A Fantastic Weekend

July 11, 2005 by Liam
Filed under: Movie News

What do you get when you have a movie with not-so-good previews, negative buzz from the fans and some critical backlash? Well, you get a $56 million opening weekend. That’s right, Fantastic Four, which had “mistake” written all over it managed to exceed all expectations and in the process end a 19-weekend long slump at the box office.

So how did Fantastic Four do it? Damned if I know. Not so great characters? Weak dialogue? Uninspired direction? But the consensus seems to be that the movie was fun – or at least a lot more fun than most originally gave it credit for. I guess the real test will be to see how it performs next weekend.

Elsewhere at the box office, War of the Worlds dropped 50% of its audience, still earning $31.3 million and landing in 2nd place. After 2 weeks of release, the movie has earned $165.8 million.

At #3, Batman Begins earned $10.2 million. After four weeks of release, the summer’s other superhero flick has earned $172 million. Here’s my question… How does a movie like Fantastic Four, with everything going against it, earn more in it’s first weekend than Batman Begins (which made only $48.7 million opening weekend)? Didn’t Batman have everything going for it including an awesome cast, a pedigree director and all the fanboy buzz and critical acclaim you could ask for? I guess you never can tell…

The weekend’s other major release, Dark Water starring Jennifer Connelly, was a colossal disappointment. Like the film’s plot, the movie went nowhere, earning only $10.1 million.

For those still following Revenge of the Sith, the movie earned an estimated $2.6 million (in 10th place) and passed The Passion of the Christ on the all-time domestic earnings list with $370.8 million. The movie now ranks 9th all-time just behind Spider-Man 2.

For more information, check out our Box Office results.

Share This!