How high will 'Matrix Reloaded' go?
Posted Tuesday, May 20, 2003 at 11:17 AM Central
by John Couture
The numbers from the first weekend are in and it appears, on face value, that The Matrix Reloaded is a phenomenal hit. Among the many records it broke this weekend, it set a new opening weekend mark for R rated movies with $93.3 million, almost doubling Hannibal's previous record of $58 million. It also became the highest grossing movie ever after four days with $135.8 million, surpassing last year's Spider-Man and its four day take of $125.9 million.
So, The Matrix Reloaded is set to become a box office behemoth and will rival Titanic for the title of box office champ around the $600 million mark, right? Not so fast.
Opening weekend numbers are not always an indicator of success and vice versa, can you say My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which debuted with only $800,000, but ended up with over $240 million and the title of highest grossing romantic comedy ever. Heck, even Titanic had to settle for $28.6 million its first weekend. What both of these movies had, and something that The Matrix Reloaded may be lacking, is long legs at the box office.
Greek Wedding opened small and expanded at a snail's pace taking advantage of great buzz and word of mouth. By the time it opened wide, it was a cultural phenomenon that eventually launched its own TV series. With Titanic, they had to overcome a long running time (3 hours plus) and a familiar story (the boat always sinks) with a compelling love story that resonated with all demographics. It also got a fortunate bump in business from the Oscar buzz a few months after its initial release to help it become the first movie to surpass the $600 million barrier.
So, why won't The Matrix Reloaded hit its lofty goals? Well, for one, it's not receiving the universal acclaim that many thought it would. CinemaScore pollsters rated it a B+, a stark contrast to the straight A's earned by Titanic and Spider-Man. Also, and perhaps more importantly, it's not having the cross-over success to the female demographic that those two movies had. According to figures from Warner Bros., 60% of the audience was male. For a science-fiction movie, that's pretty good, but when you figure that Spider-Man's audience was 47% female, amazing for the male dominated comic book genre, you can see that The Matrix Reloaded has some work left to do.
The R rating from the MPAA doesn't help either, especially when you consider that Titanic was somehow able to squeeze female nudity and 1,500 deaths into a PG-13. Oh yeah, the Summer movie season is just heating up, so The Matrix Reloaded is sure to face some pretty stiff competition in the weeks ahead.
But fret not, true believer. The Matrix Reloaded still has a few bullets left and if Warner chooses wisely, they can ride The Matrix Reloaded to box office supremacy.
The fact that The Matrix Revolutions is due to conclude the trilogy on November 5th of this year is a huge trump card. If Warner Bros. plays their cards wisely, they'll pull The Matrix Reloaded from theaters in late July when the Summer business is drying up. Then, they can re-release The Matrix in September, followed by a re-release of The Matrix Reloaded in October, culminating in the release of The Matrix Revolutions on November 5th. Heck, they could even experiment with double features piggy-backing on the success of the first two movies and banking all the box office dollars in Reloaded.
The bottom line? While some people are quick to point to this coming weekend as the barometer of Matrix success, past trends indicate that we should perhaps look further down the road.