‘X-Men: First Class’ mutants take the box office, did they do well enough?

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As expected, X-Men: First Class easily took the weekend box-office prize with an estimated $56.0 million in tickets sold, and it did so without the decided advantage of 3-D that shall give a ridiculous advantage to many of this summer’s releases. I fully agree with Kaiser in her assessment that it was a very solid movie and quite the promising vehicle for mainstream stardom when it comes to the lovely (and quite bangable) Michael Fassbender. First Class also did something rather unprecedented by crossing genre and gender lines in its comic book appeal, which is rather interesting since a lot of the ladies undoubtedly went for the mutant eye candy provided by Fassbender and James McAvoy. However, none of this positive news will stop certain outlets from wringing their hands at the disappointing fact that this movie pulled the smallest opening weekend out of all of the X-Men movies.

As if on cue, Deadline calls First Class a “risky reboot” before going forth with the doom and gloom prophecy:

Wolverine’s $85M opening weekend (from 4,099 locations) swamped X-Men: First Class‘ debut — Friday’s total North American gross was $54 million for the weekend. This will be the lowest opening of a Marvel-branded movie in a long time — not to mention less than the $60M opening which Hollywood expected. Internationally, X-Men: First Class has already opened in France and Australia but broke no records and will roll out in 75 international territories on over 8,000 screens.

“Given that we are reinventing the X-Men franchise with a critically acclaimed director and top actors who are not really widely known to audiences, we’re hoping to be somewhere around Batman Begins ($48.7M) and X-Men ($54.4M). That seems to be a good target area for us,” said a Fox exec who was right on the money. The studio is hoping this prequel sticks around as moviegoers discover it. With a fresh cast including James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, and Rose Byrne but no big stars like Hugh Jackman in a signature role like Wolverine, tracking had been slow to build, especially considering how massive The Hangover Part 2 was impacting other movies in the marketplace. But Fox saw steady growth in the core audience, and then growth with females which was surprising because X-Men movies are more typically male. Meanwhile, a word to the wise to the arrogant [Matthew] Vaughn: stop bad-mouthing other directors publicly. Sure, it’s fun to bitchslap Brett Ratner and boast you could have outgrossed his X-Men 3 if only you’d been helming it — but not when your Kick-Ass didn’t do squat its opening weekend.

With it’s [sic] see-how-it-all-started angle, X-Men: First Class successfuly avoided the trap of most reboots like Batman and The Hulk and no doubt the upcoming Spider-Man (and Superman?): repeating the same storyline that’s all-too-familiar by now to moviegoers. Instead, it’s more like J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek by presenting the early backstory. Even so, this First Class (which is not 3D) can’t muster the same money as the original X-Men movie which made $54.5M, or $79M adjusted for ticket price inflation, back in 2000. Fanboys have expressed unhappiness that Wolverine is not part of this prequel which relies instead on the strength of the Professor X and Magneto charcaters [sic] as part of the new ensemble. Knowing it would be difficult for this reboot to become a blockbuster, Fox kept sending journalists a lot of early review reaction to show that the movie was being well received.

[From Deadline]

Don’t you just love the “ZOMG!” angle in regard this reboot not doing the same numbers as the drivel that was Wolverine? As if First Class were somehow a worse movie than Wolverine, when the latter’s awfulness probably left so many audience members feeling so tricked and underwhelmed that they simply didn’t want to give another X-Men movie a chance? One can only hope that the positive word of mouth for First Class will boost the next couple of weekends and prove to movie studios that we do like our comic book movies to be smart and critically well-received (still holding with a 87% fresh rating at Rotten Tomatoes); and, above all, not to be directed by the likes of Brett Ratner.

Meanwhile, a couple of two-week holdovers, The Hangover Part II and King Fu Panda 2, won second and third place with $32.4 million and $24.3 million, respectively speaking. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides continued forth with $18.0 million in its third week of release, and Bridesmaids pulled in another $12.1 million in its fourth week. Now, we’ll see whether J.J. Abrams’ Super 8 decimates them all next weekend.

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Movie stills courtesy of AllMoviePhoto

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13 Responses to “‘X-Men: First Class’ mutants take the box office, did they do well enough?”

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  1. beckymae says:

    I saw this yesterday in Australia and I thought it was awesome! I’have never seen the other X-Men films but I thought it was brilliantly cast, a great story line and very well styled for the 60’s period.McEvoy has been a fave of mine since “Shameless” days in the early ’00’s and Fassbender….WHOAH! That accent will melt you…a great film, everyone should see!

  2. taylor says:

    Question about Hangover 2: that’s a huge drop, right? Isn’t that a sign that people weren’t actually super-thrilled with it and basically told their friends not to see it? Or is the number itself strong enough that I’m reading this all wrong?
    (I haven’t seen 1 or 2: I love comedies, especially silly ones, but to me these just look–forced, I guess, but I get that people loved the first one.)

  3. Athena says:

    I don’t think the Wolverine movie had anything to do with the success or failure of X-Men First Class and you can say all you want about Brett Ratner but he made really great popcorn X-Men movies.

  4. Shazza says:

    I saw X-Men: First Class this weekend and thought it was fantastic! I’m sorta disappointed that it didn’t do better but I’m sure good word of mouth will keep it in the top 10 for most of the summer. Next up is Green Lantern and eh, I might see that. Then there’s Captain America. I’ll be curious to see if people support them.

  5. Tammy says:

    Great reviews and great word of mouth are going to carry X-Men First Class, it will be a slow burner all summer. Matthew Vaughn is honest and a great director.

  6. Eve says:

    X-Men Origins – Wolverine could have been a lot better, but I was so happy to see Sabertooth portrayed accordingly (related to Wolverine himself, mean, bitter, jealous but also smart*) that I gave it a pass. And Liev Schreiber was simply perfect.

    The problem with Wolverine is that they tried to add too much information and characters for just 2 hours.

    Also, there’s the fact they need to get the G rating, so they toned down the bloody messes Wolverine gets himself into (which is a turn off for whoever likes the character in the first place, since Wolverine equals violence, rage and blood).

    *Seriously, what the hell was that Metallica’s James Hetfield circa “And Justice For All…” phase that Bryan Singer decided to go with in that first X-Men movie? That was ridiculous!

  7. DreamyK says:

    Hangover II was completely hysterical in some parts so overall I would go see it. X-Men was a great summer movie. The chemistry between McAvoy and Fassbender was something I haven’t seen in a movie in quite some time. Jennifer Lawrence is my new girl crush. She made the other ladies in the cast look stick like.

  8. LucyOriginal says:

    @dreamyK: I completely agree with you!! What a great chemistry these two have and Jennifer was really really good!

    I think this movie is going to pick up steam since pretty much everyone who watched was really pleased with it!!!

  9. environ says:

    I saw X-Men last night and it was soooo good. Nothing beats Magneto the nazi hunter, he was so badass.

    I hated X3 so much it makes me want to break things. It was a festering heap and Ratner can brag about a better opening but he was working with the goodwill left over from Singer’s installments, the next week drop off was 70 % so he is lucky as hell that he got a big opening weekend. He almost destroyed the franchise.

    X-Men First Class is exceptional and will have legs. 

  10. Jag says:

    Y’all have convinced me to go see this movie. 🙂

  11. fee says:

    I have been telling everyone I know that this X-Men movie blows all the other ones out of the water. It is worth it to go and check it out. You won’t be disappointed!

  12. chris says:

    The rotten tomatoes site is biased though as well as reviewers so 87% means very little to me when it comes to fanboy films. It’s probably skewed results to make the film seem better.

  13. Amirza says:

    Michael Fassbender = Perfection!