'X-Men' Expected to Dominate Memorial Day Box Office

With Memorial Day weekend upon us, the summer movie season is officially heating up as Fox (NASDAQ: FOXA) prepares to bring the summer’s latest Super-Hero movie to theaters, and Warner Brothers (a subsidiary of Time Warner (NYSE: TWX)) is hoping for late magic from Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore’s third comic collaboration.

X-Men: Days of Future Past
The X-Men series is one of Marvel’s longest-running and most profitable franchises, but it hit a serious road block years ago when the original trilogy ended on a low note with (the fittingly sub-titled) The Last Stand.

In the years since fans have largely had to rely on one-shot movies featuring Hugh Jackman in the role that made him famous; Wolverine. However in 2011, Fox decided to officially re-boot the franchise with X-Men: First Class, which served as a prequel to the later movies. Unlike the fan-reviled Last Stand, the movie was welcomed by the comic community and filmmakers were praised for embracing the source material. It also helped that an A-list cast, including James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender and a just-beginning-to-peak starlet named Jennifer Lawrence were involved in key roles.

Made for $160 million, the film went on to earn a global cume of $355 million and restored credibility and order to the film series. This weekend the latest X-Men film morphs into theaters and producers are seeing equally high buzz for a solid concept.

Analysis
The genius of X-Men: Days Of Futures Past is that it merges the two casts in a clever way. It’s part prequel, part sequel, but all X-Men. By introducing time-travel, fans are able to see Professor X and Magneto as adults (played by real-life pals Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen) and young men (played by McAvoy and Fassbender). The plot, again based on a storyline from the comics, is winning over critics and fans leading to analysts and investors getting excited.

While Fox is playing it safe and guesstimating a $95 million to $100 million opening four-day weekend, some are willing to wager the film could top $125 million before all is said and done. After all, nobody gave Godzilla a chance last weekend and the legendary lizard destroyed all projections and carved its own unique path to the top.

Ironically, for as hated as Last Stand is, it still holds the record for the most profitable of all the X films and still has the highest opening with $102 million. Although it also opened on Memorial Day weekend back in 2006 and when factoring in that fourth day it cleared $122 million. Keep an eye on this race as it could prove to be a record-breaker.

Blended
The weekend’s other big wide release is Warner Brother’s Blended starring Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore. This is the pair’s third film together following The Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates and finds the two as single parents stuck together on an African safari with their kids. Blended also re-teams Sandler with frequent collaborator Frank Coraci who previously helmed the aforementioned Singer, Click and The Waterboy while working twice Sandler’s pal Kevin James on Here Comes The Boom and Zookeeper (in which Sandler also lent his voice).

Analysis
You have to go back to 2004 to find the last time Sandler didn’t have some sort of presence in a summer film. Yes, they haven’t all been winners but thus far the only comedy that really missed the boat was 2012’s bad beyond words That’s My Boy. With that said, tracking on Blended hasn’t been good with estimates topping off around $30 million which places it well below last year’s Grown Ups sequel, which grossed $42 million over its three-day frame.

The last few years have not been kind to Sandler with the critically hated Grown Up 2 being his only live-action hit since 2011’s Valentine’s Day pic Just Go With It. Meanwhile Barrymore’s last big film was 2012’s Big Miracle, which flopped and the last time any movie featuring her opened to above $20 million was 2009’s ensemble pic He’s Just Not That Into You.

To be fair, Barrymore has also stepped away from the spotlight over the last few years to raise a family and it’s likely her core base will happily return this weekend, but it’s Sandler’s fans that executives are banking on here. Still, Blended was made for just $45 million (a steal considering Dates was produced for $75 million), so this will make back its money but the studio was obviously hoping for a larger return on investment than what current projections are calling for this weekend.

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