The surprisingly good news this weekend was the strong five-day debut of Warner Bros. and New Line Cinema’s We’re The Millers. The $37 million R-rated comedy basically grossed back its budget from Wednesday to Sunday, earning $26.5m on Fri-Sun and $38m for the five-day haul. The film had an almost identical opening haul as Tropic Thunder ($25m/$36m) and was less front loaded than Pineapple Express EXPR -1.31% ($23m/$41m) both five Augusts ago. Credit goes to a simple and amusing premise (a local drug dealer hires three neighbors to pretend to be his family for a border-crossing dope deal) and the free publicity that goes with A) casting Jennifer Aniston and B) casting Jennifer Aniston as a stripper. Jennifer Aniston’s stardom is complicated, but the short version is that she’s a genuine movie star (or at least “added value element”) when the concept is right. Jason Sudeikis may yet turn out to be a box office draw, but it’s too early to give him too much credit (the 61% over-25/51% female stats suggest Aniston was the pull among older women). Either way, this one is probably going to top $100m, the fourth R-rated comedy to do so this year thus far and Aniston’s sixth such hit in her career. Imagine that… make a cheaper film and make your budget back in the first five days! Remarkable!

Not to be nitpicky, but generally a film needs to make 2-3x its budget before it makes a profit. Not sure why journalists always ignore this.

(Advertising, theater cuts, taxes, etc are not factored in to the budget.)


Still. Great work for Jen. Ha starpower!

Aniston's POWER.



...Vin

Originally posted by Vin Aniston's POWER. ...Vin

Wasn't arguing otherwise. Was simply pointing out that saying it has made a "profit" after 5 days is wrong.

Which it is.

when the concept is right