The box office results for Easter weekend sees a strong Reunion unable to penetrate The Hunger Games stronghold on the top spot. In just three weeks of release, the movie based off the popular young adult novels has already ate up $300 million stateside. Here are the studio estimates:
1. The Hunger Games ($33.5 million)
2. American Reunion ($21.4 million)
3. Titanic 3D ($17.3 million)
4. Wrath of the Titans ($15 million)
5. Mirror Mirror ($11 million)
6. 21 Jump Street ($10.2 million)
7. Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax ($5 million)
8. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen ($0.9 million)
9. John Carter ($0.8 million)
10. Safe House ($0.5 million)
Analysis
Let’s get this out of the way, Titanic, now re-released in glorious 3D, emerged back into theaters this past Wednesday. Basically, this is greed at its finest…and the movie-going public played right into Hollywood’s hands. Bravo fools. Unless you really enjoy the 3D gimmick, try to start using that muscle in your head please.
As for the sole wide-release this past weekend, American Reunion, Universal has to be displeased with the way the fourth installment of the lauded American Pie franchise performed; especially since it had no other competition from any true new products. With a production budget of $50 million – a good portion of that was most likely spent on getting the entire crew back together – this could be the first installment that fails to reach the $100 million milestone in the states. That being said, the sequels have shown strong staying power during their prime run in the early 2000s, and this could do the same since word-of-mouth is fairly strong. On the contrary, perhaps too much time has passed by since American Wedding and/or the shtick of the R-rated sex comedy has been over-saturated to the point where audiences don’t feel the need to rush out to the theaters on opening weekend.
So digesting all the above, even though this should perform well on the DVD and On-Demand platform, theatrically, this looks to be another Flopper for Universal at the moment.
21 Jump Street has crossed the $100 million plateau on the domestic front, rising to $108 million. Channing Tatum is off to a marvelous start in 2012 (talk about having it all come together).
Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax currently has the longest streak in the top ten with 6 weeks. Universal’s 2012 breakout will cross the $200 million domestic mark later this week. The production budget was $70 million. Maybe this studio should just stick to doing animations, for they seem to perform well financially compared to the rest of their slate. Just saying…
This Friday, three genres battle it out in the hopes of dethroning The Hunger Games. Cabin in the Woods will summon the horror crowd. Lockout will please the action folk and The Three Stooges will try to please the comedy-seekers. Reviews will be right here my fellow Shockers!
