Way back in March, I speculated that Stardust would either be “Totally Freakin’ Awesome or Ladyhawke for a new generation.” Now that the Neil Gaiman-penned fantasy has come through <a href="a disappointing $9 million opening weekend, it might be time to revisit that comparison.
Ladyhawke‘s opening weekend in April 1985 raked in a total of $3.45 million dollars—adjusted for inflation, that would be $6.46 million today*. That’s still short of Stardust‘s $9 million, but there’s two things you need to consider. First: Stardust opened on 2,540 screens, for an average of $3,548 at each venue, while Ladyhawke wasn’t that far behind, with an average of $3,267 (in 1985 dollars; adjusted it’s $6,113) at 1,056 screens—but, remember, movie tickets were a lot cheaper then, so we can assume Ladyhawke actually attracted a significantly higher headcount at each screening…which wasn’t hard considering its was up against Cat’s Eye and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, not Rush Hour 3. Second: Stardust‘s budget has been estimated somewhere in the $65-70 million range, which is one of the main reasons the $9 million opener is disappointing. The results are thus comparable to the progress the $3.45 million Ladyhawke made towards recuperating its $20 million price tag its first weekend…and, in fact, the film’s total domestic gross came to about $18.4 million, after which I’m going to guess that Rutger Hauer’s presence lured enough European filmgoers to carry the film over into the black fairly quickly.
The question, then, is whether Stardust can hold out in theaters as long as Ladyhawke, which experienced less than a 10 percent dropoff its second weekend and ultimately stuck around for about two months. (Mind you, the home entertainment market of 2007 is radically different than that of 1985, but I’m not going to pretend to understand the numbers there.) And Paramount, which bankrolled much of Stardust, is probably going to be scrutinizing Gaiman’s other big project of 2007, Beowulf, very closely, since that also cost $70 million (although at least they split the tab with Warner Bros. there) and is opening against what looks like a very kid-friendly Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium. But the author’s loyal fans can take comfort, because his box office track record does, in fact, show promise: The 2005 fantasy Mirrormask, which only cost $4 million, brought in $126,449 when it opened on 18 screens—its per-screen average of $7,024 that September weekend was topped only by Capote, which frankly had a much bigger PR machine behind it.
*Well, at the end of 2006, anyway.