Early Box Office Figures: ‘Vampires Suck’ Leads Chaotic Top 8; ‘Pilgrim’ Plummets to 10th

Early Box Office Figures: ‘Vampires Suck’ Leads Chaotic Top 8; ‘Pilgrim’ Plummets to 10th

The preliminary Friday box office numbers have emerged, and only $2.2 million in ticket sales separate early-leader ‘Vampires Suck’ and eighth-place trailer ‘The Switch.’ ‘Scott Pilgrim vs. the World’ continues its freefall on the way out of the Top 10.

By TheBoxOfficeWatchmen - Aug 21, 2010 05:08 AM EST
Filed Under: Horror
Source: Deadline Hollywood


There will be a day where Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer release a parody-film that flops so colossally that the filmmakers – who were responsible for ‘Date Movie,’ ‘Epic Movie’ and ‘Meet the Spartans’ – will be forced to commit professional seppuku, departing the film industry with whatever shred of honor they have left.

Today is not that day.

Audiences have given Friedberg and Seltzer yet another vote of confidence, propelling the writers/directors’ vampire spoof, ‘Vampires Suck,’ to an early lead in this weekend’s box office. In this weekend’s first frame, the film has netted a reported $5 million in ticket sales, narrowly edging ‘The Expendables’ first-day receipts of $4.8 million. With newcomer ‘The Switch’ raking in $2.8 million, only $2.2 million stand between Friday’s first and eighth place finishes; it is anyone’s guess as to how the final top 8 will shape out by Sunday evening.

Four other films were widely released into theaters this weekend, yet none offered any resistance to ‘Vampires Suck’ in its ascent to the top. The film currently registers at a 3% “Fresh” rating on review-aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, with only one lonely contrarian (aren’t all contrarians lonely?) publishing a favorable review out of the 35 submitted to the site. I will only say that he is likely cut from the same cloth of critics who purposefully attract attention by blemishing otherwise pristine records of reviews of Pixar films. A Coffee Talk moment: whom would a film site “Comments” section tear apart first, the critic who ruins the 0% “Fresh” rating of a Friedberg/Seltzer spoof, or the critic who ruins the 100% “Fresh” rating of a Pixar film? I’m a little verklempt, talk amongst ya’selves.

‘Vampires Suck’ owes its early success not to the film’s creative team, but to its studio’s scheduling department, if it even exists. With so many new releases and the eclectic mix of genres in this week’s top 10, ‘Vampires Suck’ is clearly counterprogramming against watchable films; for those who just aren’t in the mood to sit through a watchable film, ‘Vampires Suck’ offers escapism at its lowest.

It’s not unfathomable. A group of five friends could have trouble deciding between ‘The Expendables,’ ‘Lottery Ticket,’ and ‘Piranha 3D,’ and to avoid the unfairness of settling on a movie that only one friend wants to watch, the friends collectively decide to watch the movie that none of them wants to watch. The group of friends is King Solomon, and ‘Vampire Movie’ is the baby split-in-half. An unfunny dead baby joke finding its way into a box office recap is just further evidence that all evil leads back to Friedberg and Seltzer.

In other news, look for ‘Vampires Suck’ to lose its grip on the lead. The film has managed a relatively decent “B” average from Yahoo! users, but only a 48% “Fresh” rating from the Rotten Tomatoes user community. With lukewarm-to-poor word of mouth, ‘Vampires Suck’ will need some help to cross the finish line in first. Deadline Hollywood currently projects ‘Vampires Suck’ to conclude its opening weekend with $14.5 million. Friedberg and Seltzer made the movie for $20 million, and ‘Vampires’ will certainly earn a tidy profit. We will rue the day that Seltzer and Friedberg run out of subjects to parody, and make ‘9/11 Movie’ or ‘Holocaust Movie.’

In its sophomore frame, ‘The Expendables’ has muscled its way to an early second place position. The uber-action flick pocketed over $32 million last weekend on its way to the top spot in its debut. The film continues to track strong, and with the fans’ positive word-of-mouth and the film’s short run time of 103 minutes, Saturday may be the day that men take back (again) the box office. Or something. If the current projections keep steady, ‘The Expendables’ and ‘Vampires Suck’ will battle to a photo finish with the final numbers are released on Sunday.

‘Lottery Ticket’ has managed to get lucky with a decent start to the weekend. The Warner Bros. flick was released in only roughly 2,000 theaters – or about 40% fewer theaters than ‘Vampires Suck’ – but still cashed in $3.7 million in ticket sales. The film has performed strongly within its obvious target-demographic, incognito lottery winners. In seriousness, the film tracked rather evenly among most demographic groups.

The film’s third place open is a bit of a surprise considering that the tracking numbers only reflect mild interest in the film. Then again, ‘Lottery Ticket’ is a light comedy featuring familiar faces and a straightforward plot; what you see is what you get. So much emphasis is put on tracking numbers nowadays, forgotten is the familiar formula of the familiar formula. Expect a total of just over $10 million when the final numbers are called this weekend.

The other notable performance was the second Friday of ’Scott Pilgrim vs. the World.’ Despite ‘Pilgrim’s increase in internet “awareness” and “interest” numbers, the film has out-flopped itself in its second week. The early numbers place ‘Pilgrim’ in 10th place with only $1.5 million in ticket revenue, representing a 65% drop from the previous Friday. It appears that Universal has waved the white-flag, as the once-omnipresent advertising of ‘Pilgrim’ has been scaled back to close-to-nil. While it is only Friday, we shouldn’t expect anything more than $4.5 million in ‘Pilgrim’s second weekend, with virtually no chance of supplanting ‘Inception’, with $2.1 million on Friday, for the ninth spot.

The two other new releases, ‘Piranha 3D’ and ‘The Switch,’ opened at fourth and eighth, respectively. Check back on Monday morning for a comprehensive recap and analysis of this weekend's box office performances.

(Alan Man is a registered user of ComicBookMovie.com and the owner of the fansite, The Box Office Watchmen, a website devoted to the box office analysis of comic book films. For questions, comments, or advertising information, please send feel free to e-mail us)




The Box Office Watchmen on Twitter!
George A. Romero's TWILIGHT OF THE DEAD Casts RESIDENT EVIL Star Milla Jovovich
Related:

George A. Romero's TWILIGHT OF THE DEAD Casts RESIDENT EVIL Star Milla Jovovich

PINOCCHIO: UNSTRUNG First Look Spotlights Impressive Animatronic Puppet As Robert Englund Joins Cast
Recommended For You:

PINOCCHIO: UNSTRUNG First Look Spotlights Impressive Animatronic Puppet As Robert Englund Joins Cast

DISCLAIMER: As a user generated site and platform, ComicBookMovie.com is protected under the DMCA (Digital Millenium Copyright Act) and "Safe Harbor" provisions.

This post was submitted by a user who has agreed to our Terms of Service and Community Guidelines. ComicBookMovie.com will disable users who knowingly commit plagiarism, piracy, trademark or copyright infringement. Please CONTACT US for expeditious removal of copyrighted/trademarked content. CLICK HERE to learn more about our copyright and trademark policies.

Note that ComicBookMovie.com, and/or the user who contributed this post, may earn commissions or revenue through clicks or purchases made through any third-party links contained within the content above.

LEEE777
LEEE777 - 8/21/2010, 5:18 AM
What TWILIGHT's got yet another movie out already???


; D
LEEE777
LEEE777 - 8/21/2010, 5:20 AM
I can see an 'X-MEN SUCKS' in the works soon too! ; P
Protonite
Protonite - 8/21/2010, 5:41 AM
Parody movies are becoming less and less entertaining. The last enjoyable one was Scary Movie 2. Not surprised about Scott Pilgrim. Cera sucks. Yay to The Expendables.
KALel3412
KALel3412 - 8/21/2010, 5:55 AM
@leee777 thats the working title for the xmen movie right? thats what it should be lmao
LEEE777
LEEE777 - 8/21/2010, 6:58 AM
KALel3412 @ Lmao too dude! ; D
airbeyonder18
airbeyonder18 - 8/21/2010, 7:36 AM
Actually this is one movie I would see. A movie that makes fun of Twilight, I've been waiting for this to come out since I first heard of Twilight. I am sad however for Sctott Pilgrim.
gibbyblaylock
gibbyblaylock - 8/21/2010, 8:37 AM
It's funny, SCOTT PILGRIM is #10 and yet people can't seem to stop talking about it. This article makes mention of #1 and off-handedly mentions some of the top ten here and there, but somehow the #10 movie manages to be mentioned in the title description in bold AND gets a pic featured in the article.

Scott Pilgrim may not be raking in the dough, but it sure seems to be on a lot of people's radar.

p.s. Scott Pilgrim is SPECTACULAR! Go see it!!!!
patriautism
patriautism - 8/21/2010, 10:11 AM
What a sad time we live in, when VAMPIRES SUCK leads while something as amazing as Scott Pilgrim flops.
ckyallie69
ckyallie69 - 8/21/2010, 10:38 AM
poor poor pilgrim
Denn1s
Denn1s - 8/21/2010, 12:21 PM
pilgrim had bomb written all over it from the beginning. no surprise at all. go sly!
TheBoxOfficeWatchmen
TheBoxOfficeWatchmen - 8/21/2010, 12:51 PM
@LEE777

Hahaha so true! There is so much material for an X-MEN SUCKS movie, too!
TANKGIRL
TANKGIRL - 8/21/2010, 12:55 PM
LEEE777 WAHT THE [frick] [frick]

THE FIRST TWO X-MOVIE ROCKS BUT X-3 AND OTHER PREQUEL SUCKED

BRYAN SINGER SUCK
TANKGIRL
TANKGIRL - 8/21/2010, 12:58 PM
Wadey09
Wadey09 - 8/21/2010, 8:18 PM
unfortunatley this might spell the end of Edgar Wright's comic-to-film career.
i'm really excited to see him helm Ant-man, but the guys at Marvel are "antsy" (that's right, i said it!) enough. look at what happened with Ed Norton. they had a disagreement and were not willing to compromise! for a while there, Sam Jackson was rumored never to return to Marvel (i know LEEE was giddy at that).
but how will the Marvel execs respond to Pilgrim's poor box office?
Ranger14
Ranger14 - 8/23/2010, 9:31 AM
Vampire Sucks trumps the Expendables and Scott Pilgrim? lol Exactly why i have them on my rental list and not seeing them in the theater.
Dmon
Dmon - 8/23/2010, 8:20 PM
Wrong!!!!! Expendables ended up being #1
View Recorder