Weekend Estimates by 1 New Wide Release Klady
(Apologies for the numbers mix-up… out at an early shoot)
$86.2 million Thor sounds good… the best November opening since… last November 9. But still, an improvement on the first Thor release and if estimates are accurate, a nice Friday-to-Saturday bump suggesting that the film was not completely front-loaded. The weekday numbers will reveal more and next Friday-Saturday will tell the domestic tale. The real story is international, where Thor 2 is nearing the first film’s total international gross after just two weekends.
Everyone else with a wide release stayed away from the weekend, although 12 Years A Slave continued its expansion and scored an estimated $6.6 million with the second best per-screen in the Top Ten. Also scoring was a smaller expansion for Dallas Buyers Club, per-screening $17,720 on 35.
A lot of decent expansions. Anyone else thing Universal blew it with “About Time?” It’s not too late though, nothing is coming out next week. They should do a quick ad buy and push it into another 600 theatres.
Good numbers for “Dallas Buyers,” decent expansion for “All Is Lost.” The Numbers for “Blue Is the Warmest Color” are fine for a 3-hour LGBT NC-17 French movie. Better than a lot of recent Palme winners.
“Anyone else thing Universal blew it with “About Time?””
ETGuild2 – Maybe, but I never noticed any TV ads for this. I was going to suggest that counter-programming this against HAMMER DUDE 2 apparently didn’t work because some of those women flocked to see HAMMER DUDE 2, but apparently its female % are only 38%. Do what Hollywood usually does: Blame marketing.
Anyway I know Mr. Poland didn’t agree with me on Twitter when I suggested the Marvel movies with their formulaic actioneers are basically like the James Bond movies. If I remember right, he said that comparison makes no sense because “then they would be all Iron Man sequels!”
Umm no. If EON only has one car model franchise they produce, Marvel produces several car model franchises (including cross-over franchises like THE AVENGERS) but they all share the same basic filmatic DNA with each other, like for instance the heavy humor, which DC/Warner Bros. with say MAN OF STEEL aren’t into as much.
Point is for better or worse, Marvel are like 007. Sometimes you get great entries (like GOLDFINGER), sometimes you get crap (like DIE ANOTHER DAY), but most 007 movies are decent enough afternoon killers. You know pretty much what to expect from it going in, and usually you get what you came for. I thought HAMMER DUDE 2 was like LIVE AND LET DIE or THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS, a solid (if not outstanding) middling entry within the franchise. Will I forget this in 3 months? Probably, but for 2 hours I was amused. All things considered, I think Marvel makes good toy movies.
Now onto HUNGER GAMES 2!
Again, I have to wonder whether I watch TV shows most other people on here don’t. I’ve seen spots for About Time on a fairly steady steady basis for 2-3 weeks.
I didn’t like THOR 2 but it’s definitely going to get to 650+ worldwide. That’s a pretty amazing increase for the franchise and very profitable.
And it looks like women are really embracing the franchise. That’s to be expected. It was the same for the first one.
“Blue is the Warmest Color” is doing great in arthouses, horribly in megaplexes — and I saw it in a megaplex. The per-theater average masks that inconvenient truth.
@EtGuild2: “About Time” went wide this week following its big-city exclusive. Universal won’t expand it further due to a glut of product.
@EtGuild2: Next week does have one new national release and it’s a money-grab, “The Best Man Holiday”.
It’s playing in Megaplexes? What idiot exhibitors would take a chance on BLUE when its NC-17 and not even playing in 100 theatres? I guess desperate owners taking a gamble on the fact AMC and Regal won’t show NC-17 movies, though it’s weird IFC would kill its per theater average by allowing it.
Yeah next week has a release, but as I said there’s zero competition. Somehow I don’t think middle-aged blacks are rushing out to see Rachel McAdams and some British dude in a sci-fi romance. It would be stupid not to add at least a few hundred theatres given its average is above everything in more than 35 theatres aside from THOR and SLAVE
My mind still reels that nobody took “WOWS”‘s vacated November 15th slot.
Was Disney more concerned about (potentially) diluting “Thor”‘s second weekend gross w/ “Delivery Man” than they were about squaring off against a behemoth like “Hunger Games”?
Weird.
EtGuild: AMC is playing BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR in Chicago, and Regal is playing it in Miami Beach.
Shouldn’t one of HOMEFRONT or OLDBOY open this Friday, instead of both of them going head to head on the 27th?
Nice to know we’ve made progress since “The Dreamers.” Apparently CineMark has lifted its ban on NC-17 for BLUE as well, for one theater in Illinois as a “test run.”
Cloudy with a Sense of Meatballs is back!
It was back last week, Matt. As a fellow fan, I follow its progress closely: It was briefly corrected last week when the very-tiny-type version of the box office chart was posted but, when that tiny version was replaced by the larger-type version, “Sense” returned.
Off topic:
What am I missing with The Way Way Back? The writing sucks, the central kid is a complete dud. I have no idea why Rockwell or cute blond neighbor would take an interest in him. I found myself rooting for Carell.
I agree with you about the half of the movie that has to do with the kid and his family, Amblinman. I liked the stuff at the waterpark but not enough to go for the movie.
Shouldn’t one of HOMEFRONT or OLDBOY open this Friday, instead of both of them going head to head on the 27th?
Yet that would make…sense.
In the current Darwinian theatrical environment, both movies would probably get ousted from most ‘plexes (or, at the very least, lose the majority of their daily showtimes) before the almighty Thanksgiving holiday weekend.
Until (at least) seeing an “Oldboy” TV commercial, I still refuse to believe it’s really opening this month, lol.
@Chris
Even the waterpark didn’t work for me. I love Rockwell but his character was soooo forced and obvious.
Also, the first (and final) meeting between he and Carrell was such a dud. They set Carrell up to receive a major comeuppance throughout the entire movie and there ain’t none.
Agreed on The Way Way Back, some nice ideas but a disappointment overall. A pale imitation of the masterpiece that is Adventureland. Agreed about the main kid – sometimes you can go too far with the awkward miserable loner thing…I was ready for the kid to get his ass kicked halfway through the movie.
I’m pissed that Ender’s Game took so any IMAX screens from Gravity, which I pathetically still haven’t seen. Anyone know the best screen to still see it on in NYC? Incredibly picky about where I see this…BAM is not happening…
movieman — i just got the l.a. press screening list for ‘oldboy’… those poor people at film district still think their movie opens 11/27…
btw: no guests/no plus ones…all reviews/social media embargoed until 11/26…. not a good sign…
Wow.
I wonder if it’s going to be a nat’l release or just LA/NY/Other Big Deal Cities?
Still haven’t seen a single TV spot, or heard of a screening/promo date here.
Kind of shocking-sad really. And to think “Spike Lee directing an ‘Old Boy’ remake” seemed so promising once upon a time.
Either way you look at it, this is a DUMP.
Crazy. The studio last year was slobbering to run “Red Hook Summer” into the ground. Mission…not accomplished, it’s done huge numbers on DVD. We’ll see what the deal is here…
Breedlove, a quick glance through the NYC listings makes it look like Gravity is bounced from IMAXes entirely, which makes sense — Ender’s Game and also Thor (a little-publicized digital IMAX movie, but it’s there) have all of them now.
It would be nice if the several fake AMC IMAXes would spread these things around a little, but of course it’s probably not really in their best interests to do that.
Your best bet, then, would be to find Gravity in 3D on the biggest screen possible (and really, as nice as the fake IMAX looks on this one, it’s not like it was IMAX shot. I saw it on the best/only real IMAX screen in the city that shows commercial movies, and because it was a digital-IMAX print, it only wound up taking up about half the screen anyway). For that you’d probably want to check out the Regal in Times Square. Most of their screens are pretty big, plus they’re not playing Thor. So while Ender’s Game probably has their biggest screens, you might be able to find a pretty decent-sized one still playing Gravity (though good luck asking theater employees which screens are biggest; they almost never know, or even understand the question).
Jesse – thanks, man. But you know, it’s funny, I’m so obsessive about this I actually called the exact two theaters you mentioned today before I even saw your post, and I was told that at the Regal it was playing on one of their smallest screens, whereas the guy at Lincoln Square said it was still playing on a big screen there, one of the big ones. You could be right, though – maybe the smallest screen at the Regal is still big. Trying to think…can’t really picture anything other than pretty damn big screens there. Same with 34th St. actually, although I’m not certain about any of this. Wish it was posted online somewhere.
So anyway probably see it Thursday at Lincoln Square. Seeing Ethan Hawke in Macbeth up at Lincoln Center the same night.
Paramount has pushed back “Labor Day” to January 31, 2014.
Its December “awards consideration” run has been officially cancelled.
I guess that means “WOWS” will get Paramount’s complete and undivided attention next month, with a few kudos-campaigning bucks tossed at Vantage’s “Nebraska.”
Movieman, the new-opening-date press release I received specified that it is still getting a one-week, awards consideration run.
Really, Chris?
Somebody needs to tell B.O. Mojo.
They’ve dropped it entirely from their list of December openings.
“Please note the following changes to Paramount Pictures’ release schedule:
LABOR DAY, an Indian Paintbrush production previously scheduled for a platform release, is now scheduled for January 31, 2014 (wide), with a one-week qualifying run on December 27, 2013.
Please update your release schedule.”
And I for one would trust Pride over Mojo.
OK.
I was wondering why neither Variety or EW mentioned the release date change.
Mojo took it off their 2013 sked entirely, though.
Mojo may not consider a qualifying run as an actual release, it plays in a few theaters and then vanishes for a month, a release is when people can actually see it and of course for their purposes when box office is actually counted.
I don’t know about that hcat.
Mojo has several other awards qualifying runs included in their December roll call, including Univ’s “Lone Survivor” which doesn’t go wide until January 10th. “Labor Day,” however, was removed from its Xmas Week slot (where it was always just listed as “NY/LA”).
They usually indicate which releases are “wide” versus “expansion,” “limited,” etc.
There is a difference between limited where it is in general release and may later be expanded and oscar qualifying where it is pulled from theaters. Lone Survivor will post BO numbers for its run and Nebraska will likely not. This happens often with SPC films and Weinstein, they qualify for oscars but their release dates indicate the following year.
The same thing will happen with reviews, you will likely not see a review for Nebraska (the trades probably already have festival reviews) until the later date when it officially opens.
Now I might be wrong about this, so please anyone correct me, but an oscar qualifying run simply means that it is playing in a theater in a specific market for a specific amount of time before a specific date, box office is not counted, and its often the case the screen might be rented by the studio outright to play it since there will be no marketing push yet.
Well now according to boxofficemojo, Oldboy will be opening on “500” theatres. Is this platforming or an execution?
“Execution” sounds about right, Dino.
I knew something was fishy by the (stunning) dearth of TV ads/trailers/etc.
Film District isn’t even hiring their usual publicists in some markets for “Oldboy.” Definitely a dump.