ROTTEN TOMATOES: Box Office Guru Wrapup: Iron Man Rocks, Speed Racer Stalls

Box Office Guru Wrapup: Iron Man Rocks, Speed Racer Stalls

Iron Man convincingly retains its place at the top.

by Gitesh Pandya | May 11, 2008

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There was no stopping the strength of Iron Man which dominated the multiplexes for a second straight frame grossing more than the two new releases combined. The race for second place was extremely close as the Warner Bros. family picture Speed Racer and Fox's comedy What Happens in Vegas delivered nearly identical numbers over the weekend. Regardless, the new product and the strong hold from the super hero giant helped the overall marketplace surge well ahead of year-ago levels.

Paramount ruled the box office again with the first installment of its new super hero franchise Iron Man which grossed an estimated $50.5M dropping 49% from last week. Compared to the studio's $102.1M bow which included Thursday night showtimes the second weekend decline was still just 51% which amounted to a strong hold given the enormous amount of business that was generated in the first weekend. The cume has soared to $177.1M already making it the top-grossing film of 2008 by surpassing the $150.7M that Horton Hears A Who has collected over the last two months.

Iron Man is off to the best start ever for a non-webslinger comic book movie. The total beat out ten-day starts for 2003's X2: X-Men United ($147.7M) and 2006's X-Men: The Last Stand ($175.3M). The third mutant adventure even launched over the lucrative Memorial Day holiday weekend. X2 dropped by a similar 53% in its second session and its ten-day cume would amount to roughly $174M at today's ticket prices so Iron Man is closely following that Marvel film's admissions trajectory. The second X-Men flick, which had the same May 2 opening date five years ago, went on to gross $214.9M domestically, or around $250M at 2008 prices.

The Robert Downey Jr. pic scored the largest sophomore weekend haul of any film since last May's Shrek the Third which banked $53M on its second frame. Positive word-of-mouth helped as fans are recommending the super hero film to others and helping to drive sales. Plus the two new releases ended up not providing too much competition. This Friday's release of The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian and the following week's debut of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will provide some formidable distractions very soon. But at its current pace, Iron Man should soar to $260-280M from North America alone and could break the $500M mark worldwide.

Warner Bros. and Fox both fought over the number two spot with their new releases. According to estimates released on Sunday, Warners won by a slim $200,000 margin however the rankings could get switched on Monday when final grosses are tabulated. But based on Friday and Saturday grosses, neither studio could claim a true victory as the race was too close to call.

The big-budget family film Speed Racer struggled in its opening weekend bowing to an estimated $20.2M from 3,606 locations. Averaging a decent $5,605 per theater, the PG-rated film from the Wachowski Brothers fell short of all industry expectations. Even the least bullish projections forecast a debut in the high $20M range. Panned by most critics, the colorful and stylized racing flick tried to target kids and parents but failed to truly connect with audiences. Other high profile live-action summer films based on cartoon shows of the past fared better like Scooby Doo which bowed to $54.2M in 2002 and The Flintstones which debuted to $37.2M over four days back in 1994. Speed Racer at least didn't crash and burn like The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle which opened to a miserable $6.8M in 2000.

Warner Bros. calculated a slim 11% Sunday decline into its weekend estimate which may end coming down on Monday when final numbers are added up. Fox estimated a 29% Sunday drop for What Happens in Vegas and most major wide releases experienced 30-40% declines on Sunday. Speed Racer suffered from bad buzz and intense competition from Iron Man which appealed to many of the same people. Plus the racing pic is based on a property that lacks the broad mainstream appeal that other major summer films benefit from. With a reported production cost of well over $100M, Speed Racer also got off to a slow start overseas grossing just $12.8M from 30 markets. South Korea saw the largest international opening with $2.4M helped undoubtedly by the film's casting of Korean pop star Rain, however most countries saw debut weekends of under $1M.

Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher made their own bid for the runnerup spot with the new anti-romantic comedy What Happens in Vegas which took in an estimated $20M this weekend. Playing in 3,215 playdates, the PG-13 film averaged a solid $6,221 per venue. Vegas performed better than all the other recent comedies to hit the marketplace over the last month scoring higher than the openings for Forgetting Sarah Marshall ($17.7M), Baby Mama ($17.4M), and Made of Honor ($14.8M). In fact if the estimate holds, Vegas will enjoy the third best comedy opening of the year after 27 Dresses ($23M) and Meet the Browns ($20.1M).

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(1-20 of 48 posts) | Reply

knowingtoast85 writes:
on May 11 2008 07:18 PM

Speed Racer crashed and burned. This report makes it only sound like a minor misfire.

Personally, it fell into so-unbelievably-disastrously-bad-it's-awesome territory for me, and while I was completely entertained the entire time, it was thanks to a healthy sense of irony, which I can imagine isn't shared by most of the country.

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jneverman writes:
on May 11 2008 07:42 PM

I honestly enjoyed speed racer. It had it's flaws, but still really entertaining. It saddens me that speed racer is getting such a bad rep.

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jokerboy1991 writes:
on May 11 2008 07:54 PM

Yeah I thought Speed Racer was pretty cool (8/10). I was really hoping it would do well, and to see it become a trilogy. I hope this doesnt mean were gonna get a crappy special featuresless DVD. It had flaws, like I wish they took out Speed's one liners when hes driving, the effects were amazing but some looked unfinished, but overall it was pretty good and cool, and Ill definately get this on blu-ray.

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JakeTheSnakeMane writes:
on May 11 2008 07:58 PM

Speed Racer, I thought was terrible. It bored me to death and did not have me entertained at all. I was really disappointed because I thought it was going to be good.

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magic32 writes:
on May 11 2008 08:38 PM

THOR's gonna be cool. think awesome Marvel superhero origin pic meets the scope and scale Lord of the Rings.

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mssk8erboy writes:
on May 11 2008 08:45 PM

I loved speed racer and i can't wait til i get to see it again, hopefully in Imax this time. The visuals in that film are completely breathtaking and countless steps ahead of anything else i've seen, everything is just so vibrant looking. I'm glad that iron man had a good second week though i want that film to do well.

-MIKE

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berzo12 writes:
on May 11 2008 09:02 PM

I dont like it when movies fail usually but Speed Racer is just a bad movie and i took some advil half way through. With Iron man I think it shows that studios are finally starting to understand that the source material is much more compelling than any movie dumbed down to broaden appeal(ex. Sin City,and Batman Begins). Hopefully the same thinking will be put into The Incredible Hulk from Marvel.

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Y4USay writes:
on May 11 2008 09:05 PM

You wan visual? No waste money on Speed Wacer. Take many drug. Much better time.

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thereign writes:
on May 11 2008 09:42 PM

Speed Racer sucked A$$ at hyperspeed. It was one of the worst films I've seen in a long time, and I just couldn't understand why the Wachowskis went so overboard visually. It was CGI overload with characters you couldn't possibly care about for ten seconds. I am so glad this is dying a quick death at the box office(with the final blow to be dealt by the upcoming Prince Caspian), I could do handsprings.

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FantasyFan07 writes:
on May 11 2008 10:19 PM

Haha, funny stuff. I'm glad to see Speed Racer crash and burn. Oh the irony...

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u1sart writes:
on May 11 2008 10:23 PM

I think speed Racer was great. The wachowski made a turn by directing and producing a show for kids and i carried ma little nephew and ma daughter and they were wowed by the special effects. I dont know why some of u people are so lame. Speed Racer was reall good. I think the wachowski should come strong next time. I'd love for them to do Gears of War.

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-apocolyptic- writes:
on May 11 2008 10:53 PM

Man the Wachowski brothers haven't made a good movie since "the matrix".
The trailer for speed racer looked sloopy and tooo much of " how much can we do with visuals(CGI)".
They have become the Hollywood idea of overindulgence.

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CoUcH ToMaToE DoUgIe writes:
on May 11 2008 11:16 PM

well it seems the rt community is divided..but if i could add my

two cents I think its shame for any movie to barely beat out such a crappy

mov ie, like What happens in vegas. I'm sorry but speed racer is a definitely

a worth while experience and i still believe people are just hatin too

harshly. The movie was nowhere near as bad as everyone is proclaiming and I

just believe the people who hate came into the theater wanting to destroy it!

I still really liked very much and for all the haters out there, if you want

to see a god awful movie that is so disgusting and putrid then watch What

happens in vegas or made of honor!!!

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GGear0323 writes:
on May 11 2008 11:55 PM

ever since the matrix the wachowski's have been so obsessed with CG it is frightening. the 2 matrix sequels threw out a competent storyline for expensive CG work and big words hoping nobody would catch on that they had no clue what they were talking about, then Speed Racer took an already sorta cheesy anime, made it even cheesier and took visual cues for the race scenes from Ridge Racer, Wipeout and Twisted Metal(though car weapons were part of the anime anyway) and then made everything EXTREMELY shiny and ultra reflective and try to pass it off as some new landmark in Theatrical CG work.

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thereign writes:
on May 12 2008 12:59 AM

I love the fact that if you don't go with the flow of loving a movie simply because it's got gosh-gee-whiz effects in it, you're automatically a "hater" or "lame". People have different viewpoints on what makes a good movie, and everyone has the right to their own opinion. Personally I hoped Speed Racer would be a pleasant surprise...and it WASN'T.

The threadbare story was lame, the acting sucked because the actors obviously weren't comfortable working with so much green screen and effects they had to visualize in their head rather than being able to REACT to something REAL, and the CGI was just an overindulgence by the Wachowskis, who really have nothing good(aside from V for Vendetta) besides The Matrix to coast on for their careers.

Why don't we come up with a new term for people who'll take whatever cinematic slop is served up to them? Something like "Money Shots"(standing ready to receive Wachowski-jizz all over their faces, i.e.: Wow, you Money Shots sure do love yourself some lame Speed Racer/Meet The Spartans/or what have you) or some other lame-as$ term? Maybe then folks can see that it's insipid to insult people just for disagreeing with them about something as simple as a damn movie.

And by the way...the rest of the country must be equally lame for staying away from Speed Racer IN DROVES. Or just in case one didn't read the full article, it's not even decided if SR is the #2 movie; the race is so close(no pun intended) it might turn out come Monday to be What Happens In Vegas, which while by no means was it a perfect film, it was damn sure more enjoyable than Speed Crapper. If this happens, I will laugh my head off for a week!

Damn Money Shots.

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Gimy writes:
on May 12 2008 05:53 AM

friday...i thought speed would do REALLY REALLY WELL, saturday...after seeing it, eh...not so much. its not a crap movie(like some kid's movies last year) but somebody please tell me what age they were shooting for. you have a pg movie with a stupid amount of curse words(almost ALL were unnecessary)...and its almost 2.5 hours long. doesn't surprise me that it made nothing. visually...stunning. but the story, some of the acting, and the seemingly thrown in curse words for no reason really made me wish they'd have went back and redid most of the flick before releasing it. it just didn't work. it could have been really really good but...in the end, it's pure rental. not worth 7 bucks

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Pengoo writes:
on May 12 2008 06:29 AM

Seems like the Wachowski's are the new Shamalyan

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TombstoneLawDog writes:
on May 12 2008 06:53 AM

In reply to this comment (#1731891)
Couch; you and I seem to agree on this site as often as not, but I gotta say that in this case, Speed Racer can't get ENOUGH scorn. SR was *easily* the worst movie I've seen in the last 12 months, and that's including rentals.
There was virtually NO single shot in the entire movie that looked real-- and I don't mean 'real' as in "why can't I see that on the streets of NY" but 'real' as in "that looks absolutely NOTHING like what they're saying it is to the point where it is distracting me from this pathetic dialogue and unengaging story."

I actually was concerned that my unqualified LOVE for the Matrix as one of the finest achievements in Science Fiction cinema History would be diminished retroactively by how miserable a time I had, watching SR (it wasn't-- Matrix still RULES). The only thing I got out of it was my best friend enjoyed it for nostalgia's sake. So for those who enjoyed this, god f#cking bless.

And please, for those who are about to blow a load and say 'you just didn't GET it,' ..really, don't waste your time. I got it. There wasn't much there to get and I didn't like it. Next.

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Ashron writes:
on May 12 2008 07:07 AM

I'll throw my hat into the ring. I thought SR was enjoyable enough. The acting wasn't THAT bad (and who's to say the Wachowski's weren't going for some of that, to match the style of the cartoon). I do agree that some of the effects didn't look finished, which was weird, but overall I had a good time with it. Could have been about 15 minutes shorter and more wide shots to really see what was going on would have been nice.

I tell you what though, if real racing was like that, I'd be a NASCAR fan in a heartbeat.

And for those of you who didn't like it, that's cool. I can certainly see why and your points are valid, they just didn't bother me as much. I pretty much knew what I was getting into when I saw it.

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Runtun writes:
on May 12 2008 07:23 AM

I cannot believe that people actually thought Speed Racer would do well. I am not talking about the quality of the film, I have no real opinion since I have not seen it (and probably won't since the trailer didn't appeal to me), but the fact that people thought it would have nostalgia appeal like 'Transformers'. Speed Racer is a very old cartoon that is simply not remembered that much today and also the basic concept has little to no appeal to kids who have never heard of the show. Racing cars alone don't excite kids, unlike say giant transforming robots doing battle, especially with the extremely gaudy visual style. Look at Pixar's 'Cars'. It had the car theme, but talking 'cute' cars, with a bold, colorful and much less cluttered look. And the kids absolutely loved it. Speed Racer, I believe, it too obscure and too much, you even might say arty, visually to appeal to kids.

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