Some of our regular readers might have expected our weekly ‘post-weekend box office drop‘ yesterday, but since we had the Memorial Day weekend, we can’t really compare the results. In the post-weekend drop we compare the box office results of Saturday + Sunday and Monday + Tuesday. And this Monday was actually a Sunday, so we would generate skewed results.

Continue reading The post-weekend box office drop

It was Monday morning. Steven Spielberg just made himself a cup a coffee when the phone started to ring. He picked up and said nothing. The man on the other side was silent too, but then asked, “Steven…?” “Yes,” Spielberg answered. “311 million,” the voice said. I imagine Spielberg dancing around in his bathrobe after these words, but that’s just speculation on my part.

This is the actual ritual Steven Spielberg has during his opening weekends. “What I do on opening weekend is my ritual is a total blackout, like a sequestered jury. No radio, no telephone, no internet, no newspapers. I don’t want to hear anything until Monday morning. I just want to hear one number, which is the Monday morning number,” Spielberg said.

I wonder what he does in the meantime. You’ll need some discipline to go a whole Memorial Day weekend without telephone, internet or radio. I can imagine some teenage girls rather killing themselves than spending one weekend without it. But I guess Spielberg has enough toys to keep him happy.

Remember how we talked about the $400 million Indy 4 has to make before the big three get a share? Well, expect this point to be reached within a week. ‘Indiana Jones 4′ made $311 million worldwide in the first couple of days. Spielberg’s best opening to date. The old whip made an estimated $151 million during the full 5-day Memorial Day weekend, from Thursday to Monday.

‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ came in second with a disappointing $31 million during its second weekend. It merely beat ‘Iron Man,’ which made $27.5 million and currently stand at a total of $485 million worldwide. ‘What Happens in Vegas’ grossed double of what ‘Speed Racer’ did, with another $12 million. While ‘Speed Racer’ is driving off the circuit, making just $5.5 million.