X-Men Origins Wolverine has driven the first tentpole of the summer into the ground kicking off the Summer Blockbuster Season and dominated the boxoffice with an $87million opening weekend.
The action adventure, starring Hugh Jackman as the heroic Wolverine who wields long claws as his weapons, raked in $87 million in the United States and Canada and helped push total ticket sales just slightly ahead of the same weekend last year
John had guessed a $80-90m weekend and I resisted throwing a guess in as I suck at that kind of estimating game. I also suck at guessing people’s age too. I would be a horrible carnival attraction operator.
The World Wide totals came up to $160million which more than covers its $130m budget. This also places it as the second highest opening for an X-Men film after X3: The Last Stand opened to $102m.
Last year’s Iron Man hit the scene at $99million to kick off the season with solid expectations. I am actually impressed that Wolverine came close with all the poor reviews, and the fiasco of the leaked workprint.
However unlike Ironman, I don’t suspect that Wolverine will have any staying power for the weeks to come. Considering Star Trek is being released this coming weekend, I don’t know that it stood a chance anyways.
Wolverine was SO good when it was good, but so very bad when it was bad that it was hard to love it.
