Though Michael Jackson may have passed on, his ability to entertain and astound certainly has not.
Following on the heels of Tuesday night’s $2.2 million haul at a series of midnight showings, “This Is It” took in another $7.4 million in its first full day of release and another $12.7 million overseas. According to mtvnews.com, overall the film tallied a worldwide total of $20.1 million, a jaw-dropping amount for a midweek release, specifically a documentary.
According to distributor Sony, Wednesday’s total is the best daily gross for a film on a Wednesday in October. Placing nearly $1.5 million ahead of last weekend’s box-office champ “Paranormal Activity,” the movie about the King of Pop now seems poised to reign supreme at movie theaters nationwide on Halloween weekend. It is setting its sights on the all-time champ “Hannah Montana and Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert,” which tops the list with $65.3 million.
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Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen, may be on its way to breaking opening-weekend records, according to Perez Hilton.
Less-than-favourable reviews don’t seem to have hurt the box office performance of Michael Bay’s sequel to his 2007 blockbuster, Transformers.
Last summer, Batman sequel The Dark Knight set records when it made $203.8 million in its first five days. Sources are predicting the much-anticipated Transformers 2, which hit theatres Wednesday, will clear $204 million in ticket sales before the weekend is over.
The film has already grossed higher than initially predicted, raking in $60.6 million in its mid-week debut.
Fans have been flocking to theatres to support the film, but many reviews of Revenge of the Fallen have criticised its size, length and lack of intelligence.
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“Terminator Salvation” showed off some serious box-office muscle in its debut, with early estimates suggesting the Christian Bale-starer took in more than $3 million domestically in midnight Wednesday screenings alone.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, the movie played in 3,450 theatres Thursday, though data on total Thursday earnings won’t be available until Friday.
The pic is projected to fetch $70 million or more over its first five days in theatres. The big haul is expected thanks in part to the long Memorial Day weekend in the U.S., which traditionally bodes well for the box office.
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Ron Howard’s Angels & Demons soared to a $48 million opening this weekend, narrowly edging out a stellar $43 million second-week performance by Star Trek , according to estimates by Hollywood.com Box Office.
According to EW.com, Angels‘ solid bow is the second-best opening of Tom Hanks’ career, behind The Da Vinci Code’s $77.1 million debut in 2006. Despite receiving better reviews than its predecessor, Angels was widely expected to fly lower than Da Vinci on account of the cooled-off controversy over the religious subject matter in Dan Brown’s novels. Still, the books’ worldwide infamy should guarantee returns of biblical proportions; Da Vinci grossed $758.2 million globally, and Angels has already racked up an additional $104.3 million from foreign territories.
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Miley Cyrus’ Hannah Montana: The Movie jumped out to a big lead at the box office and never looked back on this competitive holiday weekend. The Disney Channel adaptation took first place with a hefty, better-than-anticipated $34 million gross, according to early estimates from Media By Numbers.
According to ew.com, that total exceeds the $31.1 mil that Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert opened with a year ago (although this film played in many more theaters), and it amounts to one of the top April debuts ever. Among live-action G-rated fare, this premiere ranks second all time, behind the $42 mil that High School Musical 3: Senior Year banked on its first weekend about six months ago.
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3-D animated feature “Monsters vs. Aliens” conquered the competition by debuting with $16.7 million at the domestic box office Friday.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the strong showing puts the DreamWorks Animation flick on track to rake in more than $50 million through Sunday.
A host of Hollywood stars lend their voices to the sci-fi adventure, including Reese Witherspoon, Kiefer Sutherland, Seth Rogen, Will Arnett, Hugh Laurie, Rainn Wilson and Stephen Colbert as the President.
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What started as a close and unpredictable race to box office supremacy wound up an easy win for Nicolas Cage’s latest sci-fi flick, Knowing, reports ew.com. The film, which grossed $24.8 mil this weekend, trumped challenges from the comedic I Love You, Man and the Julia Roberts-Clive Owen thriller Duplicity.
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After all the anticipation and hubbub, the weekend is coming to an end and the box office results are in: Watchmen (No. 1) grossed $55.7 million during its first frame, according to early estimates from Media by Numbers.
For a movie that did not revolve around high-profile celebrities, that amount of money is a solid sum. According to ew.com, Watchmen premiered in more theatres (3,611 to be exact) than any other R-rated movie in history, and it averaged an impressive $15,413 per venue, despite a potentially problematic long running time. It also scored the biggest debut of 2009 so far. Otherwise the previous numbers, Watchmen did not actually fulfill the general expectations that it’s hype predicted. It was merely the fifth-best opening ever for an R-rated movie.
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The box office is seeing a bit of Déjà vu with this weekend’s estimates. As it turns out, the top three movies for the weekend are the exact same as last week’s!
“The Four Christmases” comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn is still ranked number one for the second weekend in a row adding another $18 million to their culminating gross.
In second, up from third place last weekend is the first film of the “Twilight” saga, attracting another $13 million dollars worth of viewers which makes for a total $139 million in revenue to date.
And finally, in third place, swapping positions with the vampires this week is Disney’s new animation, “Bolt”, that made $9.7 million.
Can they hold their titles for a hattrick?
Ben Stiller’s “Tropic Thunder” rolled over “The House Bunny” and “Death Race”, finishing off in the No. 1 spot for the second weekend in the row.
According to E! News, “Tropic Thunder” made an estimated $16.1 million, bringing its total gross to $65.7 million. “The House Bunny” came in second place by debuting with $15.1 million and Jason Statham’s “Death Race” opened in third with $12.4 million.
Although “The Dark Knight” failed to break any more records, the movie finished in the No. 4 spot with $10.3 million, bringing the domestic total to $489.2 million in just six weeks.
“Mamma Mia!” broke a record by becoming the highest-grossing movie-musical of all time. The movie made a total of $124.5 million in over six weeks, beating out “Hairspray” which brought in $119 million in the same time span.
