Weekend Wrap-Up

Spidey Transforms But Is No Transformers

By John Hamann

July 8, 2012

Dear Avengers, Please Invite Me to Your Party. Love, Spidey.

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These box office totals say to me that Sony blew it with the reboot, which will only lead to pain in the years to come. Andrew Garfield, the new Tobey Maguire, is way too old to start playing Spider-Man now at 29, supposing the follow-ups come every three years. I see a Clooney or Kilmer type Batman movie coming in this incarnation of Spider-Man, so hopefully we will get something edgier (like the current Batman) in a few years. To be clear, The Amazing Spider-Man is not a bad film. It received an A Cinemascore, and a 72% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes. I just don't like the way the tea leaves look currently. Sony spent $215 million plus on this one, and I don't think they will find that it has the Tobey Maguire/Kirsten Dunst legs the last batch had.

Finishing second is last weekend's number one, Ted, with Mark Wahlberg, Mila Kunis and the voice of Seth MacFarlane. After an unexpectedly huge opening weekend of $54.4 million, some thought Ted might dine and dash from the box office with Spider-Man back on the scene, but that didn't happen. Ted found that sweet spot in the box office, opening big the weekend prior to a juicy long weekend, and enjoying the soft bounce that the Independence Day holiday might provide. Ted earned another $32.6 million and lost only 40% of its audience compared to last weekend. Cue the fireworks, folks. We've got us a big hit. The Hangover, the former biggest non-sequel R-rated comedy, did hold better at 27%, but opened smaller at $45 million, and had a very similar second weekend ($32.8 million). Ted is also a much bigger earner over its first 10 days – The Hangover had earned $104 .8 million, while Ted has already reached $120.2 million, after crossing the century mark on Saturday, its ninth day of release. The company behind Ted, Media Rights Capital, spent only $50 million making Ted, a film that could take in $200 million domestically before all is said and done.




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Third spot goes to Pixar's Brave, which is lagging behind Up, but staying ahead of WALL-E. In its third weekend, Brave earned $20.2 million, giving the animated feature a drop compared to last weekend of 41%. As Brave is targeted more at girls, we can likely thank Katy Perry for the drop, despite the musician not having a breakout weekend. Brave has now earned $174.5 million against a budget of $185 million, and is just starting to roll out overseas. Brave won't reach Up's almost $300 million, but it should beat WALL-E's total of $224 million.

Fourth goes to Oliver Stone's Savages, a film that makes a good case about legalizing marijuana (no one that looks like Blake Lively should be kidnapped over pot). Savages earned $16.2 million since opening on Friday, and was out to only 2,628 venues, giving it an average of $6,150. For Oliver Stone, this is his third biggest opening ever, behind Wall Street 2 ($19 million) and World Trade Center ($18.7 million). Savages is a $45 million film and will likely play overseas as well, so it shouldn't hurt Universal too much.


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