PAWTUCKET – Despite withering reviews, “G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra” has become Hasbro Inc. and Paramount Pictures’ second hit film of the summer movie season in its first two and a half weeks of release.
“G.I. Joe” grossed $240.32 million worldwide from its Aug. 7 opening through last Sunday, split about evenly between domestic and foreign ticket sales, according to Box Office Mojo, a Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based research firm.
Seifert Systems Invests in Energy Efficiency to Strengthen Operations
For manufacturers, energy is more than just another operating expense. It plays a critical role…
Learn More
The action movie, starring Channing Tatum and Sienna Miller, sold $54.7 million in tickets at North American theaters during its first weekend in release, topping the weekend box office list. The film cost an estimated $175 million to make.
Rob Moore, vice chairman of Paramount Pictures, told The Los Angeles Times that the strong performance has already led the studio to green-light a “G.I. Joe” sequel with the same cast.
Although “G.I. Joe” ticket sales slipped to No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, during the next two weekends, The New York Observer noted that its second-weekend decline was not as steep as those of some other recent hits, including “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” and another Hasbro film, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”
The sequel to the original 2007 “Transformers” movie has grossed $826.68 million worldwide since June 24 and is the top-grossing movie of 2009 so far, according to Box Office Mojo.
Paramount, a unit of Viacom Inc., pointedly declined to screen either “Transformers” or “G.I. Joe” for critics prior to their releases. The New York Times’ reviewer retorted that “this pricey, juiceless pulp could never have been killed by critics, simply because it was already dead.”
