SHOWBIZ STOCK WATCH: 'The Dark Knight' Leads Warner Bros. to Almost $1B in Summer Sales; Paramount Just $30M Behind at No. 2; Universal and Sony are 3-4!
by Steve Mason
The Dark Knight (Warner Bros.) will soar past $500 million sometime on Sunday, and will have banked about $505 million by Tuesday morning. With Sex and the City at $152.44 million and Get Smart reaching $128.29 million, Warner Bros. is the No. 1 studio for the summer of 2008 with a monstrous $995.42 million by the end of the long Labor Day weekend. The studio also got help from Journey to the Center of the Earth, which has generated an impressive $93 million or so.
My measure here is to take the grosses for all movies released from May 2 through this Friday (Aug. 29) and add projected Labor Day weekend numbers. Based on that standard, Paramount/DreamWorks is a very strong No. 2 with an estimated $964.59 million, about $30 million behind the Warner crew. The Melrose Avenue gang rode back-to-back $300 million grossing movies — Iron Man ($317.57 million) and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ($315.33 million) — followed by the DreamWorks animated smash Kung Fu Panda ($212.95 million). Include the $86.53 million that Tropic Thunder will have reached by the end of business on Labor Day, and you have got a very impressive performance during Hollywood's most lucrative season.
Universal is third among the big six with $651 million or so. The Incredible Hulk, Wanted and Mamma Mia! all have topped $130M, and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor will be just shy of $100 million by Tuesday. Sony climbed on Will Smith's back for a $226 million ride with Hancock, then got excellent performances from its string of comedies You Don't Mess With the Zohan (just under $100 million), Step Brothers (bearing down on $100 million) and August offerings Pineapple Express and The House Bunny. The estimated total for Sony by the end of the long weekend will be $580.5 million, which makes them No. 4.
Disney is next with just three films and $374 million domestic. WALL*E is just over $216 million of that take and, although The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian disappointed, it still accounted for $140 million. On the other hand, 20th Century Fox released eight movies, failing to top $100 million with any of them. The summer started in a promising fashion with What Happens In Vegas ($80.25 million), and they even salvaged a $65 million gross from M. Night Shymalan's The Happening. With Fox's next five movies though, starting with Meet Dave ($11.66 million) and ending with The Rocker (which should be in the $7 million range by Tuesday), the studio's average domestic cume has been just $18.5 million or so, and, unfortunately, Babylon A.D. will not stop Fox's cold streak. The studio will finish the summer with only an estimated $250 million in U.S. sales.
HA. poor poor fox. surely WB's doing the vitory dance in fox's face.
Posted by: RIPsquishy | August 30, 2008 at 02:22 PM
LET'S ALL HOPE WB WINS THE WATCHMEN COURT CASE AGAINST FOX.
MAYBE FOX SHOULD GET A BETTER TEAM TOGETHER INSTEAD OF RIPPING OFF OTHER STUDIOS.
Posted by: tindman | August 31, 2008 at 01:44 AM
do you think that zohan has what it takes to get over 100 million so it can say that it made at least 100 million?
Posted by: Bob | August 31, 2008 at 01:21 PM
warner bros would be at 748 million (still a strong no. 2) if not for the merger with New Line.
(sex & the city - 153 million
journey...earth - 94 million)
of course, in regard to the whole year's boxoffice, they have compensated for the extra bucks by postponing HPOT6.
Posted by: abhishek | September 01, 2008 at 10:46 AM
Bob,
Zohan is at 99.7 million.
Last weekend it got 0.1 million.
this weekend begin a long weekend, it will get about 0.1 more.
that gives it 99.8
i think the studio will give it a tiny push, if at all needed, to get to 100 million.
Posted by: abhishek | September 01, 2008 at 10:49 AM
With so many dud movies this summer, FOX deserved exactly what they had coming for them, poor choices bad results. Hopefully, they won't f it up next summer especially with the 'X-Men Origins: Wolverine' movie.
Posted by: bhn | September 01, 2008 at 07:04 PM