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Non-Tech : Marvel Enterprises (NYSE) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockid who wrote (282)	6/23/2003 7:19:48 AM
From: OmertaSoldier	Respond to of 540

Hulk Sets June Record Third Best Opening For A Marvel Film Hulk Smashes! June 23, 2003 Ang Lee's Hulk smashed and grabbed its way to a June record $62.6 million opening weekend gross. The Hulk's three-day total was the third best for a Marvel film trailing only Spider-Man ($114.8) and X2 ($85.9). As a result of opening in the middle of the summer rather than in early May, the Hulk was featured on some 2,000 fewer screens than X2 and 1500 fewer than Spider-Man (which means that Spider-Man 2's failure to make its May 2004 opening could make it impossible for the sequel to match the original's record box office performance-see "Spider-Man 2's Debut Moved"). On a per screen basis the Hulk, in spite of a longer running time, tallied almost as much as X2. The Hulk audience was evenly split between those under 25 and those over it. Males made up 63% of the audience for the Hulk, which hasn't yet demonstrated as much appeal to women as did Spider-Man or X-2. While Ang Lee's film is off to good start, it will have to avoid the rapid drop-off suffered by some of the other summer blockbusters if it is to make back its enormous $137 million cost during its initial run (the rule of thumb is that a movie has to double its initial cost at the box office before it is in the black). Still the Hulk slightly exceeded ICv2's own bullish prediction (see "Hulk Set To Smash Box Office), and shattered the four-year-old June opening box office record set by Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me ($54.9 million). In second place Finding Nemo continued to show "great legs" declining only 28% to an estimated $20.5 million, which ran its cumulative total to nearly $228 million. Nemo soared past Bruce Almighty, which took in almost $10 million to run its cumulative to $210 million, a brilliant showing for a live action comedy. At this point it appears that Nemo might well be able to overtake The Matrix Reloaded, though the latter gained another $4million to run its total to a whopping $264 million. Nearly a quarter of The Matrix Reloaded's weekend take came from 50 IMAX locations, a sterling performance that could spark a trend with other future blockbusters moving into the IMAX venues within weeks, not months, of their openings. X2 slipped out of the top 10 for the first time in eight weekends. Now down to 1,300 theaters, X2 pulled in $1.375 million to finish in twelfth place just below From Justin to Kelly. With an 8-week total of $209.6 million it appears that X2 will finish its run in the neighborhood of $215-220 million.