Top 10 for May 5-7, 2006 Summary: Final numbers are in.
In a debut that will likely reverberate throughout every big studio this weekend, a big name star plus solid reviews and a killer summer weekend date weren't enough to bring mass audiences out to the cineplexes, as Tom Cruise's big budget actioner Mission: Impossible 3 opened strong (more than the rest of the top ten combined), but well below industry expectations with $47.7 million. Could this mean Cruise's public persona meltdown kept people away after all, since all other pre-weekend signs (good reviews, huge ad campaign, the first true weekend of the summer season) pointed towards a much loftier opening?
Debuting in an ultrawide 4,054 theaters (the fourth widest launch in history), the $150 million budgeted J.J. Abrams helmed sequel debuted significantly behind its critically-panned predecessor M:I2 ($57.8m in 2000) and barely ahead of the original Mission: Impossible, which opened with $45.4 million ten years ago (ticket price inflation makes that number roughly $65-68 million now). Averaging $11,777 per theater, the opening was well below last summer's Cruise vehicle War of the Worlds, which debuted with $64.8 million over the July 4th weekend ($16,601 average in 3,908 theaters). Most projections had M:I 3 targeted at the same $60-70 million vicinity, but only time will tell if word of mouth pulls suspicious viewers back to the theaters before the rest of the summer line-up heats up.
Perhaps the closest comparison to M:I3's disappointing opening comes from last June's Batman Begins, which also garnered solid reviews from critics but failed to match the openings of its much less critically accepted predecessors, debuting with $48.75 million and averaging $12,634 per theater. With Poseidon coming next weekend, The Da Vinci Code and Over the Hedge arriving the week after that, and X-Men: The Last Stand closing out May, being the first major summer blockbuster just might be a mission impossible.
Falling a top ten best 32% this weekend was last week's champ RV, finishing the weekend with $11 million and pushing its ten day take to $31 million. Look for the family comedy to finish with $60 million domestically.
Freestyle Releasing's period horror flick An American Haunting scared up a meager $5.7 million in 1,668 theaters, averaging a lackluster $3,467 per theater thanks to a tepid marketing campaign and awful reviews from critics (just a 17% recommendation rating from critics polled by Rottentomatoes.com).
The weekend's final wide release debut was forgettable, as New Line's $15 million budgeted "soft-core eco-terrorism" family film Hoot opened softly in ninth place, with an estimated $3.4 million. Debuting in a wide 3,018 theaters, the release managed just $1,126 per theater, and should disappear from the box office radar next week.
In limited release, SPC Films' Art School Confidential took in a solid $142,000 in twelve theaters nationwide after a successful run on the film festival circuit. Out of the top ten was the computer-animated The Wild, which finished with just $2.5 million this weekend and $32 million total, a huge disappointment for Disney, which paid C.O.R.E. Digital Studios a reported $80 million to make the film.
Surprisingly, the top ten films saw a 24% spike in sales from last year's comparable frame, when Kingdom of Heaven took in just $19.6 million. It was down 4% from the comparable frame two years ago, when Van Helsing topped the charts with $51.7 million.
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