There was little doubt that both Wall-E and Wanted would do well this weekend. What no one knew for sure was how well either film would do. It was assumed that the two films wouldn’t hurt each other too much since Wall-E is rated G and Wanted is rated R, but no one really knew if the R rating would hurt Wanted or if the allure of Pixar with Wall-E would just be too much and would pull fans away from Wanted. Well, as it turns out, there were plenty of moviegoers to go around.
Wall-E and Wanted joined together to haul in nearly $114M in ticket sales this weekend. It was the first time in history that two films opened with more than $50M each on the same weekend. Powered by the heart-stopping box office of these two films, the box office climbed to its highest point yet in 2008.
As expected Wall-E opened in the number one spot with an estimated $62.5M in ticket sales. The film opened in 3,992 sites and averaged a massive $15,656 per theater. It also set a few marks to take note of:
- It was Pixar’s ninth consecutive #1 opening (they’ve only had nine movies).
- It was the eight largest opening ever for an animated film.
- It was the fourth highest opening ever for Pixar behind The Incredibles ($70.5M in 2004), Finding Nemo ($70.3M in 2003), and Monsters, Inc. ($62.6M in 2001).
- It was the third best opening ever for a G rated film behind Finding Nemo and Monsters, Inc.
- It was Disney’s largest opening in over a year (Disney owns Pixar now in case you didn’t know).
The movie played well across the board, playing as both a family film and a date movie. It is being hailed by critics as an early Best Picture candidate (including yours truly) and CinemaScore audiences are giving it an A+. It’s still scoring at 97% at RottenTomatoes.com.
Going head to head with the mighty strength of Pixar and Wall-E, Wanted had to settle for second place. But if any movie had to settle for second place, this was the time to do it. The R-rated film opened in 3,175 locations and scored an estimated $51.1M over the weekend for a scorching average of $16,100 per theater. As previously stated, this was the first time in history that a second place filmed opened with over $50M.
The Wanted opening was the seventh largest opening ever for an R rated film. It was the third best opening for an R rated summer film behind only The Matrix Reloaded ($91.8M in 2003) and Sex and the City ($56.8M last month). It was Angelina Jolie’s top grossing opener ever behind 2005’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith ($50.3M) and 2001’s Lara Croft: Tomb Raider ($47.7M).
Reviews were mostly positive and the movie played wide as well. Produced for only $75M, Wanted should be a very profitable film for Universal.
Together, Wall-E and Wanted have capped off a sensational June that has laid the groundwork for a record breaking summer that should continue through next week when Hancock opens. The top ten films this week combined to bring in an estimated $175.9M at the box office which is up 24% over last year when Pixar’s Ratatouille opened in the top spot with $47M and up 26% from 2006 when Superman Returns opened at number one with $52.5M.
That's some pretty impressive stats! I knew they would both do well, but I had no idea they would do THIS well!
Wow, that's a lot of dough