Box Office: Star Trek nabs $33 Million Friday Beaming in an $80 million Weekend Grab
Update - Monday May 11, 2009 - Star Trek’s official 4 day opening weekend grab was $72.5 million on approximately 7,400 screens at 3,849 sites over the weekend (plus an estimated $4 million from Thursday night previews). This is directly correlative to Batman Begins 5 day opening weekend. It didn’t make $80 million like I thought it would but it certainly was massively successful for the franchise and the sequel is surely going to be huge.
Read Box Office Mojo’s Official Report on the film including its complete take (international and domestic combined) and how it compares to other films from previous years in the same week.
Welcome back to the Fused Film Box Office column where we write about the finance, marketing and numbers side to films, essentially this is Fused Film’s attempt at being the Wall Street Journal on movies. Getting that our of the way for weeks we have been gaging the Box Office fate of Star Trek and originally tracked at $50 million for the weekend and then up-ed a little bit by a $7 million thursday night opening speculation was that the movie would make around $65 million for the 4 day weekend.
On Friday I built up the anty with a more ambitious but realistic Box Office Grab speculating around $80 million matching Wolverine’s previous week or at least almost and it seems I wasn’t far off and while official numbers aren’t in by any means Star Trek has certainly been defibbed for another 40 years with wider appeal than it has ever had before.
Raking in almost $33 million on Friday night, the film is gauging a $76 million dollar opening weekend. According to Variety, J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek had took an estimated $33 million by Friday, giving Paramount Picture its’ second highest opening day ever at the box office for a live-action film playing at 3,849 theaters, Star Trek ranked behind the first day gross of Paramount’s Iron Man which made $38.7 million last May. Variety is also reporting that the reboot is on its way to a $76 million complete opening which is slightly premature as the Box Offices haven’t closed yet so my $80 million dollar bet may prove to be true, so eat that everyone who thought I was crazy, but it won’t beat last year’s Iron Man, which brought in $96 million opening weekend.
Ultimately it is amazing that this film not only has surpassed Box Office expectations but is maintaining a %96 fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and an 84 on Metacritic. Not only are fans pleased but non-fans love the franchise that was once nerdy and uncool. JJ Abrams has certainly brought new life by basically defibbing the dying brand and Paramount already standing by the franchise prematurely announced a sequel already with Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci writing the script.
I guess it is safe to say that Star Trek has actually gone where it is never gone before and very boldly I may add. Kudos to JJ and crew for embodying one of the best films of the year with long legs. I am projecting around $200 million for its complete run. Who knows it could win next weekend as well being that Angels and Demons is for a very select crowd.
