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’

Yesterday we reported the mediocre early ‘The Incredible Hulk’ box office estimates, but it turns out these numbers were slightly on the low side. Louis Leterrier’s new Hulk grossed over $21 million yesterday, giving it a shot at a $55 million box office weekend. We know it’s no ‘Iron Man’ by now, but it will be a decent opening nonetheless. In line with the opening numbers by ‘The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian’ last month. Notable is that ‘The Incredible Hulk’ won’t beat ‘The Hulk’ by Ang Lee in 2003, which made $62 million during its opening weekend.

Happening’s box office Friday was in line with what we reported yesterday. The awful thriller made $12.8 million, a little higher than the $12.5 mill we reported. It will definitely top Shyamalan’s last endeavor ‘Lady in the Water,’ which only made $18 million during its opening in 2006. ‘The Happening’ is still looking to surpass $30 million for the total weekend.

Last week’s movies are performing in line with our expectations from the weekly box office roundup. ‘Kung Fu Panda’ had another good Friday with a $10 million gross. While ‘You Don’t Mess with the Zohan’ went down to just $5.5 mill for the day.

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.