Kong A Bomb? Not Quite
Peter Jackson’s King Kong seemingly has everything – a famous storyline, state-of-the-art effects, Oscar-winning actors and behind-the-screen talent, and glowing reviews. However, reports circulated that after the film’s disappointing opening, executives were in panic mode.
There is no doubt that the film has opened with a whimper, but a closer look at the numbers reveals a film that is in pretty decent shape. The film took in $50 million over the weekend domestically, to add to the $16 million two-day total, and more importantly, it has already cleared $80 million outside of the U.S. Add to that the lucrative DVD market, and even with the bloated $207 million production budget (the second most expensive movie ever) and probably another $80-$100 million advertising budget, Kong should be a money-maker.
Up next for Jackson, reportedly, is the movie version of the bestseller “The Lovely Bones”…
I saw Brokeback Mountain last night — I liked it more than my wife did, but we both thought it was worth seeing — according to today’s Times, it set a record for per-screen-revenue in its opening weekend.
The movie was also the subject of the first Frank Rich column in months which had little or nothing to do with George Bush…
I’m not surprised (about Rich, not you)…Mickey Kaus hilariously predicted Frank Rich’s column days ago…
Bomb? No, but it didn’t do nearly as well as they were hoping. It’s certainly a disappointing opening. Especially after Narnia had a spectacular opeing the weekend before. I had a prediction before both of them opened that Narnia would top Kong in opening weekend box office sales, and I was right. Kong’s 5-day opening even was barely able to top (if at all, actual results are not known yet) Narnia’s 3-day weekend…
Sphagnum, true (and good call), but you know the execs are breathing a sigh of relief…the Saturday numbers jumped nearly 40% over Friday and put a bit of a stop to the predictons of a disaster…