Wolverine a big moneymaker
The latest movie to capitalize on what started out as the X-Men comic book series pulled in some serious cash on its opening night. “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” made $35 million Friday night alone, and it looks like it will have another big night tonight.
Hollywood Insider doesn’t believe the movie will match the $98 million ”Iron Man” made at the box office over its opening weekend.
Breaking it down
“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” showed in a total of 4,099 theaters. Friday night the movie made a per-screen average of $8,539.
The opening movie that made the second most on Friday fell about $30 million short of the latest X-Men installment. “Ghost of Girlfriends Past” pulled in $5.8 million. That film graced fewer screens, though, with 3,175. Nowadays, when people practically need payday loans to afford movie theater prices, moviegoers are pretty picky about what they will pay to see.
Not the biggest $-Man
The previous release of an X-Men movie was in 2006, when “X-Men: The Last Stand” came out on the last weekend in May. That film’s opening-night earnings surpassed “Wolverine” by a pretty healthy margin. It made $45 million on May 26. It pulled in a total of $123 million its first weekend.
The 2003 X-Men release, “X2″ pulled in $85 million its opening weekend. The first movie in the series, “X-Men,” came out in 2000, and it made only $54 million its opening weekend.
Comic-based movies top box office books
The award for highest-grossing opening night of all time goes to “The Dark Knight,” which made $66.4 million when it came out July 18, 2008. For the weekend it made more than $158 million. That one weekend nearly covered the cost of making the film, which had a budget of $185 million.
By the end of the following weekend, the cost of the film was covered. By then “The Dark Knight” had pulled in well more than $300 million. Sales for “The Dark Knight” soared despite the deepening recession. The movie was highly anticipated, and the tragic, sudden and unexpected death of Heath Ledger, who played one of the main characters in the movie, spurred more viewers as well.
More big box office hits
Yet another comic-book-based movie comes in second for most money made on its opening night. “Spider-Man 3″ made $59.4 million on its opening night in 2007.
The third-biggest moneymaker on opening night deviates from the comic book world. “Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest” made $55.8 million on July 7, 2006.
Big bucks for budget
“X-Men Origins: Wolverine” cost a grand total of $158 million to make, so it’s possible the movie will make back its price in two or three weeks.
However, after checking out the reviews on RottenTomatoes.com, it looks like the makers of “Wolverine” might be lucky just to make back the money they spent on the film. Only 38 percent of the Rotten Tomatoes critics gave it a good review. The site calls “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” a “familiar narrative” with a “cliche-ridden script.”
A constant criticism about comic based movies is that the movie doesn’t come close to the quality of the original, but what movie translation of a movie doesn’t? (Tom Clancy movies are typically better than the books – they’re over fairly quickly.) Wolverine Origins was a fantastic graphic novel, so how it translates to the silver screen remains to be seen.
some parts of this movie were okay (like anything with Liev Schreiber or Ryan Reynolds)… but almost everything else was oozing with cheese