. Hell anybody with 1st grade math skills could say that.

I don't think any of us were even within 20 M of this movie's OW. I had it pegged at 42M and I still put it on most of my slates for this season. Wish I had it on my Round 2 and 3 Supers...

Do you think it could have a bigger opening than any movie coming out in May? (considering that TS comes out on a Thursday and Wolverine is on the Internet.)

Wow. never really thought about it, but if Fast & Furious has the biggest OW of the year, I'll leave the states. And I know I said that when Dubya got his second term, but that was an empty bluff, THIS is truly an American Travesty.

Yeah, that would be horrible. I think F and F may have cost me one of the super leagues...can't remember which, but there was one round where I couldn't afford to take it this late in the game...and now, cause of the internet thing, I'm starting to question Wolverine...

It won't beat Transformers 2 so you have nothing to worry about.

Oh, I know. It won't beat Terminator: Salvation either, but it's still a scary thought. But, it's america for you...Maybe the failing of our auto-industry has something to do with this movie's success; or maybe this movie's success has something to do with our auto-industry failing?

geezer9687 wrote:It won't beat Transformers 2 so you have nothing to worry about.

Honestly, I don't know which is worse.

I'm thinking about writing a South Park parody of the Fast and Furious series for my second script for my class. Haven't been able to come up with anything good and this film's success may be just what I needed.

I don't think it will beat Wolverine either. I can see it beating Terminator for OW.

I know I'm going to get blasted for this, but am I the only one who doesn't think the new Terminitor will do as well as expected? (ducking)