Robert Pattinson, Tate Ellington in Remember Me (top); Kristen Stewart, Dakota Fanning in The Runaways (bottom)
Robert Pattinson or Kristen Stewart? Who came out on top at the North American box office prior to the June 30 opening of mega-blockbuster-to-be The Twilight Saga: Eclipse?
The answer in all likelihood is Robert Pattinson, though neither Pattinson's Remember Me nor Stewart's The Runaways has fared all that well.
Despite its low $16 million cost, Pattinson's Remember Me has been a box-office disappointment. Summit Entertainment will probably be able to make a profit on the film, but only after overseas totals and ancillary revenues are tallied so as to cover both production and marketing expenses.
After ten days out, Remember Me, a romantic melodrama directed by Allen Coulter and co-starring Emilie de Ravin and Pierce Brosnan, has grossed only $13.9 million at the North American box office. With quite a bit of luck, it'll reach $20 million; Summit will collect about half of that. The film is not doing all that well overseas, either, though it has yet to open in many major markets.
Floria Sigismondi's The Runaways had an even lower budget than Remember Me: only $10 million. Once again, it'll probably earn its producers a profit, but not at the North American box office. The Runaways took in $803K on its opening weekend at 244 screens, which translates as $3,291 per screen — a low figure for a movie in limited release.
For comparison's sake, at 2,212 screens, Remember Me averaged $3,657 per screen. Generally speaking, the fewer the number of screens the higher the per-screen average for movies of equal box-office appeal. Admittedly, The Runaways may have suffered because of its R rating — drugs, expletives, and a lesbian kiss — which probably made it more difficult for Kristen Stewart fans in their early-to-mid teens to check out the movie. Remember Me, on the other hand, was rated PG-13.
The Runaways will go wide in April, but expect the per-screen average to go down dramatically. With luck the film will reach a $7-8 million cume. We'll see.
Tomorrow, I'll post a follow-up piece on why Robert Pattinson's and Kristen Stewart's box-office pull shouldn't be dismissed despite the underwhelming performances of their first post-Twilight starring vehicles.
Photos: Remember Me (Myles Aronowitz / Summit Entertainment); The Runaways (Apparition)
I think it just proves that on the Internet and all ticket sales to Twi movies are the same people over and over. It gives an apparency that these kids are more popular than they are. I know I can't wait til the last Twi movie is over and we can so long to both of them.
I don't care if critics decide they are in love with both of them. The fans of both Robert and Kristen and the Twi zombies have ruined these two. I know where I work we have 350 employees and these two are the jokes of the day everyday. The task gets passed around to someone different everyday to come up with something on Robert and Kristen and send out an e-mail. Before all this started a survey was done on whether Robert was liked, Kristen etc. If you didn't like them what was the reason. Out of 350 people only 25 liked them the rest all answered that Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart can't act but mainly they disliked them because the fans are so obnoxious!
In all fairness, Remember Me was getting unfair bad press because of the ending which caused spoilers all over the internet and made people not want to go to see the film. I saw it and felt that the ending fit perfectly with the movie and it was tastefully done and the critics were too harsh. It is really too bad becasue this was a beautiful movie and I would have like to see it do better than it did at the box office.
As for Kristen Stewarts movie, I can't say that much except that she did look like Joan Jett but in the clips I saw, she just seemed like the same Kristen Stewart, the one who is not a very good actress and that might be why she didn't draw in very many people. Her fanbase is NOT just a tween group of girls. I know it might seem like it but some of those crazy obsessed fans are actually grown women that identify with her in some way or live vicariously though her. I am not one of those women but I do see a lot of this fandom online so to say that the movie was a flop do to drugs, lesbian kiss etc. is a cop out. We will see how it does when it goes for the wide release and maybe she can pull it out of the bag, I mean the movie WAS only released in a few theaters so we will see how much her fans are willing to come out and support her or how much of her support is just based on her rumored affair with young Mr. Pattinson.