X-Men: The Last Stand reached that magic US box office number of $200 million at the conclusion of this week. Clocking in at $209 million the future for the franchise and its sequels still looks rosy even though the film overall did less than was expected by the studio.
Following close on its heels in the US market is The Da Vinci Code coming in at $194 million and the Bruce Willis, William Shatner animation feature “Over the Hedge” closing out the top 3 week closers at nearly $140 million.
Still with a long way to go is Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible: 3 which to date is still $71 million short of that $200 million benchmark, and trailing way behind is the big-budget flop Poseidon which has only brought in around $59 million for its showing.
Note: All figures are US market only.
I am surprised at the flak X3 has been getting actually. Going in I expected it to be pretty bad but I actually liked it. I get that some people aren’t gonna like it, but the complaints I have heard the most:
1) Doesn’t follow continuity.
Say what? If they mean the film’s continuity, yeah it did. If they mean the comics continuity – come on! None of the films did. They changed just about everything for most of the characters in each movie. So why cry “continuity foul!” for this one?
2) They killed off a bunch of characters.
Have you ever read the X-Men? Without referring to the movie specifically (non-spoiler) in the comics they have killed Wolverine, Cyclops, Charles Xavier – several times, Jean Grey – I don’t even know how many times she has died, Beast has died, gosh let’s see…Magneto died a few times, Colossus died once…the point is, the comics have killed off characters a number of times.
Anyway, I dug the movie.
Walter from LA
X-Men surpassed Fox’s estimates. It’s at 398+ Million worldwide now.