Paramount has been spending all morning revising newcomer The Last Airbender’s grosses upwards because of its better-than-expectedperformances at the domestic box office. M Night Shyamalan’s 3D epic opened to $16M Thursday from 3,169 theaters, including the $3 million from its midnight shows, and now added another $16.7M Friday. Helped by higher 3D ticket prices, the pic based on the Nickelodeon animated TV series should be on its way to $57M for the 4-day holiday and a cume of $74M by end of Monday and definitely 2nd place.
Paramount stated that the $3 million mark from its midnight show is the highest midnight gross this summer for a non-sequel. Unfortunately, the studio is stuck with a high price tag of $145M, including the 3D conversion costs of this actioner and what rival studios are saying is at least a $50+M marketing campaign. But the movie has been tracking pretty well with males of all ages and kids and now looks to break M.Night’s recent drought at the box-office.
Now take THAT, haters.
The budget for the film is clearly stated on many websites:
From the LA Times, for example:
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-ct-airbender-20100625,0,1232454.story
Budget: $150 million
Marketing: $130 million
Tota: $280 million
Correction:
That information regarding budgeted cost is grossly inaccurate.
It goes to show you that no matter if the critics or the purist fans hate, the movie does sell and lets wait how the movie will do on the U.K.