They call him Wolverine, and he’s the best at what he does, and what he does is shred the box office with berserker rage! Okay, enough of the Wolverine analogies, but you can’t help but be impressed with the $87 million haul of X-Men Origins: Wolverine!
What a way to start off the summer–with the 2009 box office up over last year, people are still hungry for movies, even in this economy. Fox need not fret any more about the pirated version that leaked out, hurting the box office, because the Hugh Jackman-starrer proved that people love to see movies in the theaters.
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But the one thing Wolverine’s healing factor and near-indestructible adamantium-laced skeleton can’t stop, and that’s the critical drubbing it’s receiving. It stands at an awful 37% rating over at RottenTomatoes.com, though Screen Rant’s owner and Editor-in-Chief Vic Holtreman gave it 3 out of 5 stars. I’ve been reading online that it’s also getting fair-to-poor word-of-mouth ratings from viewers, and that has the potential to hurt the film in the coming weeks.
I’d say a Wolverine 2 is now extremely likely to get green lit (how about Bryan Singer directing?!), and other X-Men movies could see the green light, too, like X-men: First Class and X-Men Origins: Magneto and spinoffs for Deadpool and Gambit.
Add to that another May that’s over-stocked with movies, so something’s going to give and a movie will crash and burn. Iron Man, which opened the same weekend last year, was able to stay invincible because it was a well-received film by fans and critics, while Speed Racer and The Chronicles Of Narnia: Prince Caspian were both weak films that crashed and burned.
With Star Trek, Angels and Demons, Terminator Salvation, and Disney/Pixar’s Up all coming out in the coming weeks, can Wolverine stay the positive box office course? We’ll have to keep our eyes on it. For now, X-Men Origins: Wolverine has started the summer off with a rip-roaring howl!
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45 Comments
It’s too bad really because it wasn’t very good. X3 may have been better which isn’t saying much.
I enjoyed it, but there were flaws. I don’t see it beating Trek, but I have been wrong before; $87 million isn’t chump change.
Let’s not forget the $73 million it made abroad.
Box office success, not critical success. Now, we should start hearing the green-lights on other Fox X-projects…
I’m glad it made alot of money. It should guarantee a sequel. I’m sure that story will be fresh and will really help create a much better movie. I liked Wolverine but yes, there were many flaws.
I liked it “overall” so I don’t care what the critics are saying. I am interested to see if there are as many trek fans as wolverine fans, I’m pretty sure the majority of the hardcore fan base are the same people so it’ll be interesting to see who has more casual fans wolverine or trek.
Trek will win easily and one reason will be word of mouth as i’m expecting a much better story than the Wolverine one.
I liked Wolverine for what it was. I went to have fun, not find a deep and penetrating story.
I liked Wolverine quite a bit but everyone who is saying Star Trek will beat Wolverine easily may be letting there Trekkie love blind there reality eyes.
Let me preface this by saying I love Star Trek, especially TOS, so personally I am REALLY looking forward to JJ Abrams interpretation, however I think this is a movie that may get stronger with word of mouth. Star Trek has been tagged by a lot of people as either loving it or hating it. So after the initial opening weekend I believe reviews, critics and word-of-mouth will give it a bump in its second week allowing Wolverine to win or be a real close second this coming weekend.
I know my wife liked Wolverine a lot but has absolutely no interest in Star Trek.
Just my take.
Star Trek is absolutely going to destroy this. That’s my prediction.
Users rating on rotten tomatoes is 64% and on imdb 7 out of 10. I don’t see where is the viewers’ bad word of mouth here…
As for Star Trek, I don’t think it will be more successfull than Wolvie. Why? Because almost 50% of the audience that watched Wolverine this past weekend were women. I don’t know of many women who can’t wait to see Star Trek but I do know a hell of a lot women who go crazy for Jackman and his Wolverine. It’s the Jackman-Factor here guys. Can anyone from the Star Trek cast beat that? I’m not so sure…
If wolverine made 87 mil, Star Trek will prob break over 100mil.
Manowar,
I agree. I enjoyed Wolverine and am glad Hugh Jackman’s earning his big payday despite the movie having flaws. I’d like to see him in Japan for a sequel and I want a Deadpool movie.
btw, everyone quotes only domestic dollars here but Wolverine made nearly $160 million if we look at world box office.
Star Trek also has more notable names than Wolverine does John Cho, Simon Pegg, Sylar, ok that’s more of a face than a name but hey you still recognize them. It will take one hell of a movie to be on the top 2 weeks in a row for May. Star trek is really the only one that has a shot of it but even that is questionable. JJ Abrahms also has a list of writing successes under his belt from tv and people recognize his name and associate it with other things they’ve seen. Wolverine writers don’t have that going for them.
I’m with Manowar.
Flawed movie, overall pretty good. But the most important thing is that it’s a fresh, new idea (as far as movies go). Much better than the recent crap Hollywood has been putting out.
This paves the way for other comic book movies.
Remember, this “boom” in comic book movies only started a few years ago. Yes we did have a few comic book movies in the past but now they’re all over the place.
Hopefully the genre will evolve and attract talent and we’ll be seeing more movies like Dark Knight and Watchmen.
P.S. Star Trek will definitely beat Wolverine.
@INK
I think you’re absolutely correct.
Vic
The movie did its job, but that isn’t saying much. One thing that is clear to me now after watching X3 & Wolverine is that Bryan Singer really is a helluva director balancing action and good storytelling…at least in the X-Men universe.
I still can’t stop laughing at the memory of the part where Wolverine rampages through the lab all soaking wet and then when he reaches the outside in the next scene, his hair is dry and fluffy. lol
I think the only movie that has a reasonable shot at over 100 million weekend this summer is Transformers:ROTF but since that is opening on a Wed. I think 100 million may be out of reach because of that. I thought that Wolverine would have done it but it wasn’t really close at 85 million domestic. Star Trek will make in the 70-80 million dollar range but my friends tell me I’m being way too conservative there. The real wildcard here is Terminator Salvation but I don’t think it will make over 100 million in it’s opening weekend either as it has to contend with Night At the Museum 2 and holdovers of other awesome movies from earlier this month. I absolutely do not think that Star Trek will spend two weeks on top in May with Angels & Demons following it the week after even though that will not make as much as DaVinci in it’s opening weekend. Just my two cents..I forgat all about Potter too…Since they delayed it’s release I guess anticipation will be high for that too.
One reason Woverine did so well, is that it had huge distribution.
8000 screens is huge.
If Star Trek is released on that many screens it will/should make over 100 mil. easy.
Keep in mind Star Trek has 5x the buzz that Wolverine had going in. Judging by some of the out of control comments on Trekmovie, (IMO) this will be 2009’s TDK. For example when the Enterprise photo came out that site had over 600 comments in almost 24 hours.
Star Trek is going to be huge, whether it sucks or not… I don’t think A&D will beat it either.
The only thing better about x-3 was it had more characters. No way was Wolverine worse. It couldn’t beat x-2 and the fight scenes were way better than x-1.
I will admit now that I don’t know that much about the film industry, box office ratings and all that, but Star Trek isn’t going to be leaked in its entirety on to the internet, whereas Wolverine did. There would have been a higher income in this movie’s opening weekend if not for the leak.
I have to say that Trek might make more in its opening weekend, and if it does that is only because of the leak.
@D(avid)J – It’s only because of the leak? Seriously? It couldn’t have anything to do with the fact that Trek is better film and more widely anticipated? It’s only because a crappy version of the movie was leaked. Come on man that’s just plain insane. Wolverine was not affected by that leak in terms of opening weekend numbers. It was just behind or maybe slightly ahead not sure which, of the Xmen series in terms of Friday numbers.
I for one thought Wolverine was pretty bad. Having said that, it’s pretty rare when a film opens at $85 million and a week later another film (in this case it would be Star Trek) tops that opening. Lets see what happens.
chuck
@Vic
Thanks, mind if i show my wife that someone thinks I’m correct?
J/K
BTW saw Ghosts of Girlfriends Past last weekend as well as Wolverine and it was pretty good. Jennifer Garner is a very underated actress.
Trek won’t destroy Wolverine though it may just barely beat it out. Wolverine will be hurt by word of mouth. It had a fantastic opening, but lets be honest it wasn’t a great film it was Ok. It was better than X3, but not by a mile. Trek if it is as good as it looks will make roughly the same amount little less or a little more. Has a strong enough fanbase to pull in decent numbers and if it’s good it will bring in some other people as well, but there are the Trek haters out there who won’t see the movie no matter what. So it’s limited. Terminator has the potential to be the top earner this year. So far Wolverine is right on track with X2 only slightly ahead, but I think word of mouth is gonna hurt it putting it pretty much dead even with X2.
D(avid)J
You can’t know that for sure. The leak may have had an effect and it may not have I honestly don’t believe it hurt it that much at least not the opening weekend numbers. It it has an effect it will more than likely be later. The Opening numbers tend to be people who are amped like crazy for the film and have been waiting to see it. The opening numbers are very unlikely to have been effected at all by the leak.
I don’t think the leak hurt at all, as most fan based online chatter has been negative yet it still made 87 mil.
I’m beginning to read that Jackman is a big hit with the ladies, and most ladies don’t blog…
The good news is that good or bad this will keep the X-Men franchise alive and in the long run that’s a good thing.
Specially for Deadpool fans.
I don’t know part of me wanted to see the franchise die some possibly in a few years the could reboot it with Marvel in charge. X1 was ok X2 was amazing, but X3 was god awful and Wolverine was just ok. Not exactly what you would want from an X franchise. Xmen has probably the most potential of any comic property because of it’s history and a large amount of classic stories with tons of great characters. It’s amazing how fox can come in and drop the ball as massively as they have.
There all entertaining films Daniel F, I agree that X2 was the best. (By far) almost a perfect superhero film. Almost perfect except they killed off the Deathstrike.
I was very bummed to see her go.
Yea I didn’t mind them killing her off so much because they sort of ruined her character anyway or umm I’m sorry I forgot she didn’t have a character. No back story for her no personality nothing she was just a plot device. However X2 was great because not only did it have great action scenes it was far more than a simplistic action film like the first one. There was emotion especially at the end if I wasn’t such an amazingly strong mainly man I would of cried … Cough cough. What?
Backstory, who cares Deathstrike was hot!!!!!
Backstory, who cares Deathstrike was hot!!!!!
Regarding Star Trek… Movietickets.com sent me poll results indicating that 32% of the people who responded had NEVER seen a Star Trek movie.
I’ll be very interested in how it does.
Vic
Vic my gut is telling me that Star Trek is going to be huge…
Meh I didn’t find her attractive and for me sex doesn’t sell I go to watch movies for their story depth and emotion I don’t care if it’s full of hot women or just ok looking ones.
I think Star Trek will be successful, but I don’t see the box office of it blowing anyone away. I don’t see it crossing 250 mil let alone 300. It will be a very succesful film, but it’s not record breaker. I’m thinking right around the low 200’s maybe mid area.
Haha, I don’t look toward the sex angle either, but Deathstrike was uncommonly hot for a mutant…
She’s was the female alternative to Jackman in X2. For the guys,!!!
I don’t agree with that at all. I didn’t even find her remotely attractive. Halle Berry , Famke Janssen, Anna Paquin, and Rebecca Romijn were all more attractive in my opinion with out actually being all that hot.
I’m disappointed to see this do so well. It was a dreadful movie and I even went in with low expectations and the mindset to give it every benefit of the doubt. They need to learn that we don’t want crap. Instead, we pay oodles to go watch just that. 37% is generous.
It certainly wasn’t great, but I think your being way to hard on it Psyko. It’s was at least semi entertaining better than X3.
@Psyko
I always like to keep an eye on second weekend box office to see how word of mouth affects a film.
Vic
The way i see it is this…if you know the actual origins,you will like it but not love it. If you don’t know that much about the origins of the several characters in the film,you’ll most likely love it. thats my short and sweet review.I, for one, was in between like and love because while i know the origins of most the characters in the fil. I was upset about all the flaws,yes,but there are so many storylines in the comics that people are forgetting that they can do the same in movies.i will be buying the movie when it comes out hopefully it will have a ton of extra features and deleted scenes of my favorite smartass:)
I don’t agree necrotic. There are plenty of errors in the film that have nothing to do with the comics just simple film errors. The movie has a few narative problems some plot issues it goes it against it’s own continuity set up in it’s own films. If you don’t know anything about the origins or your able to distance your self from the comics when watching the movies you’ll think it’s ok however most people who want things to be closer to the comics are gonna hate it. If your just a plain action junkie who doesn’t care that much about depth or plot you’ll love it aside from a few CGI issues.
This movie is great! Why are most people looking at the bad points? Remember, if you’re focusing on the bad points, that’s all you’re going to see.Focus on th good points, & you’ll see loads. All movies have ups & downs, so does this one. You can look at a half full glass in two ways; it is half full or it is half empty. How do you see it? Just my opinion. God bless & t.c.
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