Last week, when I saw the $34 million pulled in by the lame looking Chuck & Larry, I thought, “Well, that’s good news for the Simpsons movie.” Turns out I was right. The studios love when the early summer movies are successful, partly because the entire summer depends on kids—the demographic that drives the summer blockbuster season (and I mean ‘kids’ as mostly those in the teen bracket)—to drive the box office. If kids go to movies in the early summer, and are reasonable satisfied by them, they continue going, get in the habit of doing so, and are more likely to continue seeing movies all summer long. In an age when there are a zillion more entertainment options then when I was a kid, this is all the more important.
Anyway, Chuck and Larry made $34 million, a pretty decent sum. I figured The Simpsons would do better than that, especially once the generally positive reviews started coming in. And sure enough, it did better than the industry expected, pulling in a jolly $72m. It also rolled up some serious coin overseas, even better than the domestic take, drawing and additional $96M . And it hasn’t even opened in Japan yet. At this point the $75m production is already in profit, so things look good.
There was a point where I think people heard about the Simpsons movie and wondered, “Isn’t it a bit late?” I think in a way this actually helped the film. Years ago, more people still watched the show, but were increasingly unsatisfied. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the people who subsequently stopped watching the program went to the movie with a sense of nostalgia, despite the fact that the show is currently still running. I’m not saying a lot of the box office wasn’t driven by those still watching the series, but I do think this odd faux-nostalgia might have helped the movie in a way it might not of if it had come out four or five years ago.
Chuck & Larry dropped an OK 44%, drawing $19.1m for a second place finish. It continued to beat Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which I found bizarre. Coming in third with another $17.1m, the fifth Potter movie has obviously still made a lot more money in total, with a domestic gross nearing the $250m mark. While not the series’ biggest money earner, Phoenix‘s total worldwide gross, soon to pass the $700m mark, is still pretty astounding for the fifth film in a series. And it did cost nearly half as much as other top grosser this year, the third chapters of Spider-Man and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Hairspray continues to do very well in its limited way. In its second weekend it dropped 43% to draw another $15.6m, for a total of $60m. It’s New Line’s top grossing film in two years, and ironically might well make more money than the entire catalog of films made by cult director John Waters, whose earlier Hairspray inspired the musical this is an adaptation of.
Catherine Zeta-Jones’ No Reservations cooked up a lackluster $12m, a decent but hardly spicy result. Transformers came next, drawing another $11.5m, for a $285m domestic total. With the overseas gross nearing the $200m mark, the cumulative $500m should be hit by next week.
Other results:
7th: Ratatouille, $7.2m
8th: Live Free or Die Hard, $5.2m
9: I Know Who Killed Me (Opening weekend), $3.4m
10: Who’s Your Caddy? (Opening weekend) $2.9m
