Articles

May 24, 2013
 

MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND BOXOFFICE: “The Hangover” Is Having One

 

Last weekend, Star Trek Into Darkness was the first boxoffice underperformer of the summer season; this weekend, it appears that THE HANGOVER PART III (Warners) may be the first unmitigated disaster.  According to preliminary numbers at Deadline, the combination of Wednesday night and Thursday shows was only $11M.  If those numbers hold, it will give Hangover III just one-third of the $31.6M earned by Hangover II on its opening day (also the Thursday before Memorial Day) 2 years ago–and this is before Fast & Furious 6 arrives to aim at the same young male audience.  Hangover III already has no chance of coming close to the $135M its predecessor made in its initial long holiday weekend, and now the only question is whether it can make up enough ground (despite awful reviews and mediocre exit poll results) to avoid being an embarrassment.  At this point, a best case scenario would be to approach last week’s 5-day opening for Star Trek, which had $91.7M by the end of its Monday, and worst case would be the $56M opening 5 days for GI Joe: Retaliation.

The numbers to watch on Friday:  the second days for these recent Thursday openers were $30M for Hangover II, $21.6M for Star Trek Into Darkness, and $15.3M for GI Joe.

 



About the Author

Mitch Salem
MITCH SALEM has worked on the business side of the entertainment industry for 20 years, as a senior business affairs executive and attorney for such companies as NBC, ABC, USA, Syfy, Bravo, and BermanBraun Productions, and before that, at the NY law firm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. During all that, he has more or less constantly been going to the movies and watching TV, and writing about both since the 1980s. His film reviews also currently appear on screened.com and the-burg.com. In addition, he is co-writer of an episode of the television series "Felicity."