Monday Morning Box Office Report: Inception Dreams Big

Posted by on July 19th, 2010   Filed under: Box Office

Word of mouth and heavy marketing seem to have paid off for Christopher Nolan’s Inception, which opened to $60 million over the weekend despite being one of a few completely original, unbranded movies to be released this summer. It certainly was nowhere near the numbers of The Dark Knight, but it did open in the same range as Clash of the Titans (without the 3-D boost, mind you). The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, meanwhile, essentially tanked, taking in just $17 million on a $150 million production budget… not good. This marks the second big disappointment for Disney this summer after Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Despicable Me even beat it in its second weekend, while The Twilight Saga: Eclipse and Toy Story 3 maintained a strong pace in their third and fifth weekends respectively. It will be interesting to see if Inception can keep people coming back over the next few weeks or if it will drop off quickly.

1. Inception — $60.4M
2. Despicable Me — $32.7M
3. The Sorcerer’s Apprentice — $17.4M
4. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse — $13.5M
5. Toy Story 3 — $11.7M
6. Grown Ups — $10M
7. The Last Airbender — $7.45M
8. Predators — $6.8M
9. Knight and Day — $3.7M
10. The Karate Kid — $2.2M



  • Bryan

    Inception will get many repeat viewings and word of mouth should help it. But, word of mouth could hurt it too as people tell their people it is “too hard to understand”.

  • Anonymous

    I’ll be seeing Inception again. Because the first time I saw it I was truly blown away by the effects that I barely had any brain power to absorb the whole thing. So yeah this is one of those types of movies where you want to see again maybe 2/3 times. Because it really is an adventure.

  • Bryan

    And definitely a movie you must see in theaters. Is IMAX worth it?

  • 1138

    60 million and with good word of mouth should make back it 160 million dollar + budget. At least I hope so. I am seeing it this Friday and really looking forward to it.

    Other than TS3 it really has been a lackluster summer. The more I think about Iron Man the more it’s become a bust for me. I left thinking it was OK but now it’s become much more of a downer.

  • Brendan

    @Bryan I saw it in IMAX. But it was my first IMAX experience, so I don’t have much to compare it to. Nolan did say in an interview that IMAX was the best way to see, as it was supposed to be more immersive and they shot a lot in 65mm.
    The IMAX theater I saw it in was one recently added to a multiplex, so I don’t know if it’s as big a screen as other IMAX theaters (it was curved though). The projection seemed clean and the sound was booming, and the rumbling felt during the explosions was cool. It was a good way to see it, but without my seeing a standard projected version, I can’t say for sure if it was that much better.