Weekend Box Office
Toy Story 2 grossed $80.1 million in its first five days of wide release, more than doubling the $39.1 million that the original opened to. It was also the third biggest Wednesday-to-Sunday haul of all time, behind only The Phantom Menace and Independence Day. But wait, there's more. The $57.4 million weekend haul was the third biggest opening of all time behind The Lost World and The Phantom Menace. It also was the biggest opening for a Disney movie, an animated one, and it blew away previous Thanksgiving record holder A Bug's Life and its $45.7 million over the same period last year. Stunning.
What's disconcerting is how well sequels have been doing this year, as they make up the top three openers (the Star Wars prequel and the Austin Powers sequel occupying the 1 and 3 slots). Generally speaking, sequels gross around 60% of the original or less. Toy Story 2 will likely out-gross the original, while Austin 2 was the most successful sequel in terms of percent improvement since Terminator 2. The Phantom Menace essentially matched The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi in inflation adjusted gross, and it did it in one release, whereas they took multiple releases.
Meanwhile, End of Days came in third with an underwhelming $20.5 million over the weekend, $31.5 million for the first five days. For an Arnold Schwarzenegger action picture to open third, and behind another action picture that's in its second weekend, has got to smart. Now, it's by no means a bomb like Last Action Hero was, but with its $100 million price tag, an aggressive (i.e. expensive) ad campaign, and Arnold's cut of the gross, it's going to take a while for it to get in the black, if it ever does. Focus on atmosphere in the ad campaign made the picture look too similar to movies like Stigmata (Gabriel Byrne's presence in both pictures didn't help either). Universal's choice to play down Schwarzenegger's presence and the "Arnold vs. Satan" hook really hurt it as well since those were the strongest selling points.
The World is Not Enough is performing in a similar pattern to Goldeneye. That picture opened to $26.2 million back in 1995 and then made about $26 million the following Thanksgiving weekend. World opened to $35.5 million and then grossed $34 million over the holidays ($23.2 million over the weekend). Its $75,508,007 million total is 32% higher than Goldeneye's was at the same point, and it is well on its way to becoming the highest grossing Bond ever, though it won't likely top ticket sales champ Thunderball from 1965. Yet again its gross ended in "007," which has become too frequent to be mere coincidence, you kooky bean counters at MGM!
Sleepy Hollow didn't hold quite as well, but still scored $26.9 million for the five days, $18.4 million for the weekend. The total stands at $61.6 million, and the picture has a shot at the $100 million mark, which would be a first for Johnny Depp.
Overall box office totaled $160.1 million, up 35% over last weekend and up 20% over the same weekend last year when A Bug's Life topped the chart with $33.3 million.
