The $200M Lock

Is there such a thing as a $200M lock? Looking at summer of 2006, there were 12 movies that made over $100M. To say an idiot could have predicted seven of those movies is not completely accurate. More accurate would be saying that had someone made a list of $100M locks for the summer and left any of those seven movies off, they should have been called an idiot. Those seven movies were

• Pirates, $423M
  
• Cars, $244M
  
• X3, $234M
  
• Da Vinci Code, $218M
  
• Superman, $200M
  
• M:i:iii, $134M
  
• Break-up, $118M
  

Now, you can argue the Break-up because it barely made $100M, but the others were all but guaranteed to make it to that level. (If you want to take Break-up off the list, than add Over the Hedge, which I don't think was any more of a lock than Lady in the Water, You, Me, and Dupree, or Miami Vice, none of which made it.)

I think there was good reason to speculate how much over $100M each of those could have made. $300M for Da Vinci Code? Certainly possible. $125 for Pirates? Seems stupid now, but I think a case could have been made. $250M for M:i:iii? Tim was gunning for it. But whatever we thought about how much more than $100M each of these films was going to make, we were all certain that they were going to make that much.

Now look at this summer. I think a case can be made that there are four $200M locks:

• Spider-Man
• Shrek
• Pirates
• Harry Potter

Add to those these $100M locks, any of which could easily be argued that $200M is not only reasonable, but should be expected.

• Ratotouille
• Transformers
• Simpsons
• Bourne

Now, there's a reason why these four aren't in the $200M group, namely because other than Bourne, they're not part of franchises and we have no bench marks. It wouldn't surprise me if any of these movies goes north of $200M, I'm certain that none of them will get less than $100M...in fact, if any of the movies I've listed so far get less than $50M opening weekend, people are going to be shocked (The Island's performance gives me pause about making that claim about Transformers, but it's such a strong brand...and Bourne 2 just missed $200M and it barely made $50M opening, but it tracked so well that the franchise really seems to be on an upward climb, so I'm going to stick with my claim).

Finally, we have the remainder of the franchises whose studios would claim are $100M locks

• Ocean's 13
• Evan Almighty
• Die Hard 4 (man, Fox can make kick-ass trailers for their summer tent poles!)
• Rush Hour 3
• Chuck and Larry
  

These movies are hoping for, but probably won't get a $50M opening. Of course any of these could easily hit $100M, Evan and Die Hard could even reasonably hit $200M, but we're talking about a pretty crowded field here...especially since we're light on the date comedy movies (enter Knocked Up, which will probably get Prada/Virgin numbers).

So what do we do for this summer? The last two years there have been five movies that made more than $200M, but this year we have eight, maybe ten, that actually have a very realistic potential to get there. Can the marketplace actually sustain that many $200M movies in a single summer...especially since there's Potter 5, which given the Potter 7 hype and it's placement alone in the late summer corridor means that barring bad reviews it is guaranteed $300M, and Spidey, Shrek, and Pirates whose franchise averages are each over $350M. Something has gotta give here.

I can't wait to see some published charts on this summer!