Enterprise Crew Knocks Down Iron Man

Which film should logically be topping the charts this week?

If you guessed Star Trek: Into Darkness, you would be very right.

The newest ST movie just released last weekend to the tune of $70.6 million, but it also fell way short of Paramount's expectations.  2009's Star Trek opened with $75.2 million - about five million more than Into Darkness' actual numbers - so it makes sense that the studio figured it would make more with the sequel.  Their estimation of $100 million was way off, though, and I'm sure that the guys at Paramount aren't exactly thrilled about that.

Nevertheless, Into Darkness managed to grab the #1 domestic spot from Iron Man 3, who had been at the top for two straight weekends.  In fact, Marvel's Man of Steel has still been going very strong at the box office, particularly overseas: a $1.1 billion worldwide haul (so far) is nothing to sneeze at.

What's surprising (at least to me) is that The Great Gatsby did even better overseas this week than both Into Darkness and Iron Man 3.  That film pulled in $42.1 million internationally as opposed to ST's $40 million and IM 3's $40.2 million in the same market.

Then again, maybe the overseas market prefers DiCaprio over Downey, Jr.  I dunno.  But I'm expecting IM 3 to outlast both Into Darkness and Gatsby's theater runs, even though it does have a two week head start.  But I guess we'll have to just sit back and see what happens.

I'm also very curious as to whether or not Into Darkness will be able to beat ST's worldwide total of $385 million.  It's definitely possible, particularly since I've heard that this sequel is much better than the first.  Then again, Paramount's original opening weekend estimation was pretty far off.

That's one of the most interesting parts about the movie industry: a great movie can flop, a terrible movie can succeed, and it's all on the shoulders (and wallets) of the public.

Being a financial adviser for the movie industry must be some stressful job.


Here are the estimated ticket sales for Friday May 17th through Sunday May 19th at U.S. and Canadina theaters (courtesy of the Star Tribune):

1.  Star Trek: Into Darkness - $70.6 million
2.  Iron Man 3 - $35.2 million
3.  The Great Gatsby - $23.4 million
4.  Pain & Gain - $3.1 million
5.  The Croods - $2.75 million
6.  42 - $2.73 million
7.  Oblivion - $2.2 million
8.  Mud - $2.16 million
9.  Peeples - $2.15 million
10.  The Big Wedding - $1.1 million


In other news, finals are done and I refuse to keep making excuses not to blog.  The procrastinating tendencies in my brain are going down and staying down if it's the last thing I ever do.

So let the summer blogging begin!  This will be so much fun!




 - Edessa, signing off