Overcoming an early spate of bad reviews, The Mummy Returns started the summer movie season off with a bang last weekend by bringing in $70.1 million, the largest non-holiday opening in box office history.  Facing weak pre-summer competition, The Mummy Returns grabbed over seven out of every ten dollars spent on movies during a weekend that was up 32% from last year (when Gladiator ruled the screens).  So complete was The Mummy Returns' domination that the second place film only garnered $6.1 million in admissions.  The Mummy Returns had a superb $20,612 per screen average on a massive number of screens (see 'The Mummy Returns -- to 3,397 Screens'), topped only in the annals of widely released films by the Phantom Menace and Jurassic Park II: The Lost World, both of which averaged just under $22,000 per screen.  The summer movie season used to start on the Memorial Day weekend at the end of May, but the success of Gladiator (which opened May 5, 2000) and now The Mummy Returns means that the first weekend in May is now a prime opening slot.  Next year Spider-Man is slated to jumpstart the summer movie season with a May 3, 2002 opening.

 

The Mummy Returns' triumphant showing at the box office came in spite of a very mixed reaction from the critics, though the film did gain some positive critical attention from key publications including Variety, USA Today, and the Los Angeles Times, among others.  The strong performance of The Mummy Returns demonstrates that the mass audience is clearly ready to enjoy an action-packed summer blockbuster, and the addition of WWF superstar The Rock, who plays the Scorpion King, certainly didn't hurt the film either.

 

A quick check of several US retailers indicates that both The Mummy Returns trading cards from Inkworks and the The Mummy: Valley of the Gods comic series from Chaos Comics are doing quite well.  Both the cards and the comics remain available for reorder, though a representative from Inkworks estimated that his company would be out of product by next week.  Retailers wishing to capitalize on the film's success should reorder quickly.  Thanks to heavy TV and magazine promotions, summer blockbusters tend to be more front-loaded than ever, so the box office take of The Mummy Returns is likely to plunge precipitously next weekend (though remember that it could drop 50% and still take in $35 million).  Still The Mummy Returns could continue to rule the box office until Pearl Harbor opens on Memorial Day weekend, unless the Dreamworks computer-animated comedy Shrek, which opens May 18th (see 'Shrek Wows Viewers at Showest' and 'Shrek to the Max'), comes up big.  And with a Scorpion King feature in the works and a third Mummy film a certainty after the initial performance of The Mummy Returns, it appears Universal has been able to revive the Mummy franchise big time.  Oh the power of those Tanna leaves!