Weekend Recap: May 2 - 4

Update: May 5 at 2:50PT Iron Man's total through Sunday was $102.1 million so unless Thursday's preview gross was below $2.1 million, Iron Man just barely missed the $100M mark. Regardless, it's a great open and other than bragging rights, there's little difference between a $98 and a $102 million open. Iron Man's total gross should be much more important.

Correction: May 4 When I wrote this article, I saw a total of $104.3 million and assumed the previews were over $5 million. The weekend estimates show that the 3-day total was above $100 million without any previews.

They got it. The $100,000,000 weekend. Ok, so technically Iron Man needed the help of Thursday night previews to reach that milestone, but they'll get the great weekend headlines. It's excellent news for first time financing Marvel Studios - beginners' luck…or perhaps they have one of the best sets of entertainment intellectual property in the world. If you had asked me a year ago about Iron Man, I'd probably scoff at a little known comic book hero that sounded like some crazy Wizard of Oz spin-off. Yet, Iron Man now has the second highest opening for a non-sequel. Let's also pause and marvel at how amazing Spider-Man's original opening was: It grossed $114.8 million without any Thursday night previews and with lower ticket prices. In 2008 ticket prices, Spider-Man would have grossed $141.4 million. That will be a difficult record for any sequel or non-sequel to match.

Success can be fleeting however. A 9-digit open is an excellent start, but it's still important to have a decent second and third weekend. Even very frontloaded movies still gross the majority of their box office outside their opening weekend (with the recent exception of Cloverfield). $100 million weekend won't feel as good if Iron Man drops off significantly after its opening. Iron Man seemed to follow in the footsteps of Spider-Man by increasing on Saturday, but that was with a lot of help from Thursday night easing the frontloading. Even with the really positive reviews, I have doubts that Iron Man will match Spider-Man's total of 3.5 times its opening weekend. I expect a factor closer to 2.5 times the opening, but I've been proven wrong before (damn you, Bank Job, for having the best box office longevity of the entire year).

Made of Honor came in within expectations. Not great, but its success will depend on its longevity, not so much its opening weekend take. Let's take a look at other counter-programming attempts in recent years:

Lucky You $2.7 million (against Spider-Man)
Hoot $3.4 million (against Mission Impossible 3)
New York Minute $6.0 million (against Van Helsing)
Lizzie McGuire $17.4 million (against X2)
Deuces Wild $2.7 million (against Spider-Man)

The most successful counter-programming that I can think of was Devil Wears Prada with $27.5 million going up against Superman Returns with $52.5 million (it opened on Wednesday).

Historically, next weekend (May 9 - 11) is the weakest weekend of May and I don't think this year will be an exception. I hope I'm not being overly harsh on Speed Racer based solely on the trailers, but if it grosses over $30 million opening weekend, I'll consider that a great success. I've seen a couple of articles saying that would be a huge miss, but I just don't see how anyone after watching the trailer would expect an opening a lot higher.

An off-topic footnote: I saw the second trailer for The Love Guru before Iron Man this weekend and I felt nervous about what I wrote previously. It was by far the most enjoyed trailer and the audience laughed around a half-dozen times - not just a handful of people, but most of the audience. I'll have to amend my initial box office prediction as although I didn't laugh during the trailer, enough people did that it'll likely have a strong weekend. Yes, it's a small sample size, but it's much larger than my previous sample of myself.