Maybe Summer isn't Over

August 16, 2004

There was a huge jump in the box office this weekend as Friday's top ten was almost 42% ahead of last week's pace. Then Saturday came and the dubious quality of the new entrants helped weekend returned to normal. (While Hurricane Charley shut down much of Florida, it would only have a small effect on the overall box office.) Even so, there was still a 21.2% increase from last weekend, but surprisingly an 6.87% decrease from last year.

Alien Vs. Predator got off to a huge start taking in $16.7 million on Friday alone. When I saw that figure I thought AvP would break a record and become the first movie to open with more than $40 million but fail to make $100 million overall. But it was not to be as the film plummeted almost 25% on Saturday and even more on Sunday to finish with $38.3 million. With an internal multiplier of just 2.3, this film may have already earned half its final box office. That's not surprising given the combination of amazing hype and horrific reviews.

Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement is the first unmitigated success story for Disney in a year, maybe. (The haven't released the production budget, which leaves me to believe it is well ahead of the original's $30 million. The best reviewed wide release of the weekend took in $23.0 million more to bring its five-day total to $37 million.

Collateral did the unthinkable this weekend dropping only 35% to $16.2 million. It should match my original expectation of $100 million, or at least come very close.

The prospect of free cards helped Yu-Gi-Oh! beat predictions with $9.4 million. At least I hope it was the free cards because it certainly wasn't the reviews, which are still sitting at 0% positive. The combination of amazing hype and dubious quality was even more deadly with this film than it was for Alien Vs. Predator. The film opened with $4.4 million on Friday before dropping 30% on Saturday and finished with a 2.1 internal multiplier.

Dropping just a little faster and a little further was The Bourne Supremacy, which finished in the top five for the last time this week with $8.6 million.

The Village didn't drop quite as bad as I thought it would, but it still lost more than half of last weekend's box office tally and missed the top five. But with $7.2 million this weekend the film now sits at $99.9 million overall and will cross $100 million tonight.

And way down in 21st spot with just over $500 thousand is Shrek 2. But that was more than enough to push the film into third place on the All-Time Domestic Charts jumping ahead of ET.


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Filed under: Shrek 2, The Bourne Supremacy, The Village, Collateral, The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement, AVP: Alien Vs. Predator, Yu-Gi-Oh