Movies With Butter

Last night, “The Transporter Refueled” received a modest $365K from action fans, according to Variety. Whenever these evening screening figures are less than a million, it’s nothing to write home about.

The trade publication uses another Luc Besson production, “3 Days to Kill,” as a comparison. The Kevin Costner vehicle pulled in $325K in evening screenings and ended up with a weekend sum of $12M, a respectable opening for Costner nowadays.

As another point of comparison, “No Escape” pulled in $300K last Tuesday evening and ended the weekend with $10M.

You’d think with these two figures to compare to, “The Transporter Refueled” -- because its evening number is slightly higher -- would do better than $12M this Labor day weekend, but Variety and HSX are both projecting just $9M.

Maybe it’s because of the poor reviews (I didn’t think it’s that bad) and sequels (it’s actually a prequel) tend to be frontloaded.

With a $22M budget, that’s an OK opening. “The Transporter Refueled” would have to do better overseas, which the franchise has been doing, in order for EuropaCorp to put another one in the pipeline.

We’ll see how the matinee figures look in just a few more hours.

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