Screenhead

Thanks to the tireless vigiliance of my able cohort Kenna McHugh, we all know that G.I. Joe had a really awesome weekend this week, right?  Good reviews abound–they even coaxed one out of me–and a huge cash weekend.

Huge by any reasonable standard, anyway–the Joes battle with Cobra took in a whopping fifty six million dollars.  But what if I told you that they’d need–get this–another TWO AND A HALF weekends exactly like this just to break even?

This may well be the perfect expression of what’s wrong with Hollywood today.  That incredible movie we just saw?  That took in a huge amount of cash and great reviews?  The very epitome of summer blockbuster?  Its shooting budget was a whopping one hundred and seventy five million dollars at last report.

It’s made fifty six million so far.

To break even, the Joes have to pull off another two and a half opening-sized weekends.  Can they even do it before people lose interest completely?  And with so many more movies coming up–we’ve got District 9 in a matter of days, folks…and for crying out loud, Saw VI is only just over two months out.  Halloween’s almost here!  How are the JOES going to pull off another hundred million bucks, just to break even?

Only time will tell, folks, but I have to wonder if between the economy overall and the performance of GI Joe if we’ve seen the last of the blockbuster for a while.

There’s just no profit in it.