It’s amusing. The same people that were calling The Weinstein Company dead, are now saying Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” has single-handedly saved the studio, despite the fact that TWC and Universal co-produced the film and therefore have to split the profits. At a $70 million budget, that doesn’t include promotion and advertising (probably $40 million — very conservatively — in this case, both studios went nuts with getting the awareness out there), it’s hard to see where the salvation is so far. It’s weird, of all people, for Variety to be sounding the victory horn as they should know these numbers well, no? It’s very odd (plus, they popped the champagne on Saturday, calm down guys, some were even rejoicing Friday from the $14 million haul).
However, with a $37.6 million take domestically and $65.1 million in total worldwide, these are not shabby numbers at all. Update: Box-office mojo has emailed and says the studios actually underestimated figures and the film’s gross was actually $38.1 million. Perhaps the trades were suggesting that if ‘Basterds’ were somehow a bomb the final nail would have been driven in the TWC coffin. $37 million is high though and does exceed expectations. Most had originally pegged the film at a $25 million dollar opening and then the week of release that number grew to the $30-35 million dollar ball park.
One thing’s for sure, ‘Basterds’ did a great about face. The film was met with mixed and mediocre reviews at Cannes when it first played, but by the time it reached U.S. shores critics either sang a different tune on a second helping and those that hadn’t seen it before seemed to give it a big thumbs up. But let’s please, please, not put that on the “new cut” of the film, there is very, very little different aside from nips and tucks throughout (we did a comprehensive look at the changes) and they weren’t enough to radically change ones position on the film. The film was the highest Tarantino box-office debut opening ever, trouncing his previous best of $25 million for “Kill Bill 2.”
A lot of pundits are putting the victory on the marquee value of Brad Pitt, but we really think it’s the exorbitant amount of press Quentin Tarantino did. You’ll notice there were no covers with Brad Pitt, and very few features, but the director was everywhere out selling the film and the week prior to release became a kind of celebratory “Welcome Back Tarantino” week. High awareness seemed to be the key factor, as ‘Basterds’ waged a successful media campaign in the weeks leading up to release.
Taking the second slot to no surprise was “District 9,” which fell far less than people projected (49% versus the 60% some had predicted) and still took in a very healthy and respectable $18.9 million which means the film is siting pretty at $73.5 million domestically (not counting the rest of the world). That’s pretty great for two weeks of run time.
“G.I. Joe” managed to stay in the top five by accumulating a very respectable $12.5 million over the weekend and the film has already soaked up $120 million total. Presumably the picture could stay in the top 10 for the next few weeks, but whether it can reach $200 million — numbers it probably needs to green light a sequel — remains to be seen.
As noted by THR, “The Time Traveler’s Wife” hasn’t done stellar numbers on the surface, but the film has basically earned its money back, save P&A (promotion and advertising) and they didn’t break the bank there. The film took in another $10 million and is currently at a $37.4 million total off a $40 million dollar budget in two weeks. It should be fine when the final beans are all counted up.
One film that has consistent legs and is doing good numbers is Nora Ephron’s foodie film, “Julie & Julia” which added another $9 million to to its almost $60 million total. The ladies have been out in droves for this one and it’s conceivable that if Sony keeps this picture in theaters long enough, it could hit $100 million. We finally saw it last weekend and it’s not too bad. As you’ve heard, the Meryl Streep section is far better than the Amy Adams section, and Oscar nomination talk for Streep — as annoying as that can be because she basically scores one every year — is on the money. If the Oscars were held today, she would surely win a nomination, so there will have to be some heavyweight performances released between now and the end of the year if she’s going to get bumped out of those five nominees. And if you look on the horizon, there doesn’t appear to be a lot for women other than “Nine,” and half those girls will likely vie for Best Supporting nods.
In what must be considered a disappointment, Robert Rodriguez’s family film, “Shorts” failed to light up like his “Spy Kids” franchise did and only took in $6.6 million in its opening weekend. Kid films generally have long shelf lives though, so don’t count out breaking even yet, especially considering how inexpensive his productions generally are.
Spots 7, 8 and 9 went to “G-Force” ($107 million total), “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” $290 million total in the U.S., but a staggering $868 million in total worldwide, it’s the number 1 grossing film of the year worldwide so far) and “The Ugly Truth”, which has to be seen as one of the sleeper rom-coms of the summer, in addition to “The Proposal” with Sandra Bullock, which has hauled in a massive, $159 million in the U.S. (never count out America’s sweetheart even if she’s in her ’40s; expect Hollywood to wake up to the fact that Sandy B still drives in incredible numbers). The Katherine Heigl-led comedy has scooped up an impressive $82.8 million domestically so far.
Fox Searchlight’s “Post-Grad” with Alexis Bledel couldn’t do more than take in $2.8 million despite being on 1,959 screens, but in the indie circuit, the film doing best is easily Searchlight’s “500 Days Of Summer” which took in $2.3 million in its six weeks of release and has taken in $22 million so far (it’s graduated to almost 1000 screens across the country). Perhaps ‘Summer’ is the limited release story of the summer. If you want to compare indie release numbers for perspective, for the amount of screens its on (90), “In The Loop,” has done a healthy $1.5 million dollars. While “Cold Souls” so far on 53 screens has only taken in $340,000 dollars.
In case you’re wondering? “The Hangover” has reached the $268 million mark and “Transformers 2” has hit $398 million (Worldwide: $826 mil). How’s “Public Enemies” doing? A film many were concerned about? It’s fallen out of the top 60 in the U.S. box-office charts and looks like it will fall just shy of the $100 million mark (it’s stalled at $96 million), but it did make a surprising, $170 million worldwide), so perhaps it wasn’t a total bust overall, but we can presume, budget and P&A were closer to $180-190 mil.
Weekend Box-Office Numbers for Aug 21-23
1. “Inglourious Basterds” – $37.6 million
2. “District 9” – $18.9 million ($73.5 million total)
3. “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” – $12.5 million ($120.5 million total)
4. “The Time Traveler’s Wife” – $10.0 million ($37.4 million total)
5. “Julie & Julia” – $9 million ($59.3 million total)
6. “Shorts” – $6.6 million
7. “G-Force” – $4.2 million ($107 million total)
8. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” – $3.5 million ($290 million total)
9. “The Ugly Truth” – $2.8 million ($82.8 million)
10. “Post Grad” – $2.8 million