Weekend Estimate by Baggage Jon Klady
Not a lot to add after yesterday’s Friday column.
Instructions Not Included, which shows no signs of crossing over to English-speakers – has now become the 4th highest grossing foreign-language film in domestic history and the #1 grossing Spanish-language film domestically. Along with Kevin Hart’s success with his concert film and no fewer than 7 horror/thriller films over $50m domestic so far this year, this is all a big reminder to indies, established and emerging, that there is a lot of money in 1/2 and 1/4-quadrent distribution where there is a lot less risk than in chasing 4-quadrent success.
The expansion of Enough Said was pretty good, although not definitive. It’s the second best weekend of Nicole Holofcener’s career, achieved on 1/3 the screens of the big $3.2m weekend that Friends With Money had. Sony Classics got to $13.5 million with that film. I honestly have no strong opinion about whether Searchlight can get there or close to that with this somewhat sped-up strategy. I do have to say, I have heard little other than positive buzz about the film as audiences find it.
It seems there is a 3D IMAX double feature playing on 305 screens, with The Wizard of Oz playing dayparts and Metallica: Through The Never playing at night. These are both part of a long simmering plan by IMAX to expand their offerings beyond nature and a limited number of mainstream movies that choose the format. Anyway… the combined per-screen for these two films gets close to $7k. These last couple weeks also marks the debut of the historic Grauman’s Chinese as an IMAX screen. What will be fascinating about this screen is that it seats 932 people, more than double the capacity you normally find at an IMAX (like Universal Citiwalk). The small seat count has led to a lot of sell-outs of big movies on opening weekends in IMAX… which is less of an issue with 932 seats to sell. Will audiences find it and understand that it is more accessible. We’ll see, starting with Gravity next weekend.
Make no mistake… this is a beautiful transformation and the best IMAX experience I have ever had (and I have had them in a lot of cities). There is no place else I would prefer to see Gravity next weekend. In fact, seeing it anywhere else would feel like being shortchanged.
Blue Jasmine passed $30m this last week and is the #5 grossing Woody Allen film in domestic history (where it will likely say, rank-wise).
The Wolverine is well behind the inferior X-Men Origins: Wolverine domestically, but they are almost identical worldwide. The attempt by Fox to push the X-Men franchise into Avengers status next summer is turning into one of the great stories to come for next summer. Outside of Jim Cameron movies, Fox has never risked as much as the will on X-Men: Days of Future Past and the franchise, so far, has hit a glass ceiling at just under $500 million a picture. If it doesn’t break that ceiling next summer, the film will probably lose money. If it doesn’t pass $400 million, it will lose money. And so it goes…
Saw Prisoners. Wow, if ever a film needed to be shorter. Not saying you can dispense with certain plot developments, but simply in terms of upping the tempo. And so, the decision by Villeneuve to pace it as he did suggests to me that he was very impressed by the film’s ‘theme’. God it was tedious. And it is utterly scarred by two enormous plot hole plausibilities in the last twenty minutes.
Well the way is clear for Miyazaki to cruise to his 2nd Oscar hopefully, and a spot is open for French import “Ernest & Celestine” to grab a nomination. Only okay reviews for “Cloudy,” and the trailer for “Frozen,” released this week, looks absolutely atrocious. The only other release left is the even worse looking “Free Birds.” Unless “Walking With Dinosaurs” qualifies…unsure about that.
Did Atharintiki Daaredi break the record for biggest opening weekend for an unsubtitled foreign language film? I haven’t kept up with that statistic. Anybody know?
I kinda like the title, “Cloudy with a Sense of Meatballs.” Japanese?
I don’t get Rush’s half hearted wide release. I live in Philadelphia and the film was only playing in one theater on the edge of the city limits. It was enough to dissuade my brother and me from seeing it on Friday. Seems like the type of film that is going to have to rope in a lot of casual moviegoers who aren’t eagerly anticipating it, and so a 3000 theater opening could have really helped.
‘I kinda like the title, “Cloudy with a Sense of Meatballs.” Japanese?’
no, that would be ‘cloudy with a sensei meatballs’….
imo, this is the scariest box office news of the week:
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/kirk-cameron-doc-unstoppable-grosses-637431
I had a sense of Meatballs…it was my senior year of High School. Very controversial at the time…now it rules the box office.
The underreported story here is that a 74-year-old movie that has been telecast a zillion times and released on various video formats almost as often still managed to pull in $5 million in only one full week and three days of matinees, on 300 screens, and at premium prices to boot. (And it can’t be the 3-D; everybody hates 3-D, don’t they?) Pretty damn impressive, says I.
Scooter: I just threw up in my mouth.
Ugh!
@BoulderKid: “Rush” is a mainstream movie — Fandango shows it playing in 3 theaters within the Philadelphia city limits.
FWIW, “Rush” is from Universal in the US and eOne in Canada.
@Boulderkid:
yeah, it had a lot of showtimes at the riverview, which I would say is THE non-college-student theater in town. Also at the Loews in cherry hill… so I guess it targeted the mainstream “white” movie theaters, while skipping over the rave and the pearl…
While i was a bit baffled by the “half-hearted” approach, as you said, I also don’t know how much more money there is to make (or rather was to be made this weekend) for a movie as white as Rush (and that doesn’t have Jason Patric holed up in a motel with a shotgun to a cheesey reverb-drenched Clapton solo).
Just got back from Tsui Hark’s latest, YOUNG DETECTIVE DEE: RISE OF THE SEA DRAGON, which snuck into town sans marketing or even reviews; I was literally the only person there (Burbank). The dumbass distrib also opted not to release it here in 3-D, an enormous mistake given Tsui’s mastery of the process.
But even so, all I can say is Ho. Lee. Shit. After 35 years, Tsui has lost none of his ability to astonish. With his eye for screen-filling spectacle (much of it admittedly CGI), bold use of color (especially compared to the desaturated look of most US tentpoles), unprecedented action choreography, never-saw-THAT-before visual effects, and blistering pace (133 minutes fly by like 90), he reaffirms once again that as a cinematic artist, he simply has no equal anywhere on this planet. Every time you think he can’t outdo himself, he does just that–we’ve all seen a million times a speeding car broadsided by another speeding car…but you’ve never seen it done with two horses! If there’s a more enthralling, visually arresting, just goddamn entertaining movie this year, it ain’t been released yet.
You only got 2 1/2 days left. Waste no time.
DP whenever you’re up to sharing your thoughts on Focus, Film District and James Schamus: I’ll have my talk back typing ready.
I met him once a few years ago. The guy is brilliant and gentlemanly and I have the upmost respect.
That guy says, “Utmost.” 🙂
Happily, it looks like a handful of theatres are holding YOUNG DETECTIVE DEE over. Guess I’ll make the schlep out to Monterey Park to see it again.
So it’s gone from the Bank tomorrow? It’s playing at the worst possible times for my job (ie no morning/1pmish shows) so it’s a no-go for me, but thanks for the heads-up regardless; The 8 in the mall pretty reliably gets some cool off-brand indie or VOD oddity or foreign film you’d never expect to play an AMC, so it’s usually worth checking their sched…. Not really an expert on Tsui Hark at all (other than, er, his Van Damme movies and Zu Warriors), but weird that there isn’t a SINGLE REVIEW of this on RT; Thought Tsui was a beloved icon of geek and international cinema.
Twitter must be quite the siren if its keeping Dave away from commenting on both the fact that Focus has decided just to become Rogue after all, and that Paramount is axeing around 100 people again (Can’t imagine why they are having revenue problems, they just released a movie, what, five months ago?)
Executives Gotta Eat.
Lex, it wasn’t screened for critics here and apparently they have no desire to see it on their own. There are a few scattered reviews on-line, but it’s almost like the film doesn’t exist. And yeah, the lack of a Burbank noon show on weekdays pissed me off, too; I had to go to the 3:15 one, which got me out just in time to hit rush-hour traffic. At least the Atlantic Square is playing a full schedule.