Weekend Report: Wolverine Defeats The Pirates

by Furious
May 4th, 2009

The big question going into the weekend was how much the leaked copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine would impact the box office of the movie. With movie studios launching up sob stories about how all these illegal copies of movies are stealing their profits, a nearly finished copy of a blockbuster hitting the Interweb a month before the release was their worse nightmare.

And…

Wolverine became the biggest movie of 2009, taking in $85,805,003. It was just $3.75 million short of my prediction- a veritable bullseye. Not only did it dominate every other movie in terms of total box office, but also in per theater average. That big fat number also made it the 19th biggest opening in the history of cinema, only $500,000 behind X2. Obtaining an illegal copy of a movie is wrong, but it’s hard to take all the studio whining seriously when the first real test …

Popularity: 26% [?]

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Fox CEO Claims Ratings Promote Piracy

by Furious
May 4th, 2009

The Swedish Board of Film Censors gave X-Men Origins: Wolverine a 15 classification, the highest rating the board can give, which prevents anyone under 15 from gaining admittance to the movie. Fox Sweden CEO Hansi Mandoki was obviously upset about the decision since now all those violence-hungry Swedish teenagers can’t get their blood and gore fix.

But Mandoki couldn’t just stop by saying “it is sad that so many fans won’t be able to see the film.” No, he had to keep on whining by claiming “I’m certain the decision will mean more illegal downloading of the film.”

Hearing a studio exec bitch and moan about someone not being able to see a movie, that’s nothing new. No, they’d probably serve up porn to preschoolers if it could turn a profit. They really don’t seem to care who’s …

Popularity: 30% [?]

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Weekend Predictions: 05-01-09

by Furious
April 30th, 2009

X-Men Origins: Wolverine is going to kickoff a string of big weekends at the movies. Until the middle of June there will be one movie a week that’s going to be aiming for $50+ million. But this May 1st weekend will be one of the most interesting.

When the all but finished print of Wolverine was leaked at the beginning of the month, it set the stage for us to get a real test of how much piracy impacts ticket sales. Despite all the bitching and moaning by Hollywood and the FBI and X-Men fanboys, research is showing that interest in the movie is actually increasing after the calamitous leak. Isn’t there some old saying about there not being any such thing as bad press? For some reason, people have heard so much of all this Wolverine ballyhoo that it’s actually piqued their interest. I think it’ll …

Popularity: 29% [?]

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