Iron Man: $123,134,395 ($186 million budget)
Made of Honor: $18,675,171 ($40 million budget)
Baby Mama: $12,613,110 ($30 million budget, second week)

A little later because of our server outage, but here’s the weekly roundup for the first week of ‘Iron Man.’

As expected ‘Harold & Kumar 2′ didn’t make the top 3 in its second week, but ‘Baby Mama’ hold up nicely with another $12.6 million in its second week. That’s 42% of its budget and makes to total go well above the $30 million budget.

Continue reading This week’s box office roundup

Last week we already found out how the ‘Speed Racer’ tracking numbers indicated a miserable opening, but Warner Bros. doesn’t necessarily see it this way. They’re not only giving the funky movie a $6 million push in the UK, they’ve also planned a $100 million marketing campaign worldwide, in addition to $100 million in promotional deals with 53 partners like McDonalds.

In reaction to the low tracking, Warner’s marketing president Sue Kroll said, “We’ve been talking about this a lot internally. There is a disconnect between how people react to the film and what the tracking is indicating.” But there’s no question about the mediocre reception of the critics either.

Continue reading Warner naive about ‘Speed Racer’ tracking?

This weekend two low rated movies are coming up. ‘What Happens in Vegas’ with a metacritic.com score of 4.0 and ‘Speed Racer’ with an even lower 3.6. Here’s what the critics had to say:

‘Speed Racer’

Philadelphia Inquirer (7.5): “Speed Racer offers a crazy, turbo-charged mix of cartoon kitsch, gamer action, and a wild new way to think of - and look at - movies.“

San Francisco Chronicle (5.0): “If this action extravaganza represents the future of movies, it’s going to be a sad, dead and awful future.“

New York Magazine (2.0): “Orgy, hell: The film is like a nightmare in which you’re trapped in an arcade with screens on all sides and no eyelids“

‘What Happens in Vegas’

ReelViews (6.3): “Sadly, about the nicest thing I can say about What Happens in Vegas is that I didn’t hate it - although I suppose that’s something.“

The Onion (5.0): “Complain all you want about the affable slobs in Judd Apatow comedies; at least they’re not tools.“

Wall Street Journal (1.0): “What Happens in Vegas… should have stayed in development — forever. This ramshackle — and occasionally repulsive — farce doesn’t even deliver on the minimal promise of its title; most of it takes place in Manhattan.“

I guess this will be another week of ‘Iron Man,’ which picked up the nice metacritic.com score of 7.8 last week.