By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Weekend Estimates by GranKlady
Not a lot of new intel this morning. Bad Grandpa was extremely front-loaded and Saturday didn’t see an expanding audience. No shock. Still a mighty open for a very inexpensive film. Gravity is still strong. Captain Phillips is the mini-Lincoln of the fall so far… who’d a thunk it? If The Counselor is projecting $8m, expect it to be more like $7.7m in “actuals” tomorrow. (Don’t worry… or get excited… Cameron Diaz won’t be taking a job washing cars anytime soon.)
Cloudy 2 got to $100m. Deserved better. Carrie finally got to the $25m to which people thought it would open.
12 Years A Slave is clearly expecting another strong after-church Sunday. Also from Searchlight, Enough Said holds strong and will become Nicole Holofcener’s highest grosser ever sometime this week (probably on Friday). Blue Is The Warmest Color does okay… but hardly overwhelming. $2m – $3m is probably the cap for this one in theatrical… will depend on the curiosity factor as the film rolls out outside of the big cities.
“Wadjda” is being criminally overlooked. Can’t believe it’s barely over a million when it’s playing to packed houses here in Northern Virginia, though I guess that could be a reflection of the fast-growing Muslim and Arab population here.
I asked the ticket-taker at the multiplex how “The Fifth Estate” was doing. His blank stare revealed that it’s apparently doing so poorly, he wasn’t even aware it’s playing in his theater.
Not only the worst performing Dreamworks release since my beloved “Things We Lost in the Fire,” but as far as Disney distributed wide-releases go…well let’s just say that referencing the immortal “Squanto: A Warrior’s Tale,” when making box office comparisons is never a good thing.
Cloudy with a Sense of Meatballs brings a smile to my face every time. I want to see THAT movie.
$2-3m for a 3 hour foreign film would be more than OK.
The U.S. PSA for Blue Is The Warmest Color is $25K–this chart factoring in 10 Canadian screens where it was already playing. Does that revise your guess about its potential upward at all?
DESPICABLE ME 2 becomes the third animated film to break $900 million worldwide in its initial run. Too bad China, for whatever reason, banned it. If you remove that country from the equation, it’s had as profitable a box office run as IRON MAN 3.
Speaking of “Blue/Color,” did anyone else find it vaguely unsettling that A.O. Scott saw the film (twice!) w/ his 14-year-old daughter at Telluride Labor Day weekend?
I’m a big Scott fan (he’s probably the best film critic currently employed at a U.S. daily), but that anecdote creeped me out on multiple levels.
Yeah, these numbers for Blue are a little misleading, since the US and Canadian releases are being combined, but the film isn’t being released in the same way in the two markets. It was also released in Canada before the US, so they’re not on “matching” weekends.
The US average was over $22k per screen, so I’d say that’s an excellent number for a 3-hour foreign film. Not to mention a great number for IFC, which I don’t think of too highly as a theatrical distributor.
http://www.indiewire.com/article/specialty-box-office-green-is-the-warmest-color-as-lesbian-drama-turns-controversy-into-a-strong-debut
Unlike many of IFC’s releases (“Frances Ha” being another recent example), isn’t “Blue” theatrical-only?
Pretty sure it’s not available yet as a VOD.
In theaters only. IFC occasionally mixes it up. I think Radius and Magnolia/Magnet are more committed to day-and-date across the board.
Why isn’t Knoxville demanding Cruise money for these Jackass films? Everything Jackass has been wildly profitable, and even with some increased expenses for talent the films would still be a better investment than 99% of what’s getting made today.
I have to think he gets a good percentage as producer.
He can’t really demand Cruise money because the brand isn’t a monster outside of the US. There’s not many in that international consistent earning stratosphere of TC. All the Jackass key creatives are in on the backend even if most of them didn’t work on BG. Paramount recognizes the value of the brand but also knows that Knoxsville doesn’t open a film. So it was some easy money for Bam and co who sit back on this one and make some denare without any broken bones.
Creepy.
Proud Poland’s Pet.