The cost of everything has gone up these days, and for major studios that burden can be pretty high. It could be deemed as no mystery that all studios are only obsessed with one thing – profit. Despite years of planning for films and hiring the most box office friendly actors, movies are guaranteed success at the box office. Studios are always thinking of new ways of staying ahead of the curve when it comes to making profits. For the most part, it seems that the companies always come out on top right? Well that could be because of one addition to the movie experience: IMAX.
The IMAX corporation and Columbia Pictures announced today that in just 4 days, Men In Black 3 grossed $12.7 million in 474 IMAX theaters worldwide. That feat could be looked at as chump change compared to the amount of money that The Avengers made, but that film was an exception. MIB 3, domestically grossed an estimated $70 million, of which $5.3 million was generated in 278 IMAX theaters. Internationally, the film grossed $133.2 million overall, of which $7.4 million was generated from 196 international IMAX theaters. MIB 3 took the #1 spot for the Memorial Day Weekend IMAX global box office record, previously held by Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides.
“We were excited to see ‘Men in Black 3‘ set a new IMAX record for Memorial Day weekend,” said IMAX CEO Richard L. Gelfond. “These solid results demonstrate that audiences around the world – particularly in key growth markets like China and Russia – will turn out in force to see the best in Hollywood entertainment in IMAX. We also believe that the combination of the first ‘Men in Black‘ film presented in IMAX with a special six-minute clip of the upcoming and highly anticipated film, ‘The Amazing Spider-Man,’ provided audiences a special experience that can’t be missed.”
The cost of MIB 3 skyrocketed when the studio put the production on hold for about six weeks to rework the script. The cost went from $225 million into the range of $300 million. Sony will have to make back a lot of cash before seeing any profit.
