Not much has changed since our last update a couple of hours ago. The final box office results are in line with what we expected. It was a soft start for ‘The Incredible Hulk.’ People still had the bad aftertaste from the first Hulk movie and the $150 million blockbuster didn’t manage to top $55 million. Now $54.5 million isn’t a bad start and it beats Marvel’s (low) expectations. But with a $100 million ‘Iron Man’ opening weekend last month, this number shouldn’t satisfy them. Especially since ‘Iron Man’ was cheaper and a lesser-known character. Marvel simply didn’t succeed in explaining why people should see the green faced Bruce Banner another time. Ang Lee’s ‘The Hulk’ grossed $62 million in its opening weekend.

Meanwhile, ‘The Happening’ gives a mixed picture. While some expected the thriller to end up in the low teens, $30.5 million is a decent number. Considering the $60 million budget, Fox might have wanted a little more. But they made a smart choice by releasing the B-movie worldwide from day one. Not including marketing and distribution, the $32 million overseas gross surprisingly makes M. Night Shyamalan’s work profitable from the first weekend. In this aspect, you could say Fox’ marketing for ‘The Happening’ was better than Universal’s for ‘The Incredible Hulk.’ While it still has to launch in about 25% of its markets, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ made just $31 million overseas.

Continue reading Final box office weekend estimates, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ tops with decent performance, ‘Kung Fu Panda’ second before ‘The Happening’

The first Friday box office numbers are coming in and it seems like my ‘The Happening’ rant came just in time. A lot of people didn’t know the movie was God-awful and bought an estimated $12.5 million in tickets. This translates into a +$30 million weekend, slightly beating early tracking.

‘The Incredible Hulk’ is having a surprisingly mild opening. I can’t tell you how that one is, since I’m seeing it tonight. But as we questioned in our tracking post earlier this week, it doesn’t seem like people have forgotten about Ang Lee’s ‘The Hulk’ in 2003. The blockbuster had a weak $18.5 mill opening this Friday and will probably gross around $50 million this weekend. Half of Iron Man’s opening by Paramount last month — ‘The Incredible Hulk’ is being distributed by Universal.

I’ll post a small update with the final numbers if they deviate from these box office estimates.

At the end of 2005, DreamWorks was sold to Paramount for approximately $1.6 billion. But it seems like Spielberg wasn’t happy with the deal. He now wants to reinvent the company and raise $1 billion in third-party financing to be able to create his own movies again.

Since the beginning of May, his contract allows him to discuss options with competitors. Since then, he has been in talks with Universal, Disney and Fox to distribute the future movies of the company. And while Spielberg is under contract until 2010, he has an escape clauses to terminate the contract if he wants to get out early. As has his right hand Stacey Snider. “Stacey is the next generation, and Steven is very committed to her,” one source said.

Steven Spielberg’s latest film, ‘Indiana Jones 4,’ could be an early sign of his parting with Paramount. The company only did the distribution for the movie, with mixed reviews. Some say the movie should’ve reached a domestic gross of $300 million by now, while it currently stands at a little over $250 mill. And while $580 worldwide seems like a good number, Spielberg might have expected a little more after the +$700 million ‘Transformers’ made last year. A movie he and DreamWorks produced together.