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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Weekend Estimates by 4X Klady

Weekend Estimates 2013-08-11 at 9.28.08 AM

Elysium did just about okay. I am a big fan of the film, but as has become a bad trend for a number of big studio films this summer, Sony left the ladies hanging out at home while the boys hit the multiplex. (61% male audience, according to Sony.) Oops. You want a theory about this summer’s openings that I haven’t seen trotted out (and which I consider a marketing issue, not a production issue)… one after another, the disappointing openings have been utterly lacking in any draw for women. Some films, like Pacific Rim and White House Down, had a major girl storyline and just didn’t sell them. Others, like After Earth, The Lone Ranger, and The Internship, never hinted that women were in the movies at all. And Elysium, which featured Jodie Foster in both the film and the advertising, still seemed to put the exoskeleton ahead of the love interest, though to be fair—and horrified—the love interest is beige and therefore perhaps off-putting to a portion of America’s core audience for the film. (To be clear, I do not think the film is about rich white people vs poor brown people… but I will be going back to make sure that I am not misguided in this view after hearing some complaining about it by a Pulitzer winner.)

Warner Bros owns the comedy slot on the second weekend of August. We’re The Millers did almost exactly what The Campaign did in that slot last year. Last year’s film topped out at $87m domestic. But without the political theme and the more physical comedy, I expect that WB is hoping for a much better result internationally than Campaign had ($18m).

Planes is an effort from a division of Disney Animation called DisneyToon Studios. It’s kind of the farm team for Walt Disney Animation Studios and, presumably, for some future Pixar employees. (One boss rules them all.) Most of the films with a 2 or 3 after them are being pumped out by the very talented people at DisneyToon Studios and somewhere during the pipeline, a decision is made to do theatrical (internationally or domestically) for some of these films and direct-to-DVD for others. As far as I can tell, Planes is the first full-out domestic theatrical coming from this division. The Tinkerbell/Fairies series was at one point earmarked for theatrical and at least one was released theatrically in international. But brave new world with this extension of the Cars universe. And a $22.5m opening against the announced $50m production budget, given the nature of animation multiples and the potential internationally, suggests that this can be a solid profit-maker for the studio. So it’s not a home run… but it could be a triple, financially. (And with Disney, one must never forget the non-film ancillaries, in this case, offering a whole new area of toys that the studio really hasn’t sold before…airplanes.)

Percy Jackson: Sea of Are We Really Doing This Again is the latest soft kick-off sequel. The first film of the franchise did only $227m worldwide, which with a near-$100m budget, was just enough to get out of red ink when all markets, theatrical and post-theatrical, were exploited. But the notion is that international will leap when the 2nd big CG action film in a franchise arrives. So with Dune’s dollars in addition to whatever they have in it, Fox went forward with the sequel and the answer, domestically, is “oops.” The opening 3-day is about half of the first film’s. Even a more lenient read, comparing this film’s 5-day to the first’s 3-day, has the number through the first weekend off by 25%. But the big international push awaits.

Not a lot of great interest in the holdovers. The Wolverine is holding better than some may have expected and it may well get out of the cellar of X-Men grossers, still with a shot to pass X:Men First Class. Fox is betting the farm on next summers X:Men: Days of Future Past, so they must be a little nervous that this higher quality Wolverine didn’t do better. They’ll light candles to the memory of Batman Begins leading to The Dark Knight many times in the next 10 months.

Nice expansion for Blue Jasmine. The film has already grossed more than most of the Woody “disappointments.” The step into the teens is inevitable. But the real high bar for Woody Allen grosses is $20 million, which only seven of his films have reached in the past. This looks like it can get there too. And who knows what the upside is? Only four Woody films have passed $24m. So anything over that has to be considered a big win, even if we’re not looking at a challenge to Paris.

Pacific Rim is now over $200m internationally before Japan’s opening this weekend. It will gross well over double what any other Guillermo del Toro film has ever grossed worldwide. Of course, price tags change expectations. But near $300m and still growing, the film is now praying to be break-even. There’s even talk of a soft kick-off sequel.

In A World… has a nice 3-screen opening, while Lovelace‘s opening on 111 screens—VOD threatening to arrive any second—kinda sucked.

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23 Responses to “Weekend Estimates by 4X Klady”

  1. Etguild2 says:

    Here’s how bad the family movie glut is at this point…SMURFS 2 is now $10 million behind where TURBO was through the same point. Meaning $75 million might be an uphill battle. It’s not going to be the disaster PERCY JACKSON will likely be on a profit basis though…On the other hand, DESPICABLE ME 2 is now not only the #3 grossing Universal release ever, but it’s the #3 grossing animated release ever not counting re-issues.

    CHENNAI EXPRESS is not only the top opening Bollywood movie of all-time, it’s the best opening for a foreign-language film since the Weinstein backed crowd pleaser UNDER THE SAME MOON…5 years ago.

    For all the nose-thumbing of the pro-Sandler crowd, GROWN UPS 2 looks like it may be off $80 million from the first film on a worldwide basis…struggling to match CHUCK and LARRY, and ZOHAN. It’s really time for Sandler to start cutting down on his absurd budgets, because they make films like this only marginally profitable.

  2. jerryishere says:

    What was the absurd budget of GU 2?

  3. Etguild2 says:

    According to THR, $80 million (right where they have been recently). Or more than THIS IS THE END, and THE HEAT combined. He’s one of the last A-list holdouts on up-front deals. $25 million before back-end on this one, supposedly.

  4. jerryishere says:

    But even at 80 mill off GU 1, won’t it get to $200 mil WW?
    On an 80 mill budget + marketing … isn’t that a short walk to profit after all ancillaries?
    It seems to me as long as he’s under 100 mil budget and grossing over 200 WW, then money is being made.

  5. Etguild2 says:

    I said it’ll be marginally profitable, though $200 ww might be a reach at this point, and people still seem to want to forget that a studio’s take on international might be half on each dollar what it is domestically, and that’s being generous now, which is why the studios’ ridiculous notions that sequels like PERCY 2 will cover a drop in domestic with foreign is going to end soon.

    The problem for Sandler is his numbers are not just slowly eroding at the domestic level, they are also stagnating at international, which is practically unheard of. (Germany, his biggest market on GROWN UPS 1, is seeing a -50% decline this time. Spain his #4 market is also off more than 50%). Yet he continues to demand upfront money like it’s still 2004.

  6. Chris says:

    Why shouldn’t he, though? He gets away with it, even if it costs him his friendship with Rob Schneider (reportedly).

  7. cadavra says:

    Every comedian hits the wall eventually. Sandler went from GROWNUPS 1 ($160 mill) to JUST GO WITH IT ($103) to JACK AND JILL ($74) to THAT’S MY BOY ($36). GU2 is a sequel with what passes for an all-star cast, so it reversed the trend temporarily, but it will still end up short of $135, which is where CLICK and ANGER MANAGEMENT landed. There’s no way in hell his pictures, which generally require no special effects, sets, costumes or A-list co-stars, should cost more than $50 million, especially when, as noted, comedies like THE HEAT come in at a lot less.

  8. Bulldog68 says:

    Ditto what Cadavra said. And I can understand why Grown Ups would be his most expensive films as they contain other name above the title stars like Chis Rock and Kevin James, (but still not $80m expensive).

    Anyone studio would be a fool to not want to be in the Adam Sandler business purely for the money reasons, but when you can have Sandra Bullock go R rated for half of what Sandler costs, why not.

    At the end of the day, the regular film goer cares nothing about what the movie they are watching costs, but I am really interested in Sandler’s trajectory at this point. GU2 is actually not the norm for him, as it represents his Expendables version and his first sequel.
    His next confirmed project according to IMDB is more of the same, a re-teaming with Drew Barrymore and Frank Corachi, the Director of Waterboy, Click, and Wedding Singer.

    I’d like to see him do something with Scorsese or Stone.

  9. Chris says:

    Anyone who’s not Dennis Dugan would be a major improvement.

  10. celluloidkid says:

    I ended up watching Elysium again today so I ended up focusing on details. I’m not sure which Pulitzer winner you’re referring to or what he or she is saying — I googled and came up with nothing but right wing sites.

    I’m not so sure I agree with claims of racism, but I could see how people would arrive at that conclusion especially in regards to racism toward male Latinos and blacks.

    For starters, Elysium — Yes the Prez is Indian, but he speaks the king’s English. Is obviously educated and wealthy (duh he’s on Elysium) maybe came from a long line of royalty for all we know. There’s also the Asian lady that uses the med-pod, and the middle Eastern couple who are welcomed by the Secretary of Defense.

    Now, on Earth, there is Matt Damon, the ex-con trying his best to be law-abiding and the other white dude is his boss at the factory. By the way is Damon supposed to be at least half Latino (Max DeCosta)? In comparison, all his Latino buddies are thugs or thieves. Further, all the brown people are filthy and raggedy -hell Diego Luna can’t even be bothered to clean his toilet or wash a cup. He has running water, so it’s not like it’d be a huge chore to grab an old rag and clean up. They’re practically animals living down there in the dirt.

    Contrast that with the fabulous Elysians with their fitted suits, expensive haircuts and clean fingernails. Mostly all white, no Latinos and no black people.

    It’s an interesting discussion for sure, but people seem to be so bummed that Elysium wasn’t D9, that they don’t really want to bother talking about it. It seems like everyone’s all ready to move on to the next thing.

    ETA- I’m digging in my heels on Foster, Fichtner, and Copley. After seeing it again, I’m convinced they’re the most interesting even in their one-dimensionalities. On 2nd viewing Damon and especially Braga are dour bores.

  11. Bulldog68 says:

    Thought Foster did this role better in The Inside Man. I enjoyed Fichtner, who was also the best and probably only thing I liked about The Lone Ranger. Copely was great for 90% of his screen time and then the weak final act let him down. Thought Wagner Moura, (I had to look it up) who played Spider was entertaining too.

    I think I heard the moment that Elysium lost a lot of it’s audience is when a very pivotal thing happens to Copely’s character, (avoiding spoilers here, but if you saw it you’ll know what I’m talking about.) People went like “what…really?”

    And then after seeing that and juxtaposing it against the ending of the movie, it kinda made no sense for it to end the way it did.

  12. christian says:

    Fichtner always brings something to every role. He was great in DRIVE ANGRY…

  13. Bulldog68 says:

    My wife first was aware of Fichtner in Contact, and he was so believable as a blind guy that ever since then she always remarks that he looks weird playing a sighted character in any other movie.

  14. Joe Leydon says:

    I’ve been enjoying Fichtner in NBC’s Crossing Lines. I’m actually a little bummed that it’ll end next week with a 2-hour finale.

  15. Steven Kaye says:

    Blue Jasmine – the only film out there worth seeing – expanded into 116 theatres, with fantastic results. It made an estimated $2,523,000 from 116 theatres, with a stunning PTA of $21,750. That was the 2nd highest PTA of the weekend, and not far below the highest ($23,667 from 3 theatres for something called In a World).

    Jasmine came 11th for the weekend, and beat the following films:

    Turbo
    Red 2
    The Heat
    Pacific Rim
    World War Z
    Monsters University
    RIPD
    Lone Ranger
    Star Trek Into Darkness
    Now You See Me
    Fast and Furious 6
    The Croods

    to name a few.

    It also smashed Poland favourites Fruitvale Station and Before Midnight.

    Once again, an excellent weekend!

  16. Foamy Squirrel says:

    In other news, Blue Jasmine also grossed more than Ben Hur and Gone With the Wind this weekend.

    Cmon dude, The Croods was released in March!

  17. anghus says:

    At this point i just have to assume Kaye works for SPC. No one, even a very passionate fan with a warped sense of financail logic (i.e. claiming it ‘beat’ movies that have been out two, three, or four months), would spend this much time copy + pasting box office stats into various industry blogs.

    This is why i like comment sections done by Disqus, beacuse you can very easily track every site they post to and spotting studio shills becomes painfully easy.

  18. bulldog68 says:

    Isn’t Blue Jasmine the film about the elusive second female Smurf they have been looking for?

  19. hcat says:

    A) I would think SPC would be too classy to have someone as idiotic and repetitive as Kaye in their employ.

    B)Since Grown Ups 2 was apparently shot on iphones in peoples backyards, yes $80 million is terribly expensive and Sony leaves a lot of money on the table by letting this happen. But this seems to be a pattern with Sony (whose middle and low brow comedies are really their bread and butter), which acts like a divorced dad promising their kids everything in the hopes of remaining in contact with them. Fun with Dick and Jane was a mild caper comedy with only one above the title star and it came in at $100 million, Step Brothers had like nine speaking parts and five locations and came in at $65 million, and How Do I Know….dear lord How Do I Know…$115 million for a character driven romantic comedy starring people receiving career high paychecks even though they were more known for their broad comedy roles in broad comedies than James L. Brooks dramadies.
    Does Columbia not have a person dedicated to having ‘come to jesus’ style conversations about budgets? “I’m sorry Jim you can’t hire Jack Nicholson because you are already over 30 million on casting and we haven’t shot a single inch of film. Sure he is a good luck charm and a legend but he is very expensive and the role is not a showy Nicholson part. Why hire Nicholson for Nicholson money for a Stephen Towblowsky role when we can get Towblowsky for Towblwosky money?”

    c)’one after another, the disappointing openings have been utterly lacking in any draw for women.’

    No Shit, Gatsby was the last studio film to have any date appeal. Instead of trying to promote certain aspects of films aimed at teen boys and young children, why not aim at least one film on your summer slate towards women. The lack of flatulence free comedies this summer astounds me.

  20. Joe Leydon says:

    First off, Steven — I, too, liked Blue Jasmine.
    http://bit.ly/14hQ17U

    But I must vehemently disagree with your take that it’s “the only film out there worth seeing.” Fruitvale Station is every bit as worthy.

    On the other hand: I wish David would set up a “spoiler” thread for Blue Jasmine. No joke: I’d be curious to see how other regulars here responded to certain aspects of the film.

  21. christian says:

    Yes anghus, because only sane people post on film blogs and the internet. We have proof of that again and again.

  22. anghus says:

    “Yes anghus, because only sane people post on film blogs and the internet. We have proof of that again and again.”

    speaking of, what happened to Mr. Gilbert? Haven’t seen him in here or tweeting of late.

  23. christian says:

    Hopefully getting proper mental care.

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