Cars: Box Office thread

[CTXRover]

Cars opened with an estimated 19.3-19.5 million on Friday according to boxofficemojo.com and showbizdata.com, respectively.

For comparison to recent CG animated films on their first Fridays, Chicken Little opened with 10.5 million , Ice Age 2 opened with 21.7 million earlier this year and Over the Hedge opened with 10.8 million 4 weeks ago.

Its a very solid opening day, but it will probably fall short of the high expectations that it would meet or surpass Incredibles/Nemo's opening weekend. Imo, those expectations are incredibly high for a film with no built-in fan base beyond the fact that it is a film from Pixar/Disney anyways. As word of mouth gets out, I imagine this film to have great legs as all Pixar films have had.

An opening weekend in the mid to upper 60's is very likely at this point.

 

[CTXRover]

According to boxofficeguru.com, the official estimate for the opening weekend of Cars is 62.8 million

A strong opening weekend, but it is 8-10 million below the high expectations many analysts had for the film, so don't be surprised if many papers state tomorrow that it opened below expectations. With the exception of the Pixar name though, I'm not sure why so many pegged the film to make at least or over 70 million as Nemo and Incredibles did. although Cars opened in 611 more theaters than Nemoand 52 more than Incredibles, those are tough acts to follow for yet another a story with no built-in fan base beyond the Pixar name. A big splashy opening seems important in Hollywood, hence the huge marketing effort put forth by Disney, but hopefully Cars will have the life span that most Pixar films have and play well into the summer.

In comparison to recent CG animated films, Chicken Little opened with 40 million, Ice Age 2 opened with 68 million and Over the Hedge opened with 38.4 million.

From what I can see, for a movie with no built-in fan base (be it a a sequel, a movie from a book, a movie from a comic strip, etc. ) Cars would be the 5th biggest opening of all time for such a movie behind Nemo, Incredibles, The Day after Tomorrow and Bruce Almighty.

 

[ThreeCircles]

This weekend is a sad showing especially in light of the marketing effort shoved down our throats by Disney.

I, for one, was sick of Cars even before it opened.

 

[CTXRover]

Cars estimated Saturday take was 22.8 million. This is probably the most worrying news from the weekend. Animated films typically see a huge jump in their Saturday numbers from the Friday numbers. With the beginning of summer vacation starting around this weekend for many schools around the country, it alters things a bit, but still I expected Cars to see a bigger jump from Friday's numbers. It would explain the lower 60's estimate compared to the mid-to upper 60's I expected from Friday's gross. Hopefully that is not an indication of its "legs".

 

[stingrock23]

I wouldn't worry too much about the "low" numbers. 62.8 million is very strong, and I'm sure it will have decent staying power and end up with over 200 million. I don't care what anybody says, but that's a success.

 

[utrythinkinof1]

Rotten Tomatoes gave "Cars" a 78% fresh.

 

[CTXRover]

In its second weekend, Cars dropped 48% from its opening weekend to bring in 31.2 million. This was enough to keep Cars in the first place position for a second weekend in a row.

Its total gross at this point is $114.5 million. However, it opened weaker and now appears to have weaker legs than previous Pixar outings. At this point, it is now $29 million behind where the Incredibles was, $30 million behind Nemo and 8 million behind were Monsters was after two weekends. With summer weekdays performing stronger than what the Incredibles or Monsters did though, I imagine Cars will continue to perform well over the next few weeks prior to the openings of Superman and POTC which will take publicity, theaters, screens and showings away from Cars. When all is said and done, at the very least it should still be able to cross the $200 million mark by the end of its run.

 

[dxwwf3]

Excellent news about the 2nd weekend take from some very stiff competition. Nacho Libre and Garfield 2 were both aimed for the same audience. I really expected Nacho Libre to win the weekend, so Cars winning two weeks in a row is very impressive. I don't know if Nemo or The Incredibles had such a tough 2nd week competetor. I'm looking forward to seeing this movie next week.

 

[CTXRover]

Actual numbers released showed Cars actually made 2.5 million MORE than originally estimated due to a strong showing on Father's day.

For its second weekend, Cars officially grossed $33.7 million, representing a decent 43.9% drop from last weekend's big opening.

Cars' total gross now stands at $117 million.

 

[wannab@dis]

Keep in mind that the box office numbers are only a small part of the overall revenue generated by this movie. Even if the movie doesn't meet some financial guru's expectations (or Jim Hills ) at the box office, it's easy to see that the actual investment in the movie is well worth the money it brings in on box office, DVD sales and merchandising.

Disney said retailers will sell $23 billion of products emblazoned with its characters in fiscal 2006, a 10% rise from '05, helped by $600 million in merchandise revenue from the Pixar film "Cars."

http://www.nydailynews.com/business/story/428337p-361188c.html

 

[dxwwf3]

I really hope that Cars does even BETTER than it is doing right now. It is quite possibly my favorite animated film ever and I'm not even a fan of cars or NASCAR.

I really hope that Cars gets a GOOD attraction in the parks. Not some cheap makeover of the Indy Speedway. How cool would it be to have a Radiator Springs area for MGM. Sort of set up like Toontown Fair and Toontown in Disneyland. Have a Roger Rabbit-type dark ride and have another place that looks great at night with all the neon lights straight from the movie. You could even have meet and greets in the cones of the hotel :lol:

 

[Little Mermaid]

And has anyone tried to buy any Cars related merchandise lately? I've been to two Wal-marts this week looking for the little Mattel cars, and the shelves of merchandise looks like locusts have been through. I saw more Pirates and Superman merchandise than I did for Cars, and it seems to me that this movie screams for toys to be made from it even more so than the other two.

 

[crazycalf]

And has anyone tried to buy any Cars related merchandise lately? I've been to two Wal-marts this week looking for the little Mattel cars, and the shelves of merchandise looks like locusts have been through. I saw more Pirates and Superman merchandise than I did for Cars, and it seems to me that this movie screams for toys to be made from it even more so than the other two.

I want the small cars too but everyone is sold out of them. Luckily I got Sally, Mater and Lightning a week before the movie came out.

 

[CaliSurfer182]

Wow, "Cars" seems to have one of the worst release dates (in comparison to competition) in all of Pixar history. I mean "The Breakup" came out a week before Cars. Then next it had to compete with Jack Black's "Nacho Libre", The Fast and the Furious (I only mention this because it has to do with cars....its not that good though), and Garfield part 2. Now on top of all that Adam Sandler's "click" comes out. Nobody can touch the masses that he brings out....hopefully though "Cars" can still roll by and make that $200,000,000 mark or maybe even a little over.

 

[dxwwf3]

My two favorite movies of the year are 1 and 2 at the B.O. this week. Cars and Click were both hillarious, heart warming films, IMO. Of course, I'm a huge Sandler fan and I like anything he does.

 

[dxwwf3]

From Box Office Guru:

Following its two-week run in the top spot, the animated comedy Cars slipped to second place but displayed solid staying power. The G-rated film eased only 33% to an estimated $22.5M pushing the 17-day total to $155.9M. The decline was smaller than the third-weekend drops experienced by the most recent Disney/Pixar films The Incredibles (47% in November 2004) and Finding Nemo (39% in June 2003). Despite opening weaker, Cars is now holding up better and continues to benefit from word-of-mouth from family audiences. After 17 days of release, Cars is running 12% behind the pace of Incredibles and 19% behind Nemo. Competition for kids from Superman and Pirates in the weeks ahead will be fierce, but the racing toon could still drive to a final domestic haul of over $240M making it bigger than any other film released up to this point in the year.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I knew word of mouth would carry this film through.

 

[CaliSurfer182]

I think the next couple of weeks at the box office are going to be very interesting. I would like to see Cars do well, but then again I don't want it to compete for tickets against PotC2? I mean PotC2 has the ability to be the #1 movie this year.....but thats for another thread........so Cars hang in there and keep that word of mouth speeding by.

 

[clarksfan95]

I want Superman to be the biggest movie of the year...it won't be...but, they kept the original score (perhaps doctored a little), but it's still there. It gave me goosebumps when I saw the trailer.

I honestly think Cars was a lot better than the Incredibles and perhaps the same level (my opinion here) as Nemo. Not as awesome as Dory, but hey, can't have a crazy fish in every movie. The tribute to Joe Ranft during the credits made me cry. His significance in animation history is huge and though he's not the most known of the story people from Disney, his influence was definitely felt during the "Disney: Toy Story 3" story development. He was responsible for having all of Disney's old-timer consultant story people backing out on them to show their support of Pixar.

 

[CTXRover]

The actuals show that Cars made 23.2 million in its third weekend (nearly 1 million more than originally estimated). That brings its total to 156.7 million after three weeks.

If you remember last weekend, Cars was behind the Incredibles and Monsters by 29 million and 8 million, respectively, at the same point in their box office run. Cars is actually showing better legs as it closed that gap to only 21.5 million behind where The Incredibles after three weekends. Cars is now actually 0.3 million ahead of where Monsters was at this point in its run and will likely continue to perform stronger over the weekdays than Monsters did to widen that gap in its favor. Cars should definetely cross 200 million on its way to probably 230-250 total, depending on how hard it gets hit with Superman and Pirates in the next 2 weeks.

 

[Deaclaw]

I went to see Cars for the 3rd time on Sat afternoon at a 4PM showing....It was sold out...that is quite remarkable if you ask me...I think it has legs..