Movies With Butter

Things just went from bad to ugly for Fox’s “Fantastic Four” reboot. After being panned by critics before opening today (9% on Rotten Tomatoes), the studio was hoping that it would at least open to decent numbers at the box office. Their expectations were already low, in the $40M range (the previous two opened to $56M and $58M, respectively). Now it looks like the troubled film will not even reach the already lowered prediction.

“Fantastic Four” opened on Thursday evening and picked up a “lukewarm” $2.7M.

Today, based on matinee figures, Hollywood Reporter is reporting that “Fantastic Four” will gross $12M by the end of the day, and that figure already includes the $2.7M figure from evening screenings on Thursday.

After watching the film, I knew this would happen. Here’s what I wrote at the end of my review of “Fantastic Four:”

“This might be the first film in the franchise to not gross $100M by the end of its run. I see it opening big on Friday, dropping steeply on Saturday, and ending the weekend with less than $40M. Then disappear from theaters in a couple of weeks.”

At its current pace, there’s a good chance “Fantastic Four” will not even make it to $30M. Taking away the $2.7M from Thursday would leave a Friday gross of only about $9M. Like I said above, business will drop steeply on Saturday from poor word-of-mouth and continues on that path on Sunday.

By the end of the weekend, “Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation” might repeat at the top of the box office. The spectacularly reviewed Tom Cruise film opened to $55.5M last weekend, and even if it drops to half of that this weekend, it could still be enough to be on top.

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