Weekend Box Office - The Incredible Hulk

The Incredible Hulk saw green and smashed up the competition at the box office, but outside of topping the other movies out this weekend the giant didn’t have much to celebrate.

As Marvel Studio’s second release in its new multi-character franchise, Hulk couldn’t stack up against the first entry, Iron Man. With only $54 million it fell far short of the hefty $98 million that Iron Man earned. Despite being touted as one of the summer’s most anticipated blockbusters (which proved not to be the case) and having a budget to match ($150 million) the movie couldn’t break into the top five largest openings for the year.

As well, this latest version of Hulk’s story couldn’t quite compete with Ang Lee’s version released just a few years ago. Lee’s Hulk opened to the tune of $62 million.

This might not be a financial disaster, but it should serve as a warning to Marvel that if they’re going to bank on this mass re-introduction of their characters (Thor and Captain America are slated to arrive in the next couple of years with a series of movies featuring all four heroes to come sometime later) they’d better realize not all of them are going to be smash successes. It doesn’t take very long at all for a movie character franchise to go from amazing to crap. Witness what happened to Batman back in the nineties.

M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening has taken a beating at the hands of critics, but audiences were willing to give him a chance. After his last film, Lady in the Water, tanked at the box office with a paltry $18 million opening, The Happening wasn’t expected to perform much better.

Instead, it raked in a handsome $30 million, half of the movie’s $60 million budget. That’s a solid sign that Happening will likely end up turning a decent profit for Fox, the studio that championed Shyamalan when Warner Brothers dumped him after Lady in the Water’s dismal turn out.

Meanwhile two new films joined the 2008 triple digit club. Both Kung Fu Panda and Sex and the City broke $100 million, bringing the total to six. That’s par for the course compared to last year, though the box office is still struggling to stay ahead of last year’s totals overall.

By Scott Gwin