Hulk Smashes Competition and Records, Still Disappoints

June 23, 2003

The latest Marvel Super Hero movie opened this week to record breaking numbers. Unfortunately, the overall box office didn’t do as well, down roughly 5% from last year.

The Hulk opened in first place this weekend, $40 million ahead of the nearest competition and $8 million above the previous record holder for largest June weekend. And even still the $62.1 million it brought in was seen as a disappointment. The really telling figure is the drop off from Friday to Saturday, nearly $3 million or 11.3%. Reviews were much better than most films released this summer, but probably not good enough to let the Hulk have much legs.

Finding Nemo continues to have amazing legs beating most industry predictions with $21.1 million in it’s fourth weekend at the box office. It is now the second highest grossing film of the year, and could overtake The Matrix Reloaded before its run is finished.

2 Fast 2 Furious didn’t drop as badly as predicted, ending up with $11.1 million. This was enough to cross the $100 million milestone, but that should be the last major milestone for this movie.

As predicted, Bruce Almighty was able to earn $9.8 million and overtake X-Men 2 for third highest grossing film of this year. There’s still some life left in its box office run, and by the end the studio’s take should cover the production and P&A budgets.

Surprising nearly everyone by landing in fifth place was The Italian Job with $7.2 million. Despite losing 600 theatres this week, this remake was able to hang on to nearly 75% of its box office. That was a drop in the per theatre average of only 4%.

Alex and Emma opened almost exactly as predicted, $6.1 million and seventh place. It was also one of the worst reviewed movies of the year, getting only 11% positive.

Doing even worse was From Justin to Kelly, which earned only $2.7 million and finished in eleventh place. And with even worse reviews don’t expect much more at the box office.

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Filed under: Hulk, The Italian Job, Alex & Emma, From Justin to Kelly, 2 Fast 2 Furious