Crunching Evan Almighty’s numbers some more

The summer movie season is pretty much over now. There are two weekends left, to be sure, but the last several days before Labour Day are usually pretty slow. So, with all that said, here is another way to look at the dismal box-office figures for Evan Almighty.

Evan Almighty was one of the year’s most expensive movies, and it faced almost no competition on its opening weekend; the only other new wide releases that week were 1408 and A Mighty Heart, neither of which were particularly big deals. So it was no surprise that Evan Almighty opened at #1 — but it had the smallest opening-weekend gross of any #1 movie so far this summer.

Here are the movies that were #1 for each weekend this summer, ranked from the biggest weekend take to the lowest (note: two films — Spider-Man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End — were #1 for two weeks in a row, so they turn up twice here):

1. May 4 — 151.1 million — Spider-Man 3
2. May 18 — 121.6 million — Shrek the Third
3. May 25 — 114.7 million — Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
4. Jul 13 — 77.1 million — Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
5. Jul 27 — 74.0 million — The Simpsons Movie
6. Jul 6 — 70.5 million — Transformers
7. Aug 3 — 69.3 million — The Bourne Ultimatum
8. May 11 — 58.2 million — Spider-Man 3
9. Jun 15 — 58.1 million — Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer
10. Aug 10 — 49.1 million — Rush Hour 3
11. Jun 29 — 47.0 million — Ratatouille
12. Jun 1 — 44.2 million — Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End
13. Jun 8 — 36.1 million — Ocean’s Thirteen
14. Jul 20 — 34.2 million — I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
15. Aug 17 — 33.1 million — Superbad
16. Jun 22 — 31.2 million — Evan Almighty

Of these #1 films, only three have not yet made $100 million in North America. Two of those films — Rush Hour 3 and Superbad — came out in just the last two weeks and seem to be on track to hit that milestone in the relatively near future. The third film, of course, is Evan Almighty, which is currently stalled at $98.6 million. And by all accounts, it cost about ten times as much to produce Evan Almighty as it cost to produce Superbad.

Meanwhile, films that did not open at #1 but have gone on to gross over $100 million anyway include Knocked Up (Jun 1 — $30.7 million — current cume is $147.4 million), Live Free or Die Hard (Jun 29 — $33.4 million — current cume is $132.8 million) and Hairspray (Jul 20 — $27.5 million — current cume is $103.3 million). That’s right, at least two films had lower opening weekends than Evan Almighty but have outgrossed it anyway.

AUG 26 UPDATE: Rush Hour 3 passed the $100 million mark two days ago, and Superbad is now the third film this summer to be #1 for two weeks in a row; it is also keeping pace with Knocked Up.