Saturday, August 4, 2007

The Bourne Ultimatum to make $65 million over the weekend

Despite movies such as Transformers, Spider-Man 3, Die Hard 4, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Pirates of the Carribean 3 (not that I was anticipating that one at all) and even The Simpsons Movie, my most anticipated movie of the summer has always been - perhaps just barely - The Bourne Ultimatum.

Why? The Bourne Identity was a good movie. Not great, and definitely not perfect, but good, and it gets better with repeat viewing. The Bourne Supremacy, directed by Paul Greengrass, was a whole another story. The action movie starring Matt Damon was gritty, fast-paced and unbelievably suspenseful, and ranks among the top of my favorite action movies of all time.

Needless to say, with Paul Greengrass returning, I expect more of the same. It is noon on Saturday and I yet to go see this film, but it is receiving rave reviews and, according to Friday box office figures, getting lots of sold out theaters.

According to Box Office Prophets, a source I rather trust for box office analysis, The Bourne Ultimatum earned $23.7 million on Friday alone, which means it should come in at a minimum of $65 million (I am going to guess something a little closer to $70). That's not too shabby, especially considering Identity opened to "only" $27.1 million and Supremacy to $18.4 on Friday alone (I don't have the full weekend numbers before me and am too lazy to look).

Also remember that Casino Royale "only" opened to $40 million, which means Jason Bourne is kicking some British James Bond ass.

Other movies of the weekend include Underdog, which opened to $4.1 on Friday, Hot Rod, which only managed to earn $2 million on Friday, and Bratz, which an unfortunately high $1.7 (I was hoping audiences would steal money from movie theaters to give it a negative return).

1 comment:

Matt said...

I kind of liked the first Bourne movie and I barely remember the second. This third one was more like the second film in that it gave me motion sickness. It still managed to be somewhat exciting though.