News
WSJ article sees sustained BO boom
By Robert Marich
May 1, 2009 – Hollywood’s year-to-date boxoffice boom – ticket revenue is up 17% -- is about to get another boost with a projected $100 million weekend for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, leaving a Wall Street Journal article to suggest the boom will continue for the rest of the year. If so, year-end domestic box office will hit $10 billion.
Wolverine is a $135 million production being released by Fox, which is the News Corp.-owned studio. A work print of Wolverine was pirated online, which raised fears – now apparently unfounded with a $100 million opening at hand – that its box office would suffer from fans seeing the nearly-finished version on the Internet.
“But the competition for audiences' attention this summer will be fierce, potentially undermining the long-term prospects of the would-be blockbusters the studios are banking on,” notes the article looking further down the road. “About 50 wide-release movies are opening between May and August this year, the same number as last summer and up from 41 five years before that, according to Media by Numbers.”
The article by Peter Sanders and Lauren A.E. Schuker continues:
“The rest of May sees an onslaught of franchise material, including Angels & Demons, the follow-up to 2006’s blockbuster The Da Vinci Code, from Sony Corp.’s Sony Pictures. From Viacom Inc. Paramount Pictures there will be Star Trek, which cost $130 million to $150 million to make. The nearly $200 million Terminator Salvation being released by Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. extends the long-running Terminator franchise. Fox is hoping Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian will lure back the audience that helped the original 2006 movie take in almost $575 million world-wide.
“Beyond May, certified franchise hits like the second, $200 million Transformers, the latest Harry Potter film, and the third animated Ice Age will land in theaters before Labor Day.
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