Great reviews (near perfect for WALL*E) for both the latest Pixar effort and the movie adaptation of the Wanted comic book has resulted in a box office record being broken this weekend. For the first time ever, two movies have opened with more than $50 million and with the carries over of so many other blockbusters it put this weekend in the Top 10 of all time. With an incredible score of 9.3 on IMDB after 5, 314 votes (which places it 9th in the all time list) and 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, Wall*E made a high $62.5 million but Pixar's hopes of a really MEGA hit were under-realised. It's still joint third biggest opening for the studio of all time but with all the buzz in the world they maybe thought this would be the one that would go higher than the rest. And we shouldn't forget this Pixar effort was made for $180 million when all was said and done. It will be interesting to see if the movie can reach $250 million+ in the competition of the Will Smith's, Hellboy's and Batman's of this world.
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Wanted, an R-Rated movie in June opened on 800 fewer screens, did extremely well with it's $51 million taking... surprisingly more than two other Angelina Jolie vehicles Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Lara Croft: Tomb Raider. It had a higher per theatre average than Wall*E and was made for only around $80 million and it's release two weeks for The Dark Knight should pay off with a long pay-off in takings. Congratulations should especially go to Russian director Timur Berkmambetov who has delivered exactly what Universal expected and hasn't been found out in the pressure cooker of Hollywood. 1 WALL·E (2008) $62.5M $62.5M 2 Wanted (2008) $51.1M $51.1M 3 Get Smart (2008) $20M $77.3M 4 Kung Fu Panda (2008) $11.7M $179M 5 The Incredible Hulk (2008) $9.23M $116M 6 The Love Guru (2008) $5.44M $25.3M 7 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) $5.03M $300M 8 The Happening (2008) $3.85M $59.1M 9 Sex and the City (2008) $3.77M $140M 10 You Don't Mess with the Zohan (2008) $3.2M $91.2M Get Smart dropped only 48% to a $20 million taking and third place leaving the remake of the t.v. show on $77 million domestic from an $80 million budget. Kung Fu Panda is up to $179 million domestic, $50 million more than it's budget and it's doing exceedingly well worldwide. The rubbish second attempt at The Incredible Hulk dropped another 58% and it's still lagging behind Ang Lee's movie five years ago with $115 million domestic and it's not going to significantly surpass the $132 million domestic. Only hope for this character is The Avengers movie I feel. And finally, The Love Guru is on $25.3 million after two weeks... someway behind the $62 million budget (that's before ads, prints and other costs). Mike Myers gets exactly what he deserves. source - coming soon, box office mojo