The first numbers for 20th Century Fox's X-Men: Days of Future Past are in. The much-anticipated superhero sequel earned a solid $8.1 million in Thursday night shows starting at around 7:00pm. That's the fourth-biggest Thursday haul of 2014, below the $10.5m for Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the $9.3m for Godzilla, and the $8.7m for The Amazing Spider-Man 2. It's higher than any prior X-Men midnight/Thursday haul thus far, surpassing the $5.9m earned by X-Men: The Last Stand on this weekend in 2006, the $4m earned by The Wolverine last July, the $3.37m midnight numbers posted by X-Men: First Class in June 2011, and the $5m earned by X-Men Origins: Wolverine in May 2009.
Now there are two things to consider. First of all, the last 'Wolverine and the X-Men' team up opened way back in 2006, before midnight screenings (or Thursday screenings) were as commonplace as they were today. For example, I remember seeing the first X-Men at midnight back in July 2000 in a near-empty theater. The film earned $20m on Friday, but very few of them opted to see that 12:01am showing in Akron, Ohio. Before midnight/advance-night screenings became the status quo (arguably around 2011), that was the risk of a preview showing. You got to see the movie 'first,' but sometimes in a barren theater.
Second point being, for all intents-and-purposes, this is basically the first 'old cast' X-Men movie in eight years, so frenzied anticipation is going to be much higher than something like The Wolverine. X-Men: The Last Stand earned 5.7% of its Fri-Sun opening weekend at midnight ($5.9m/$102m), while X-Men Origins: Wolverine earned 5.8% ($5m/$85m). X-Men: First Class earned a more front-loaded 6.1% ($3.37m/$55.1m) while The Wolverine earned 7.5% on Thursday ($4m/$53m). As you can see, the numbers get more front-loaded over the years, both as a result of a more front-loaded marketplace overall and the X-Men franchise playing more to its hardcore fans.
With ever heavier anticipation, it's presumed that X-Men: Days of Future Past will be be at the higher end of the front-loading scale, possibly around the now-standard 9-12% for comic book sequels and geek-centric properties of late. Offhand, I'd say that the Memorial Day Monday will lessen the upfront front-loading, keeping the number closer to 9% than 12%. If, by some miracle, X-Men: Days of Future Past performs like X-Men: The Last Stand, expect a Fri-Sun total of $142 million and a Fri-Mon total of $165m. But that's not likely at all.
But if it performs like The Wolverine, it gets to a still solid $108m Fri-Sun total. However, and here's the 'danger', if it performs like the recent geek-friendly blockbusters and pulls in around 9% for the weekend last night, it gets to $90m for the Fri-Sun debut and a bit over $100m for the four-day total. That's pretty solid for an aged franchise, but it will be less than X-Men: The Last Stand and will mean far less tickets sold than X2: X-Men United, which opened with $85m in 2003. And with Memorial Day being infamously bad for legs, X-Men: Days of Future Past will have to make as much money as humanly possible this weekend if it hopes to scale the franchise's box office heights.
We'll know when we know. In the meantime, feel free to share your thoughts on this seventh X-Men film below.
Post By http://www.forbes.com/sites/scottmendelson/2014/05/23/box-office-x-men-days-of-future-past-earns-8-1m-on-thursday/
0 comments Blogger 0 Facebook
Post a Comment