Movie Weekend

Wall-E had a big opening weekend - a little over $62 million. That's not as good as Finding Nemo ($70 million) or The Incredibles ($70+ million) did, and nowhere near as good as Toy Story 2 ($80 million), but it's slightly better than Cars ($60 million) and Ratatouille ($47 million). This will at least partially satisfy this investor in Disney. I'd say this is an average opening for Pixar, statistically and historically speaking. But Tyler predicted a steep second week decline for this movie once word of mouth gets around about it, and kids start telling their friends what it's like. So what can we expect?

1. Toy Story fell 30% from week 1.
2. Toy Story 2 fell 52%.
3. Bug's Life fell 48%.
4. Monster's, Inc., fell 27%.
5. Finding Nemo fell fell 34%.
6. The Incredibles fell 29%.
7. Ratatouille fell 38%.
8. Cars fell 44%.

So for these eight Pixar films, the average decline after the first weekend (more or less) was around 38%, with the worst decline being Toy Story 2, but that's partly because it had such a huge opening weekend at $80 million. I think the two Pixar movies people associate with being financially disappointing was Ratatouille ($206 million domestically), and maybe Bug's Life ($160 million - but without adjustments for inflation...), so maybe if it declines in the ballpark of those 2 (38% and 48%, respectively). The worst case scenario is it shows Matrix Reloaded declines. It opened huge at over $90 million, then fell off almost 60% due to poor reviews and word of mouth.

My suspicion is Tyler's right, and that it'll probably show declines in the 45% range. I think that's like a Cars performance, in other words. Wall-E has this E.T. thing going on for it - a cute robot and outer space - which, plus being Pixar, almost guarantees a strong opening weekend. That is why it's different from Ratatouille, which was about gourmet cooking and a ghost chef who teaches a rat to follow his dreams into the kitchen. While brilliant, it didn't really pretend to be anything other than a, for lack of a better word, sophisticated film, but Wall-E feels perhaps more like a subterfuge. Kids will go in the opening weekend, but not the second weekend, because in the first weekend one can imagine kids wanting to see the robot and the space story, but when they learn it's not so much about either of those things, as much as it is a silent film era romance, they'll probably not show up in week 2. So I'm going to put it at 45%, maybe even 50%. I'm going to stake out a 50% decline for the second weekend, actually. Kind of bold prediction, but I'm going with it.