“Wall Street 2″ is a genuine mainstream hit with $19 million

By Scott Mendelson HollywoodNews.com: The funny thing about long-delayed sequels is that it’s generally pretty easy for them to top the opening weekends of their predecessors purely due to inflation. So while “Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps” is a genuine mainstream hit with $19 million on 3,565 screens ($5,330 per screen) over its debut weekend, it’s basically just double the figures as the original “Wall Street” posted back in 1987, despite opening with 5x the dollar amount. The original film opened with $4.3 million in 730 theaters ($5,622 per screen). Adjusted for relative inflation, that would give the original Oliver Stone cautionary tale around $10 million in 2010 dollars. But outside of its context from the 23-year old original film, this sequel performed well on its own accord. It is Michael Douglas’s first number 1 opening since “Don’t Say A Word’s” $17 million debut almost nine years ago to the weekend, and it’s his second-biggest opening weekend ever, behind the $21 million opening of “You, Me, and Dupree.” For Shia LeBeouf, this almost qualifies as a relative comedown, as this is his lowest live-action opening weekend since “Holes” ($16 million) made him a recognizable name back in 2003. But when you work with Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay, a $19 million opening for an Oliver Stone drama almost feels like a letdown. This is actually Oliver Stone’s biggest Fri-Sun gross of his career, although final figures may put it below the $18.7 million debut of “World Trade Center.” Point being, while Oliver Stone may be known as a director who alternates between controversial battering rams and hard-leftist documentaries, when he makes a mainstream picture, audiences generally show up. The film pulled a 2.7x weekend multiplier, which actually counts as solid in these front-loaded days. The film apparently cost $60 million, so it will have to do decent worldwide coin as well to really make money for Fox, but the picture debuted with $9 million in overseas grosses as well, giving the film a solid $28 million worldwide gross in the first three days. Where it goes from here is an open question. Usually I’d say that a picture like this would be a second choice for general audiences for awhile, but Ben Affleck’s “The Town” seems to be filling that slot at the moment (more on that one later). Coming in second place was the Zack Snyder animated action fable, “Legends of [...]