ROTTEN TOMATOES: Box Office Guru Wrapup: Superbad Opens Big at #1

Box Office Guru Wrapup: Superbad Opens Big at #1

Moviegoers got down with their superbad selves this weekend.

by Gitesh Pandya | August 19, 2007

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Teenagers flocked to the multiplexes for stimulation this weekend as the raunchy new sex comedy Superbad powered its way to number one while the frame's other new releases, the sci-fi thriller The Invasion and the adventure tale The Last Legion, were met with yawns. The overall North American box office continued its red hot pace significantly beating out year-ago levels yet again on its way to possibly ending the summer season with a new record.

Sony captured the top spot for the first time since early May with Superbad which powered ahead of expectations to bow to an estimated $31.2M. The R-rated tale of three nerdy high school pals on a wild search to get booze to impress their lady friends averaged a potent $10,583 from 2,948 locations. The opening even beat out the $30.7M debut of June's Knocked Up from director Judd Apatow and actor Seth Rogen. Apatow produced Superbad which co-starred and was co-written by Rogen. Critics were quite impressed with McLovin and friends and gave the film high marks. (Click here for our interview with the stars of Superbad.)

The studio pushed the teen comedy for months with a well-executed marketing campaign which included a popular uncensored trailer and touring the main actors around the country for promotional events. Superbad delivered the second biggest opening for an R-rated film this year only trailing 300. The two are the only R pics to reach number one at all in 2007. With a production cost of only $18M, the comedy will easily become a healthy moneymaker for Sony. But the film's troubling Friday-to-Saturday drop of 15% could mean that fans rushed out upfront as if this were a sequel and that big dropoffs could be on the horizon. Still it was the second biggest opening ever in the traditionally slow second half of August behind just Freddy vs. Jason which debuted to $36.4M in 2003. Studio research showed that the audience was 52% male and 60% in the 18-34 bracket.

Rush Hour 3 fell 56% in its second weekend and slipped to the runnerup spot with an estimated $21.8M pushing the ten-day cume to $88.2M. The New Line action sequel should find its way to about $135-140M from North America. Like most of this summer's threequels, Rush Hour 3 will end its domestic run well behind the gross of its predecessor.

The one threequel to break that trend is The Bourne Ultimatum which followed in third place this weekend with an estimated $19M, off only 42%. Universal's latest action entry has taken in a stellar $163.8M in only 17 days and should surpass the $176.1M of 2004's The Bourne Supremacy by the end of the week to become the top-grossing film of the franchise. Grossing an estimated $6.7M in its fourth frame, down 41%, was The Simpsons Movie which has taken in $165.1M for Fox to date.

Starpower from Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig meant nothing at the box office for their new sci-fi thriller The Invasion which bombed with an opening of just $6M, according to estimates. Playing wide in 2,776 theaters, the PG-13 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers averaged a measly $2,161 per site. The Warner Bros. release earned mostly negative reviews.

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(1-17 of 17 posts) | Reply

Bloody Mathias writes:
on Aug 19 2007 04:28 PM

Despite the big three being a disappointment, this summer is ending strong.
Glad Superbad and Ultimatum are doing great 'cause they really are one of the best flicks of the summer.

I was one of the few optimistic ones who knew a $30 mill opening was in store for Superbad. Yay me.

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tyler8186 writes:
on Aug 19 2007 04:55 PM

2 older ladies sat right in front of me
before the movie started, my buddy and I exchanged glances of "do they know what they're in for?"
but they laughed as hard, possibly harder than the other younger males in the audience
the film is classic, fast times at ridgemont high classic

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DanielLee8793 writes:
on Aug 19 2007 05:19 PM

I just saw it for the 2nd time, good for them, this movie was well worth my 10 bucks!

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thamoviemann writes:
on Aug 19 2007 06:28 PM

The second half movies of the summer (Superbad, bourne ultimatum, simpsons, rush hour 3) are way better than the first half of the summer; spiderman, shrek, and pirates were disappointments movie-wise not B.O. wise (the best film of the first half was Knocked up-which was excellent).

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Brad 3000 writes:
on Aug 19 2007 06:38 PM

"The second biggest opening ever... in the second half of August" Good lord, how specific are people willing to go to claim a Box Office record?

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South_park300 writes:
on Aug 19 2007 06:53 PM

@ thamoviemann, i agreed with ur statement until Rush Hour 3...

anyways, Superbad rocked, and i'm happy to see it doing well!

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Zee-Mann writes:
on Aug 19 2007 07:31 PM

I just got back from Ultimatum, and it deserves its success. It's on pace to easily break 200 million. If Superbad holds up, it could do Knocked Up-business (140-150 million). Why hasn't anyone mentioned Harry Potter? It too was much better than some of the early summer releases and looks like it might inch past Goblet of Fire in the long run.

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TheIceGhost writes:
on Aug 19 2007 07:43 PM

It really did go from an abysmal summer season to a pretty good one, didn't it? (I mean memorable movies, not BO) Funny how that stuff works out...

I'm with ya' on Potter too, Zee-Mann. I mean, Gary Oldman with magic powers - 'nuff said.

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bjorno27 writes:
on Aug 19 2007 08:31 PM

is there a arrested developement movie in production?

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yowazup13 writes:
on Aug 19 2007 08:55 PM

Ultimatum and Superbad are both well made movies, even down to the smallest details. They both deserve to do well, and its good to see, that with the huge blockbusters fizzing out in the early months of summer, movie goers are going through the trouble of finding out what kind of movies they should be giving their money towards. Yay!

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PlanBFromOuterSpace writes:
on Aug 19 2007 09:41 PM

Harry Potter did about what it was expected to do though, no more or less really. Aside from the first film, which did a little over 300 million, the rest of them have finished in the 250-280 range. They're solid performers, but there seems to be a ceiling to what they can make in the U.S., as the Harry Potter movie audience doesn't really seem to be expanding any.

This summer, it was all about the perfect storm of Spider-Man, Shrek, and Pirates, all hitting at basically the same time because each franchise, in separate years, had had the highest grossing movies of the year. Everyone else was afraid to put their movies out at that time, so there wasn't much in the way of variety, and then all of the "threequels" seemed to fail to live up to expectations, so that first half of the summer ended up being really, really uninteresting despite the fact that it produced the 3 highest grossing movies of the year so far. It's still impressive that 3 movies could all crack 300 million all at about the same time, regardless of what you actually think of them.

But yeah, I honestly don't think that anyone expects anything special, in terms of performance, from Harry Potter films, as they're solid and consistent moneymakers that seem to please the fans.

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kendrith1975 writes:
on Aug 20 2007 05:10 AM

I like to point out that Catherine Zeta Jones has been a consistent box office draw. NO RESERVATIONS is quietly going to end with close to 4 times its opening weekend. It is already doing better than INTOLERABLE CRUELTY, her costarring effort with George Clooney.

This summer has been so great for Hollywood! Other than EVAN ALMIGHTY, there is no real box office bombs that are considered big money losers. Not even FANTASTIC FOUR 2 or RUSH HOUR 3!

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kendrith1975 writes:
on Aug 20 2007 05:14 AM

Oops. I think I forget to mention this weekend box office bomb: THE INVASION, as well as last weekend's STARDUST. We do have a few box office duds, but just there are a lot of upsides this summer.

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SpikesInMySkull writes:
on Aug 20 2007 05:34 AM

In reply to this comment (#1056608)
And of course The Invasion looked liked pure crap, and was reviewed as such.... however Stardust, good reviews, positive word of mouth from those who saw it... and yet it still bombed (presumably because people unfamilier with the source material didn't understand the draw, which is actually understandable). Major dissapointment, and set's a bad precedent for that kind of fantasy, as well a green lights the next 10 cross-culture buddy cop crap-fests, since that's obviously what the american audiance wants to see.

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jimmers_205 writes:
on Aug 20 2007 08:57 AM

I'm glad to see Hairspray is doing well. It was easily the most entertaining movie of the summer and more people should really be going to see it.

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SukmyPikachu writes:
on Aug 20 2007 10:31 AM

This summer has been pretty bad. Shame my friends don't want to watch anymore movies because of how bad this summer was.

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unbreakable_samurai writes:
on Aug 20 2007 10:40 AM

Just saw Stardust this weekend and it's easily one of the years best. It's really to bad that it's flopping, you all should go see it, it's well worth it.

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