What does Superman’s early debut signal?
Jeffrey Wells is speculating that the decision to open Superman Returns two days earlier than previously expected is a panic move by the marketing team on the film. He thinks Warner Bros. is getting the movie out earlier over the 4th of July weekend to rack up as much box-office as possible before Pirates of the Caribbean comes out on 4/7. Plausible enough considering the sudden move.
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Hey Chris - great blog…
It’s not a panic move - it’s common sense and a terrific strategy to make more money faster. The people that need to see it on opening day will do their thing, and the theaters will still be packed over the weekend for a huge 5 day opening.
You see this all the time on tentpole pictures these days, and it’s why Da Vinci opened the week before Memorial Day weekend. It had a huge $70 million opening, and then still enjoyed a massive Memorial Day box office take.
However, David Poland thinks there’s something a bit more, well, not nefarious, but maybe self-conscious going on:
Superman Returns is moving up to a Wednesday launch, on the 28th. What is curious about this is whether it is a show of faith, that the weekend will be that good and therefore a Wed start will be an advantage in clearing out the die-to-sees before regular people que up on Friday night or whether this is a move to avoid uncomfortable comparisons to X3, as in “Well, we opened on Wed… you can’t compare the openings.. we did about the same by the end of the first weekend as they did.”