THB #736: Box Office Drops

With the weekend only half over in real life, I am already seeing the writing about the Fantastic Four drop becoming the first story… and being ore than a little simplistic. In this case, there is a combination of Marvel OCD, as though the movie can/should only be comped to Marvel films, and the lack of connection to every $100 million-plus opening, which is a different animal than smaller openings. Deadline is projecting a 66% drop for the film.

With this in mind, I threw together a chart - in less than an hour - to challenge perceptions, including my own.

In the 24 years since the first $100 million opening (Spider-Man in 2002), we have had 83 $100 million openings. We have had 4 this year, Fantastic Four: First Steps being the 4th.

For the purpose of this chart, I have eliminated the movies (9) that opened the week before a holiday weekend (Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the 4th of July). The softest drop of that group is Wicked (27.9% off a $112m open) and the hardest is The Twilight…