Shrek's refusal to buckle under the challenge of four major new releases in the past two weeks underscores the movie's quality, not to mention the power of word of mouth among discerning audiences unmoved by weekly box office hysteria. Universal's comedy Get Him to the Greek arrived in second place, boasting a central role for Russell Brand's scoundrel Aldous Snow, first seen in Forgetting Sarah Marshall. It was a good dent, however it's a tough proposition for British comics to achieve theatrical longevity in the US (even with Judd Apatow as producer). Time will tell whether audiences here have the taste – and the stamina – for Brand.
Keeping the ball rolling
Sex and the City 2 is slowing down after only two weekends in play and tumbled 59%. The movie appears to be taking hold overseas, however, and finished the weekend as top dog after $45m (£31m) boosted the tally to $90m. With the international component so important to the studios these days – roughly two-thirds of a tentpole release's global box office can come from outside the US – it was critical that Warner Bros got the release strategy right.
Speak to anybody at the studio and they will tell you the World Cup is central to this strategy. In fact, the biggest sporting event on the globe has been the key factor behind strategic planning on all of this summer's major releases. The issue came up in the threads last week and I wanted to explore it further. SATC2 is one of two contemporary franchises that are virtually World Cup-proof (more of the other below), so Warner Bros had another good reason to set the schedule to coincide with the US launch. Simultaneous day-and-date releasing is a common ploy to mitigate the loss to piracy and save on marketing costs, but in this case the studio had another motive: SATC2 offers female crowds an alternative to the footie and for this reason is expected to play well into the tournament.
Youth policy
Disney is releasing Toy Story 3 in the major international markets over the course of seven weeks, starting with Russia and Mexico on June 17 and 18. Top brass are confident that the target audience of young children and their mothers won't be too bothered about missing Greece v Nigeria on the box and, just to be safe, have stacked most of the launches towards the end of the tournament when there won't be so many games. Disney opened Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time across the world the weekend before last and will be pleased to have taken more than $150m so far. It's more susceptible to the World Cup than Toy Story 3 and needed to rack up a big number in a short time … although the date night element should keep it going a while longer.
Hide and seek beyond Twilight
The other big release that's not going to be affected one iota by the World Cup is The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Accordingly, Summit worked with its international distributors to ensure the movie would open pretty much everywhere from June 30 to mid-July. Then there are movies like Christopher Nolan's upcoming thriller Inception. Nobody need remind Warner Bros that the male audience will be the movie's key constituency, so the studio has held back the release until after the final on July 11. The UK and one or two other major territories open alongside the US on July 16 and the other markets will follow closely behind.
So it's a game of hide and seek as the studios – keenly aware of the World Cup even though it barely registers with US audiences and has no impact on US box office – hide their broadly commercial movies from the World Cup and seek out counter programming opportunities during the tournament for niche product. The one that baffles me though is Fox's remake of The A-Team. My hunch is it will skew towards a younger male audience but surely there'll be some overlap with older men because it's got guns and lots of explosions and they'll remember the TV series. Why Fox International is releasing The A-Team in an initial wave of 30 territories this week is beyond me.
North American top 10, 4-6 June 2010
1. Shrek Forever After, $25.3m. Total: $183m
2. Get Him to the Greek, $17.4m
3. Killers, $16.1m
4. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, $13.9m. Total: $59.5m
5. Sex and the City, $12.7m. Total: $73.4m
6. Marmaduke, $11.3m
7. Iron Man 2, $7.8m. Total: $291.3m
8. Splice, $7.5m
9. Robin Hood, $5.2m. Total: $94.3m
10. Letters to Juliet, $3m. Total: $43.3m
