To no one’s surprise, THOR scored a hit at the weekend box office topping the domestic till with $66 million, adding up to a worldwide gross of $242 mil. The thunder “god” lagged only IRON MAN and SPIDER-MAN’s debuts, making the third biggest first appearance for a Marvel character. (But NOTE the others didn’t have the benefit of inflated 3D ticket prices.
It was also proof that a film can make a big debut despite two weeks of piracy: THOR opened two weeks ago overseas to take advantage of various local holidays and the Royal Wedding 3-day weekend in Britain. Although THOR also handily blasted the Mel Gibson come-back vehiclem THE BEAVER, it was not all good news:
Fanboys over age 25 fueled Thor in North America. A full 72% of the audience was over that age, and 63% were males.
Teens and younger adults have been noticeably missing from the multiplex, a worrisome trend that continued with Thor and could explain why the film didn’t open higher.
On this weekend last year, Iron Man 2 opened to $128.2 million. Without those kind of numbers, this frame was down 10% from 2010.
Meanwhile, everyone is already looking forward to Tom Hiddleston’s next turn as Loki, when he appears as the — or “a” — villain in The Avengers movie. (Loki was also the foe in the first issue of the Avengers comic, for those keeping continuity score.) Hiddleston is excited but tightlipped:
“I think a red dot will form on my forehead if I give any more information about Loki and ‘The Avengers,’” laughs Hiddleston, looking discreetly for Marvel-hired snipers taking a laser-targeted bead on him. “All I can tell you is that Loki will be in ‘The Avengers,’ and it’ll take more than Chris to stop me this time.”
Marvel Studio head Kevin Feigehas also been chatting up things Avengers, including a reference to Hank Pym which was pulled, and despite what we speculated in our reviews, there aren’t that many outtakes:
Well, that reference we felt was one too many times over the head, which is why we pulled it out. In terms of extended editions for DVDs? Yes. Home video always has long lead plans to do things like that. There will be deleted scenes on the Blu-ray for sure. I don’t know if there will be more or less than any other movie. When you said, “Were scenes deleted to get down to the running time?” No scenes were. We didn’t say, “This movie has to be two hours. Let’s take out as much until it gets to two hours.”
And….that Ant Man movie with Edgar Wright is still a possibility:
It probably won’t be too long from now as we are figuring that out now. Clearly, if you look at the Iron Man, Spider-Man, and the X-Men films, two or three years between sequels is usually what we like to do. You don’t know if you are making sequels till the movies come out or not. So I will say that there is flux in what the release schedule could be for 2013, 2014, and maybe 2015. Then we hope to…I’m meeting with Edgar Wright tomorrow morning. It is the longest…I said to Edgar, “You didn’t realize it was like 5 years ago or maybe more than that that we met at Comic Con?” But he has the best draft yet and I think we could be in shape to do it. It’s a luxury that it has been allowed to live and breathe like that. It’s not where it was just racing to a release date. Iron Man 3 is for sure. We are actively putting it together right now. What happens beyond that? We will see. But for the first time…frankly, when we did Iron Man and Hulk we had two movies in development – Iron Man and Hulk. Now, there is more of a selection. So we can go, “What scripts are we feeling good about? What properties do we now feel that we want to bring into the forefront?”
I am a little confused. Doesn’t the opening weekend account for, like, half the ultimate gross these days?
If that is the case, then THOR looks like respectable summer film. “Respectable” is not a platform from which you want to launch a franchise.
i haven’t seen the flick yet, i’ll probably go next weekend. the line above about “teens and young adults being noticeably missing from the multiplex” which is a “continuing trend” is news to me. any idea why this is happening?
While I personally like old tales to astonish antman/wasp stories I was dubious about the characters catching on with general audiences and as a franchise as opposed to the two characters just being members of the cast in a series of Avengers movies (I still remember that old SNL sketch where the other heroes tease ant man).
But having seen what they’re doing with the characters in the Avengers cartoon, which is an absolute delight (chris yost=awesome, cartoon Jan is fucking great) I have a renewed interest in seeing them on the big screen and think Antman and Wasp could definitely have some appeal as a franchise if done right.
@abc: Young people don’t go to the cinema much. (I almost wrote “any more”, but these particular people were never in that habit.) To them, movies are something you watch at home, either on the big screen in front of the comfy couch, or on the smaller screen attached to their cable modem.
Speaking of deleted scenes in Thor… I just saw it yesterday, and is it just me or did it seem like there was an entire scene missing in the middle? That is, it really seemed to be setting up a classic “bar fight” scene, then it cut to the aftermath where they talked about it. Now I’m all for making a streamlined movie and all, but it seems to me that this scene would have done a LOT to establish Thor’s newfound links with mortals.
And as long as I’m talking about the movie, I’d say it was definitely good – not “Iron Man” good, but certainly fun, well-cast and well directed. However, only the 3D version was showing in my area and it was HIDEOUS. Distracting, ugly to look at, and strangely even though it’s supposedly “3D”, the process makes EVERYTHING LOOK FLAT. It looks like there are cardboard cutouts of figures set at different planes of depth. An awful, awful waste of time and money.
I’ll definitely look forward to seeing the movie on DVD in the next year or so to see it as the director actually intended.
Thought that for all its epic bombast the film was emotionally flat and some of it just plain silly. The Warriors Three seemed totally extraneous. Added on, as if, in the hopes of yet another franchise. Loved seeing Walt’s smiling face though!!!
“Teens and younger adults have been noticeably missing from the multiplex…”
Oh is THAT why it was such a pleasant movie going experience? I am usually reluctant to see films in their opening weekend, but I heard such good reviews that I braved the crowds to see it early. Very (happily) surprised there weren’t talkers or cell phones buzzing. Speaks to the quality of the movie as well.
I thought it was really bad. Really flat. Good casting for Thor, tho, so I hope the AVENGERS script is better, but a really lame film, in my humble opinion.
The script is… nothing.
Fall from grace. Cheap redemption. He’s back. Fight. Sacrifice. Whatever.