With a $90 Million opening weekend, Fox’s X-Men Origins: Wolverine lived up to box office projections and surprised a fair number of people by coming much closer than most fanboys would have guessed to matching Iron Man’s spectacular opening last year. This, of course, came almost exactly a month after a DVD-quality workprint of the film was leaked onto the Internet.
At the time of the leak, a number of news outlets (including Newsarama) ran stories wondering what the financial impact of the leak on ticket sales might be. With a leak of that scope, so far in advance, and almost universally-negative word-of-mouth (as well as a paltry 36% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes), one has to wonder: What, if any, harm did Internet piracy do to this film’s box office? Without getting into a discussion on the ethics of such a leak–it was illegal whether or not it hurt Fox financially–it seems entirely plausible that there was almost no impact on the opening box office for the flick.
There if, of course, a popular conception both inside and outside of the comics community that comic book adaptions will have a certain number of comic book fans turning out for opening weekend more or less no matter what. It might be a really long time before we ever see a similar leak, but when it comes in a non-genre film, that might tell us a little bit more about THAT particular line of thinking, as well.
An interesting question posed by the success of Wolverine in spite of all the factors working against it is–if this movie can overcome all these obstacles and still come out with one of the higest opening-weekend grosses of the year, what does it say for a film like Watchmen, which underperformed despite a highly-motivated fanbase…or even more, for a movie like The Spirit, that couldn’t even get that same fanbase out the door to start with?
May 4th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
You fail to note the fact that for Watchmen there was a significant portion of the fanbase that was “highly motivated” to practically boycott the thing.
May 4th, 2009 at 10:58 pm
Wolverine has the name recognition. People want go out and see Wolverine, and by people I mean the average mainstream moviegoer.
Then again, Iron Man did outstanding and wasn’t a big household name before it was released like the Hulk or X-Men.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:06 am
Huge difference between People magazine’s “Sexiest Man of the Year” who hosted the Academy Awards and was the most popular superhero character in the hugely successful X-Men trilogy of movies that is also well loved by kids…compared to a comic book limited series that never broke out in the mainstream and was seen as too violent for kids and women.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:09 am
If we’d gotten “Will Eisner’s ‘The Spirit’” as opposed to “Frank Miller’s ‘The Spirit,’” I’d bet a lot more people would’ve gotten out of the door.
May 5th, 2009 at 3:07 am
Regardless of the fanbase boycott, Watchmen received a significant amount of press beforehand and a strong marketing campaign. The vast majority of my colleagues (knowing I’m the comic guy, sadly) stopped me at some point to ask what it was. Yet I don’t think any (bar one maybe) actually went to see it. On the other hand, all of them went to see Wolverine over the weekend and were talking about it on Monday. A lot of the success behind Wolverine is no doubt the attraction of the character himself. That opening weekend will have dragged out both a) the comic fans (me) and b) the guys who know who Wolverine is and think he’s bada$$ (everyone else I know). Then probably (hopefully?) the word of mouth will kill it.
We’ve always seen that the easiest way to sell a comic is to stick Wolverine on it (or Batman). Maybe this twisted rule applies to comic movies too.
May 5th, 2009 at 5:25 am
rwe - I think you hit the nail on the head with that one, but I guess we’ll never know since it’s likely to be at least another 20 years before anybody will attempt to make that franchise work.
Tommy - Why is it “sadly” that they know you’re the comic guy?Dude, take ownership! Self-loathing is no way to live.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:25 am
Could just be that most people just don’t like or care for The Watchmen and stuff like that when it comes to superheros.
I don’t understand why so many people constantly try to find some reason aside from that.
Ever since that book came out it’s been lauded as the be-all, end-all of superhero comics and everything has tried to emulate it and move in the “realistic” direction and ever since then, sales and interest in mainstream comics have gone down the toilet.
The masses want “heroes”.
It’s only self loathing fanboys that like the stupid “realistic, morally bankrupt, average joe in a costume” crap.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:04 am
jeff- Could you please rephrase your last sentence so it does not sound so condescending, infantilizing, and flat-out sexist to women? Because I can not tell if that is your opinion or your reflection on the sexist way Hollywood markets movies.
But yeah, what everyone else said: character recognition, big-name actor, successful franchise, and (unlike Watchmen and The Spirit) no reason to believe the director wasn’t up to the job.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Agree that you can’t compare movies with high brand recognition with those that don’t.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:21 am
Well, let’s see….
Wolverine - Rated PG-13 (gets that kid/teen audience)
Watchmen - Rated R (And yes, most cinemas will check ID’s , though they could still sneak in later that wouldn’t reflect tickets bought)
Wolverine - Currently saturated all over the LCS stands, Previews catalog, popular TV animated show, toy tie-ins at Wlmart and TRU
Watchmen - Currently (yes, was high on the charts) a graphic novel
Wolverine - Stars Hugh Jackman. Well known celebrity/star, recent Oscars host, popular among men and women
Watchmen - Stars…….., well, Jackie Earle Haley. Once was nominated for an Oscar. Appeared in original “Bad News Bears” and wears a mask in 98% of the film
Wolverine - Has appeal to those who grew up reading his early appearances in the early 1980’s (now would be in 20’s-30’s) and their kids.
Watchmen - Has appeal to those who read and revered original comic run and graphic novel, though many in support of the author bashed it’s making and stayed away on purpose
I saw both films on it’s Thursday night midnight showings, and I’ve found that in the past those midnight shows are good gauges as to how the film will do that opening weekend.
Oddly enough, when Watchmen premeired the theater opened two large screens and both were filled to capacity at a 60-40 ratio of men to women.
Last Thursday at the midnight show, Wolverine could barely fill one large screen and that audience was 95-5 ratio of men to women.
Go figure.
May 5th, 2009 at 7:22 am
As others have noted, Wolverine’s got name recognition. That might not have been as true, say, 20 years ago… But Wolvie had the advantage of starring in three X-Men movies prior to this, and the X-Men name was slapped onto the title of this film as well.
Add Hugh Jackman, fresh from hosting the Oscars and being named the “sexiest man alive,” (plenty of women have proven they can be shallow as man are often accused of being by going to this film just to gawk at Hugh) and you’ve got a recipe for success. Oh, and there’s the matter of the Wolverine & The X-Men cartoon having been launched earlier this year. Hell, even Disney has dusted off the old 90’s X-Men cartoon and they just did a Wolverine week last week.
By comparison, Watchmen had plenty going against it. It was rated R (which it pretty much had to be) whereas Wolverine managed get a PG-13. I know a buddy of mine really wasn’t looking foward to Wolverine, but he promised his two sons to take them to it. Watchmen also had a deeply divided fan base, and in spite of how many books have sold over the past year it’s really not mainstream fare the same way your more traditional comic book heroes generally are.
As for The Spirit, I’m not sure it even belongs in this discussion. How many people, outside of hardcore comics people, even know who the character is anymore? That needed to be a really good movie, with strong word of mouth, for that movie to be success.
Anyhow, we’ll see how Wolverine does this weekend. Star Trek’s surprisingly strong reviews and hype means it’ll easily win the weekend, and Wolverine will likely be a distant second. If Wolverine’s total drops by less than 60% they’ll probably be pretty happy. I mean, X3 and Spider-Man 3 were pieces of crap too, and they still made some serious bank. Both were helped tremendously by big opening weekends, just like Wolverine, but it appears to be a success.
Me, I’m hoping the inevitable sequel turns out A LOT better. The Japan saga interests me, but I hope they get it right and make a stronger movie than current one.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:47 am
What it means is that Fox has no incentive to actually give us good super hero movies when people will willingly shell out for bad ones.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:51 am
Oh, and just to be clear. I’m not saying women are shallow… I’m merely pointing out that I’ve read a lot “Hugh’s so hot!” comments over the past week, so I’m sure that’s got something to do with Wolverine’s big opening weekend. Men and women are no different in sometimes lowering their standards when “hotness” ins entered into the equation.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:53 am
I didn’t see anyone else point it out, but another factor may be running time. Wolverine’s UNDER two hours, whereas Watchmen was, what, 3 hours? Obviously that allows for more showings of Wolverine, but it also might not be the endurance test that Watchmen is. I love Watchmen in book form, but I certainly found the movie as trying my patience.