'Fantastic Four' Rides $57M Wave To Top

[comedyfreak]

Hollywood's superhero foursome is still fantastic at the box office. The 20th Century Fox sequel "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" debuted as the No. 1 weekend flick with $57.4 million in sales, slightly surpassing the $56.1 million opening of "Fantastic Four" two years ago, according to studio estimates Sunday.

Among other new wide releases, a favorite teen detective had trouble finding an audience as the Warner Bros. mystery "Nancy Drew" premiered with a so-so $7.1 million to finish at No. 7.

Opening in narrower release was the Weinstein Co. thriller "DOA: Dead or Alive," an adaptation of the martial-arts video game that pulled in just $232,000. Playing in 505 theaters, "DOA" averaged a paltry $460 a cinema, compared to $14,499 in 3,959 theaters for "Fantastic Four" and $2,732 in 2,612 locations for "Nancy Drew."

The previous weekend's No. 1 movie, George Clooney and Brad Pitt's "Ocean's Thirteen," fell to No. 2 with $19.1 million. The Warner Bros. casino caper raised its 10-day total to $69.8 million, putting it on track to become the franchise's third $100 million hit.

Despite the big opening for "Fantastic Four," Hollywood revenues slipped for the third straight weekend. The top 12 movies took in $138.8 million, down 4 percent from the same weekend last year, when "Cars," "Nacho Libre" and "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" led with a combined $86 million.

The industry had a blockbuster May with "Spider-Man," "Shrek" and "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequels, but big films are not holding their audiences after huge opening weekends.

After a surge early this year, attendance has slipped to just a fraction ahead of 2006, diminishing prospects of a record summer that many analysts had predicted.

"We've seen our advantage over last year slowly being chipped away," said Paul Dergarabedian, president of box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. "A lot of films are doing what these big summer movies do, open big and drop off fast."

The new "Fantastic Four" reunites the quartet of astronauts-turned-mutant-superheroes, played by Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans. This time, the comic-book heroes join forces with archenemy Dr. Doom (Julian McMahon) to take down the Silver Surfer, an emissary leading a planet-destroying entity to Earth.

The studio and filmmakers toned down the action so the sequel could earn a PG rating to broaden the audience to family viewers. The first "Fantastic Four" was rated PG-13.

"A lot of the superhero comic-book movies are sort of geared toward being darker and edgier. We think `Fantastic Four' is a more family friendly group of superheroes," said Chris Aronson, senior vice president for distribution at 20th Century Fox. "We wanted to make sure to cast a wide net and go after the family audience, and it worked."

Weekend Box Office Estimates (U.S.)
This Wk Last Wk Title Dist. Weekend Gross Cumulative
Gross Rlse
Wks # of
Theaters
1 - Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer 20th Century Fox Distribution $57,400,000 $57,400,000 1 3959
2 1 Ocean's Thirteen Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution $19,105,000 $69,810,000 2 3565
3 3 Knocked Up Universal Pictures Distribution $14,535,000 $90,482,000 3 2907
4 2 Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End Buena Vista Pictures Distribution $12,024,000 $273,757,000 4 3329
5 4 Surf's Up Sony Pictures Releasing $9,300,000 $34,671,000 2 3531
6 5 Shrek the Third Paramount Pictures, Paramount Pictures International $9,007,000 $297,249,000 5 3505
7 - Nancy Drew Warner Bros. Pictures Distribution $7,135,000 $7,135,000 1 2612
8 6 Hostel: Part II Lionsgate $3,000,000 $14,182,000 2 2350
9 7 Mr. Brooks MGM Distribution Company $2,820,000 $23,441,000 3 1923
10 8 Spider-Man 3 Sony Pictures Releasing, Sony Pictures Releasing International $2,500,000 $330,016,000 7 1822
11 9 Waitress Fox Searchlight Pictures $1,270,000 $14,083,000 7 615
12 20 La Vie en Rose New Line Cinema, Picturehouse $669,000 $2,815,000 2 78

[Buffyboy323]

Wow....I was expecting it to flop.

[TJL]

Anxiously awaiting that "DOA" movie to make it to DVD. I really want to review that one.

[comedyfreak]

I really enjoyed the Fantastic Four, maybe a little more than Spiderman3. I liked the rivalry between Torch and Thing, the effects were also done well.

[Cactus Jack]

Originally Posted by comedyfreak

I really enjoyed the Fantastic Four, maybe a little more than Spiderman3. I liked the rivalry between Torch and Thing, the effects were also done well.

Ditto that. Spider Man 3..well didn't SUCK compeltely, but wasn't as good as expected

[comedyfreak]

Originally Posted by Cactus Jack

Ditto that. Spider Man 3..well didn't SUCK compeltely, but wasn't as good as expected

True, it needed to be a little less dark as it is in the comics and animated series. Spiderman was always a smartarse to his foes. JJJ should have called him a web-head that would have lightened things up a bit too.

[Cactus Jack]

Originally Posted by comedyfreak

True, it needed to be a little less dark as it is in the comics and animated series. Spiderman was always a smartarse to his foes. JJJ should have called him a web-head that would have lightened things up a bit too.

Yeah, I just thought the villains needed to be meaner, and the dance sequences to NOT happens