Guillermo del Toro’s Hellboy II: The Golden Army topped the weekend box office with an estimated total of $35.9 million, a considerable improvement over the first Hellboy’s $23.2 million opening in 2004. Universal, which also scored this summer with Wanted (based on the Top Cow comic by Mark Millar and J.G. Jones), deserves credit for acquiring the rights to Hellboy (which is based on the Dark Hores comic created by Mike Mignola) from Sony and Revolution, producers of the first Hellboy film.
Buoyed by the growing reputation of director del Toro as one of the cinema’s superior fantasy directors and by glowing reviews (88% positive on Rotten Tomatoes) Hellboy II appears to have opened strongly enough to insure that the franchise will continue, though it might not continue right away since del Toro will likely spend the better part of the next three years in New Zealand filming the Hobbit movies.
The problem for Universal and Hellboy II will be holding on to its audience when The Dark Knight, which currently has 100% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, opens on Friday. The audience for Hellboy II was a lopsided 69% male and 58% over 25, just the kind of folks that will likely make up the audience for the new Batman film next weekend.
Will Smith’s Hancock continues to perform very well dropping just 47% in its second weekend while grossing an estimated $33 million and bringing its cumulative to $165 million. Hancock’s second place performance is especially impressive given the debut of two similar action films, Hellboy II and Journey to the Center of the Earth, which earned an estimated $20.6 million and finished in third place. Hancock is doing even better overseas where it has already pulled in over $180 million. Hancock could finish with well over half a billion dollars earned worldwide. Most analysts don’t think Hancock will make the $300 million mark, and indeed it will face even stiffer competition next week with the debut of The Dark Knight, which Warner Bros. is touting with awe-inspiring marketing campaigns, both conventional and viral.
New Line’s Journey to the Center of the Earth did better than expected largely because the film averaged over $20,000 per venue at theaters showing the film in 3D. Theaters projecting the film in the conventional mode averaged barely one tenth as much. Look for 3D to become an increasingly important factor over the next few years as more theaters are equipped to be able to handle the new digital 3D processes. Will 3D be a flash in the pan or a steady draw? It’s way too early to tell but it is clear that at this time 3D has the ability to elevate the grosses of hokum like Journey to the Center of the Earth.
Despite the relatively strong debuts of Hellboy II and Journey to the Center of the Earth and in spite of the fact that no holdover films in the top ten dropped by more than 50%, the overall weekend box office was down some 17% from the post July 4th weekend in 2007, which saw the $77.1 million debut of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.
Pixar’s Wall-E dipped 43% in its 3rd frame earning $18.5 million and finished in fourth place, while Dreamworks’ Kung Fu Panda fell to eighth place in its sixth week of release. The high kicking panda is now past the $200 million mark and should fight it out with Wall-E for the top grossing CGI film of the year.
Universal’s Wanted dropped just 43% in its third frame, finishing in the fifth spot and earning an estimated $11.5 million and bringing its domestic total to a solid $112 million. With a cost of just $75 million it appears that Wanted will be solidly profitable—and all that sequel talk may well come to fruition. Warner Bros.’ Get Smart, which finished sixth, has crossed the $100 million mark and is well on its way to profitability—a feat that the Eddie Murphy vehicle Meet Dave, which debuted at number seven with a pitiful $1,760 per theater average, will never accomplish. The only distinction that Fox’s Meet Dave is likely to earn is “bomb of the year,” a title it deserves a lot more than the film it supplanted in the annals of under achievement, the Wachowski’s Speed Racer.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal remained in the top ten in its eighth week of release while earning $2.2 million and bringing its cumulative to $310 million, within hailing distance of Marvel Studios’ Iron Man, which earned just under a million and brought its total to $313.4 million. Warner Bros. thinks that The Dark Knight will give these two films a run for top-grossing film of the year, but it will be a week or two before we know whether this will be a three horse race.
Marvel Studios’ other release The Incredible Hulk fell out of the top ten while earning $2.2 million and bringing its total to $129.8 million after five weeks in the theaters. It now appears likely that the second Hulk film will actually attract fewer viewers than Ang Lee’s original Hulk movie that finished with $132 million (but at much lower 2003 ticket prices). While it’s far from a disaster The Incredible Hulk, which cost $150 million (actually more than Ang Lee’s film), is definitely not having the kind of theatrical run that calls for a sequel.
