Friday Estimates by KladyNormal 4
Paranormal Activity 4 is looking at opening to $28m – $32m. Friday-vs-Friday is 44% off the last film, but it’s still a lot of money.
Great holds for Argo and Hotel Transylvania. For Ben Affleck, this means a stronger hold after a weaker launch than his The Town, with Argo still about $7m behind his last film at the end of this weekend. The 80m domestic area seems to be where this one is headed. For Hotel T, Sony Animation is looking at crowning its new “best ever” domestic grosser by the end of next weekend.
Alex Cross is a drag for Tyler Perry’s crossover aspirations. It will be his worst career opening on camera. Perhaps they should have called it Tyler Perry’s Alex Cross, leaving out the “i” or “a” and going to his traditional possessive titling. This is not complicated. If Tyler Perry wants to cross over, he needs to do small roles in real movies with real directors, not just try to move his box office power in “urban” cinema to broader audiences. With all due respect, there is a reason why KFC has an old white guy in the bucket. Crossing over means building another brand in Perry’s case. This also means risking, in a real way, the brand he has already established so brilliantly. This isn’t a racial issue. This is branding. It’s not like Denzel was branded as a rapper before he broke through. From the very beginning – St Elsewhere & Carbon Copy – he was branded as a crossover guy. Deal with it, TP.
Solid start for The Sessions, on 4 screens, doing about $25k per. It’s not a home run. There is work to do. And as always, exclusive opening windows do not offer a clear read of where many of these smaller films are headed domestically. But good start.
Wow, that’s a great hold for Argo. Looks like it’s heading towards $100 million. Impressive.
I don’t think Summit did Perry any favors with its marketing. The poster — at least the one I saw — completely obscured his face and made the white guy, who is not a movie star for any demographic, the dominant image in the poster. TV ads also diminished Perry’s role. Shouldn’t the sell be, “You’ll like him, too,” not “Don’t worry — he’s barely in it”? (Because the odd thing is that Perry is good in the movie.)
“Alex Cross” would have been a huge hit as a 10 p.m. drama on CBS (which they still COULD do)… as a movie, not so much.
Tyler Perry should look to the Adam Sandler model if he wants to be taken seriously as an actor. Get P.T. Anderson to direct him in a movie about a mental patient who really thinks he is an old woman. Tell me you wouldn’t go see that.
Nice to see so many good movies doing well. LOOPER and PITCH PERFECT will finish at around $65 mil and $55 mil respectively. ARGO could break $100. PERKS, which deserved better, will break $10 million without ever playing in 1,000 theatres….
As someone who loathed the original “Paranormal Activity,” I’m surprised at how much I’ve tolerated–and in some cases, actually enjoyed–the sequels.
“Part 4” is in many respects the best of the bunch.
I loved the verisimilitude of the suburban home that’s the new film’s principal setting. And the teenagers (who actually look and act like real teens: what a concept!) are flat-out terrific.
Unlike the usual “Para” actors (e.g., Katie Featherston) who only seem to work in “Para” sequels, I can easily imagine these two having robust H’wood careers.
Speaking of teen actors, I just returned from a promo for “Fun Size” and–ouch! Maybe if it hadn’t had a Nickelodeon Films imprimatur attached, and I had known that it was less of a kid’s movie than a (fairly inept) homage to ’80s/’90s teen comedies (think “Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead”), I would have been more tolerant.
But virtually nothing about this movie works. It’s smutty, mean-spirited and spectacularly unpleasant despite a run time well under 90 minutes. And I actually thought the premise sounded “cute,” and hoped that it might be a fun, sweet-natured Nickelodeon Halloween comedy.
Wow; was I ever mistaken.
Unlike the “Para 4” kids, virtually none of the teen actors here (including the exceedingly mature 19-year-old femme lead who could pass for 28) look remotely like actual teenagers (her crush looks more like a dissolute 30-something rocker than a HS student). And, speaking of verisimilitude–or a lack thereof–setting a Halloween movie in Cleveland (?) in which all of the trees are in full summertime bloom, and there’s even an open swimming pool during a night-time party scene, is simply wrong.
I wonder what will lay the bigger egg next weekend: this or “Chasing Mavericks.”
found footage is a shit genre. there have been some enjoyable experiments when people have played around with the formula, but the basic concept is so redundant and bereft of originality that i think im only capable of ‘marginal enjoyment’.
“found footage is a shit genre”
doesn’t sound like you’re likely to change your mind but ‘v/h/s’ was a pretty refreshing take….
i heard good things about V/H/S (havent seen it yet). Dont know if my mind will change because theres so many of these films being made right now. In the low budget world where i live, there are nearly hundreds of requests for any found footage film because theyre cheap and easy. The pipeline is choked with crap content.
I still think of them as novelty films. I dont think theres been one that has defined the genre yet as anything other than formulaic.
Blair Witch defined the genre, right? But that predates this glut by so far that it’s hard to put that in the same category.
It’s completely unconscionable that the Alex Cross reboot isn’t a vehicle for Jamie Foxx, he’s fucking perfect for it and could use the boost. Plenty of “good” Patterson properties still to adapt (worst writer ever but cinematic). Maybe they’ll still fix this.
PARANORMAL 4 is *AWESOME.*
Already seen it twice, might go two more times tomorrow and every day this week. This one has at least one element that is HUGELY appealing to me, though III was MUCH scarier, and this one’s just episodic and doesn’t build to too much.
I thought V/H/S was one of the worst movies I’ve seen this year. White bros either exploiting women or being victimized by them. And how does a recorded Skype session end up on VHS anyway?
For a rather fresh take on the whole “found footage” genre, check out “Snow On Da Block.” No ghosts or ghoulies, but still manages to feel like a mashup of “The Blair Witch Project” and “The Wire.”
Awesome cameraman ganga tho rambabu rockss