The summer has already seen its first major bomb, and Marvel Comics must be crossing itself and saying, “There, but for the grace of God…” I never really thought the fact that Iron Man was “second tier” superhero would hurt that film, because even “first tier” superheroes are mostly known by the general public from previous movies and TV shows. The questions are a) does the general premise strike mass audiences as interesting, and to a lesser extent, b) does the movie look good.
With Iron Man, the answer to both questions was yes. The same with last year’s Transformers, and the for the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which were probably the hugest Hollywood gambles we’ve seen in the last twenty years, other than the Lord of the Rings movies.
Not so much for Speed Racer. What causes it to stumble? Maybe nobody was really that interested in seeing the cartoon brought to life. Maybe people just aren’t that thrilled with the Wachowski Brother past the first Matrix. Maybe—and I wouldn’t underestimate this—even parents who considered taking their kids to see this were scared off when they heard it meant they also would have to sit through what was clearly an insanely frenetic movie for a ludicrously long 135 minutes. In any case, it didn’t take.
Indeed, it will be interesting to see the final box office figures later today. The ones that come out on Sunday for the late night and Monday morning news shows are in fact estimates, calculations of Sunday’s takes based on how films did on Saturday and Friday. These are generally roughly accurate—although Iron Man slipped a few million from the estimates last week—but sometimes a studio will fudge figures a bit to stave off embarrassment. The general public mostly hears the estimates, not the revised figures, so in terms of face-saving this can be at least a bit effective.
Here the issue is whether Speed Racer was even the second place film. If the estimates stand, it’s reported take of $20.2 milion will have beat the lamely reviewed (it has a 27% positive rate at Rottentomatoes.com, as opposed to Racer’s slightly more robust 35%) It Happened in Las Vegas by a paltry $200,000. In other words, by the end of the day we may very well learn that Vegas in fact placed in the box office race this weekend, leaving Racer in the lowly show position.
Even if Racer retains second by a hair, Vegas still is easily the winner in the larger sense. It made more per theater (an estimated $6,200 to Racer’s 5,600), and, oh yeah, cost about a forth as much and undoubtedly spent less on advertising and, obviously, prints, since it’s in less theater. Vegas’ budget was reported at $35 million, Racer’s at $120 million. And again, the later has had a much more lavish promo budget. Vegas at this point will definitely make money, whereas Warner’s and the Wachowski must be hoping for a gigantic overseas take for Racer. We’ll see. It certainly seems like something that would do well in Japan.
All this makes Marvel very happy, as their first self-financed film Iron Man jetted away with another $50.5 million this weekend. Now standing at a very ritzy $177 million, this should cross the $200 million mark perhaps by Friday, and if not, certainly after next weekend, even as it inevitably falls to the next chapter in the Narnia franchise. Iron Man’s take was down about 49% from last weekend, which these days is a pretty decent hold. Indeed, most films held well. Iron Man also made about $100 million overseas in its first week; no figures for this weekend are available yet. It should be noted that Iron Man only cost about $20 million more than Speed Racer to make.
Following Vegas’ (maybe) third place finish was another romcom, Made of Honor. The distaff My Best Friend’s Wedding RSVP’d $7.6 million in its second frame, and currently stands at about $26m total. Meanwhile, the stork delivered the fifth place to Tina Fey’s Baby Mama, which in its third weekend made about $5.8m, for a $40m total.
The rest of the top ten went to Forgetting Sarah Marshall ($3.8m/$50m total); Harold & Kumor Escape from Guantanamo Bay ($3m/$30m); The Forbidden Kingdom ($2m/$48m); Nim’s Island ($1.3m/$44m) and Redbelt ($1.1m/$1.2m). Prom Night followed close after that, but with a robust—given its cheapie budget–$42m total.
