Kong took in $14 million plus Friday night, still not hugely impressive. I’m very surprised.
If anybody else was curious, Fellowship of the Ring took in $66 million in its first four days. It was about ten minutes shorter.
I’m going to see it Thursday. Agree with everyone who says that people are too busy this time of year to go see a movie. Since Christmas falls on a weekend, things will be slow, but maybe people will go out and see it between Christmas and New Year’s. They really should have released it at Thanksgiving.
We are still in the midst of a shift in audiences - home theatre is fast becoming a moviegoer’s preferred way to see a movie, because travelling to the cinema, paying for all the tickets and junk, sitting through the commercials, and having to deal with the crowds of irritating people, are not worth the effort.
Expect every movie from now on to have reduced intake on initial cinematic release. It’s just the way things are, now.
Yes, it’s way too early, because you have to wait for the word-of-mouth to trickle down. I predict that it will prove to have great “legs”, because they hit their target teen demographic spot-on: my high-school-sophomore daughter and her posse went to see it Friday night and were absolutely blown away. And they normally hate movies that aren’t overt chick flicks, and besides it’s not kewl to express enthusiasm for any movies at all, so her fervent “it was really good!” signals happy box office times ahead eventually, once the word gets out.
And the skinny in my college-freshman son’s circle is also that it’s tremendous, but he himself hasn’t had a chance to go see it yet, what with finals and all, so once again, you gotta wait for it to build up some momentum.
It is a 3 hour movie. Openeing on a school night. Granted, so were the LOTR movies, but they had a built in fanbase. I wouldn’t worry until after the holidays are over.
Tho I’m guessing some Universal execs aren’t sleeping so well…
Does the movie have enough “hotties” to appeal to female teens? because many of them saw LOTR for Legolas, Aragorn et al. (also explains Titanic)
Brian
30 million from wednesday until friday. Those aren’t Lord of the Rings numbers but they aren’t terrible either. Lets keep in mind we still have the foreign box office numbers to include and I predict they will be pretty big.
I don’t know, I guess it depends on your definition of a flop. I’m pretty confident they’ll make their money back (after a while).
Firgot to mention, I plan on seeing it on the 26th, when some of my college geek friends can get together and see it.
Brian
Yeah… the big problem is really that some of the biggest target demographics are either taking finals or Christmas shopping at this point. I want to see both this and Narnia, and I don’t think either is going to happen until the 26th at the earliest.
Yeah, I want to see it. I also want to see The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and maybe another movie or two. However, I refuse to pay $9 for a ticket so I only see matinees, which I haven’t been able to do so far. More importantly, I refuse to watch movies in the theaters here in Las Cruces because they all have 10 minutes of annoying ads, so I’m waiting until I get to Albuquerque and can go to one of the theaters that doesn’t run ads.
I’d just like to add that one of the reasons I haven’t seen Kong yet is because the ice storms in South Carolina were so widespread and driving conditions so discouraged I put off going until the weekend’s over. Chances are I’ll go see it on my day off this coming Tuesday.
I’ll see it. The critics love it, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be flop. Still, there are a bunch of really good movies out there, so the competition is pretty high right now. I think viewship will pick up.
Yeah, I think it’s just a combination of the runtime and how busy people are the past few days.
I’ve seen it once, and have been trying to get together with a few folks for a geek viewing, and it’s been hard to find a time that’s good for everybody – but everyone is emphatic and enthusiastic about wanting to see it on the big screen.
Ironically, the way it’s been hashed out amongst my circle of friends is this:
Too busy during this week. Nobody wants to see it opening weekend because of the crowds. (Why does this remind me of Andy Warhol?) Looking to see how this week shapes up, with the possibility of an early evening show during the week – otherwise, weekend matinee. I know at least two people (myself included) couldn’t wait to see it, but are planning on doing the group thing again.
The reviews are so positive out of the gate, and everyone who sees it is going to tell their friends that it must be seen on a big, big screen. This is not a “wait for the DVD” movie, and it’s going to enjoy a good long run. It’ll rake it in.
It’s a flop.
It’s a terrific movie but it’s 3 day gross is less than the laughable Saw II in October.
One thing to remember: people who go to the opening weekend, let alone people who go to pre-weekend nights, are not typical of the general viewing audience. More people will see the movie in future weekends than will this weekend, and they’ll be a different demographic in almost every respect.
Some films have a built-in audience that rush to the theaters, The more adult a film skews, the longer it will take for that film to reach its audience.
First weekend box-office figures are only meaningful for kid films, and kids include the teenage/young adult fan base. King King doesn’t have one of those, LotR notwithstanding.
I wouldn’t say anything about the film flopping until at least January.
Not that that will stop anybody. 
I just saw it tonight and I predict: flop.
The word of mouth will not be kind.
However it ends up, this is a silly comparison, since you’re using two weekend days and a Friday for Kong compared to a full weekend for Saw II. KK has already made more on a single day than Saw II did and will easily outpace it in a comparable period.
And yes, we do need to see next weekend and Christmas week to see how it will really fare. Each of the days between Christmas and New Years are like mini-weekend days.
The German word Schadenfroh (joy in other’s misery) comes to mind.
Titanic started slow and wound up making a few bucks.
I intend to see the film, but count me in as one of those who hate the crowds on opening weekends. At my local multiplex, there were huge lines to see the film on Saturday night, and it was showing in six theaters there. I usually wait until a week or two has gone by and then go to a matinee. I think I might not be alone in the plan.
But no matter what - overseas was very good box office, and I think it will run here long enough to rake in a few bucks as well. Add DVD and cable and I don’t think Peter Jackson’s King Kong will turn into Ishtar.
I think I speak for millions of movie fans when I say this:
I don’t do remakes. And I certainly don’t PAY to do them.