I Want to Believe: Update

As I posted earlier, I saw The X-Files: I Want to Believe the other day. While I thought it was an excellent movie, given the number of people in the theater with me on opening weekend I was worried about the box office figures.

According to this bbc.co.uk article I Want to Believe took in $10.2 million in the United States and Canada on its opening weekend. Still, assuming low production costs (I Want to Believe is just like a great X-File two-parter -- with minimal expensive special effects) and hoping for reasonable actor salaries, I hope they make a profit. I Want to Believe, after all, is a very good film.

I don't know if it's merely a matter of putting up a brave face on things, but in the same article a representative of the film's distributors (20th Century Fox) said the film's figures were...

"within our reasonable expectations [....] I read some X Files fan sites and the postings on there were incredibly positive about the film. The hardcore X Files fans, they're happy. And frankly, that's who the movie was made for."

If true, then I'm glad. Who knows, maybe they'll make another X-Files film. I'd definitely watch that. And if it's true they made I Want to Believe for hardcore fans, even better.

Normally I'd be a little more cynical about their motives, but what else could they have been thinking, putting out an X-Files film 6 years after the series ended, 10 years after The X-Files: Fear the Future (which grossed $187 million worldwide). I can't imagine Duchovny and Anderson being huge draws -- they can hardly be expected to do well against a record breaking blockbuster like The Dark Knight on its 2nd weekend.

Anywhoo, Chris Carter, Duchovny, Anderson... 20th Century Fox executives, if any of you are reading this: if you make it, I will watch it.

Hmm, my mangling of a quote (from an entirely non-related movie) sounds less pithy than it did in my mind. Oh well.