X-Men Origins: Wolverine has managed to rake in $87 million over the weekend, despite the film leaking, getting mixed reviews and swine flu. Wolverine has earned the second biggest opening for an X-Men film, being just ahead of X2’s $86 million and behind X-Men: The Last Stand’s $102.1 million.
From Variety:
Marking a howling start for the summer box office, 20th Century Fox’s “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” grossed $87 million from 4,099 runs at the domestic box office.
That’s the second-best opening of the four “X-Men” movies after “X2: X-Men United,” which had the advantage in opening over Memorial Day in 2003. “X2” grossed $102.1 million for the four-day holiday weekend.
“Wolverine’s” impressive bow came despite a working copy of the movie being pirated a month before the film’s opening. Studio isn’t sure how much the piracy ate into the box office, but some insiders suggest it could be as much as $20 million.
The Fox-Marvel prequel is the widest opening in Fox’s history.
“Wolverine” dropped only 15% from Friday to Saturday. Many had thought the pic will drop more, since fanboy-driven movies often see significant declines.
That’s also the same weekend that Paramount’s “Iron Man” bowed. “Iron Man” opened to $102 million.
Fox will no doubt he happy with this, although they have Star Trek to contend with next week which will most likely take the number 1 spot. However, X-Men Origins: Wolverine will probably do well enough to earn a sequel and may even get other spin-off’s green light (X-Men: First Class, X-Men Origins: Magneto)
Update: More numbers from E! Online:
In foreign countries, minus swine-flu-stricken Mexico, natch, Wolverine took in $73 million, Fox reported. After three days, the reputedly $130 million movie’s worldwide haul stands at $160 million.
Wolverine’s string of bad breaks, not including bad reviews, included: a leaked print, the swine-flu outbreak, and, the Chicago Bulls pushing the Boston Celtics into a Game 7 playoff game. The last one was the most recent wrinkle. According to Aronson, Wolverine’s box office was down 32 percent in Chicago last night as the Bulls played the Celtics. In victorious Boston, business was down 21 percent.
Audiences seemed fully aware of Wolverine’s bad buzz. But, in the end, per Fox’s exit polling, nearly half of all moviegoers said the film was better than they expected.
Wolverine’s audience split almost evenly along gender lines: 53 percent of moviegoers were men; 47 percent were women.
