The heavily-promoted Marvel Comics-based Fantastic Four film overcame overwhelmingly negative reviews (75% negative at one point on Friday on the Rotten Tomatoes Website) to triumph at the box office this weekend earning an estimated $56 million and clobbering previous box office leader War of the Worlds which dropped 52% and brought in an estimated $31.3 million.  Fantastic Four's opening was very close to the weekend gross generated by the first X-Men film, which brought in $54 million in July of 2000.  If the Fantastic Four can avoid the big second week drop-off and establish itself as a movie franchise on par with X-Men, Marvel will have scored a great coup.  Even if the FF falls short of that goal, its initial success could still spur sales of toys and videogames -- prime sources of revenue for Marvel.  The FF managed to generate a strong $15,546 per location and easily top WOTW even though the Marvel-based film was in 300 fewer theaters.  The question remains whether word of mouth on the FF film will be strong enough to avoid a precipitous drop in the film's second week, which has been the pattern for heavily promoted summer blockbusters (and the FF film certainly benefited from near constant TV ads and tie-ins with SBC and other advertising powerhouses).  What is not in question is the fact that the FF's strong opening helped propel the overall weekend box office to a gain of 4% versus the same week in 2004 -- the first time this has happened since President's Day.

Meanwhile Batman Begins, which declined just 34.6% and remained in third place in its fourth week of release, does appear to be benefiting from strong word of mouth and will likely earn more than $200 million in domestic box office (its current cumulative is $172 million).  Batman Begins brought in an estimated $10.2 million, far less than the FF, but the fair DC versus Marvel comparison will come later in the comparison of the total box office runs (foreign and domestic of the FF and Batman Begins).

Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith slipped to the tenth spot on the weekend chart earning an estimated $2.6 million.  With its cumulative near $371 million it appears that the most successful film of 2005 so far will not break the $400 million barrier.

Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle lost ten more theaters, but declined only 21% while earning $309,000 at 177 theaters.  Howl's Moving Castle is certain to break the $4 million mark next weekend.