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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Weekend Estimates by Len Klady: Shadow Box Office

Weekend Estimates 2014-01-26 at 9.18.12 AM

Almost nothing to add.

Ride Along will be the first starring $100m grosser for both Ice Cube and Kevin Hart. Screen Gems must both be excited and a little bit scared of not being able to capitalize with two Kevin Hart movies on the way; About Last Night and summer release, Think Like A Man Too, which is a sequel to the $92 million grosser of last April.

Looks like it’s time for MGM to dust off Soul Plane – the first Kevin Hart starrer – and try to get it some traction again. The film also had supporting turns from the then-struggling Sofía Vergara and the not-yet-Oscar-winning Mo’Nique.

I, Frankenstein is, obviously, a miss. Is there enough money in all of the rest of the world to keep this from being a writedown?

The phenom of Frozen continues, now threatening to overtake Despicable Me 2 as the #1 domestic animated film of the year… just $21m away as of today, still doing over $8m a weekend. This may well be an influencer on the animation marketplace moving forward. The strong female lean and the musical elements have not been in style. It will be interesting to see if DreamWorks Animation and others retool their in-process projects to speak to the popularity of these things.

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9 Responses to “Weekend Estimates by Len Klady: Shadow Box Office”

  1. movieman says:

    Screen Gems must both be excited and a little bit scared of not being able to capitalize with two Kevin Hart movies on the way; About Last Night and summer release, Think Like A Man Too, which is a sequel to the $92 million grosser of last April.

    I don’t understand that comment, Dave.
    Why wouldn’t Screen Gems be able to capitalize on Hart’s ascension into the official ranks of “movie stardom” w/ “Ride Along”?
    Will Hart’s manager/agent demand a retroactive salary hike for the two unreleased films and threaten to have their client’s role(s) cut if they don’t pony up?
    I haven’t seen a trailer for “Man 2” yet, but Hart definitely gets the most screen time of any of the four leads in the “Last Night” trailer. (The same “LN” spot that’s been running in theaters for months.)

  2. movielocke says:

    Lone Survivor missed out on half a dozen oscar noms by not going LA/NY the first week of Dec. I’m sure they’re thrilled with the BO haul, but also probably kicking themselves that even one week earlier would have gotten them a BP nom.

  3. movieman says:

    “Survivor” did get an Oscar-qualifying run on the coasts the last week of December, Movielocke.

  4. Joshua says:

    Movielocke: “Lone Survivor” did in fact receive two Oscar nominations, albeit for Sound Editing and Sound Mixing, not in the highly publicized categories.

  5. jesse says:

    I don’t think Lone Survivor would have gotten a Best Picture nom with a few-weeks-earlier release; it’s too devoid of characterization, and too fixated on the violent part of the heroic-sacrifice angle, to get stronger emotional traction (then again, it’s a big hit so what I do I know). Berg leans so hard on real footage of real soldiers at the beginning AND end of the movie, I started to wonder if he even really wanted to make a movie, or if he considered it maybe a poor substitute for just showing the real soldiers in action.

  6. David Poland says:

    movieman – if Sony does $40 million with About Last Night, it will look weak.

    Just because someone is in a $100 million grosser does not mean the next one will be as big. But expectations are that it is easy to turn that corner. It is no gimme. There is no “official” movie stardom.

  7. chris says:

    Is movielocke saying “Lone Survivor” would have gotten more Oscar nominations since it did, in fact, get two (in the sound categories)? I doubt it, although I like the film. The sooner it went wide, the sooner the backlash kicked in.

  8. cadavra says:

    And again, Cube has proven himself in comedies. Hart was all over the GRUDGE MATCH marketing and look what happened. Let’s not go crazy here.

    In slightly cheerier news, MR. BANKS (perceived flop and shameful Oscar dink) has quietly hit $80 million and will probably end around 85. With a $35 million budget and huge ancillary dough yet to come (old people love physical media), its profitability is assured.

  9. poet67 says:

    I thought movielocke was suggesting the movie might have had a bigger Oscar presence if it had say, opened wide on Christmas Day and had made an earlier impact with its Box Office.
    Then again, maybe its Box Office would have been smaller, buried in with the other Christmas releases like Walter Mitty and 47 Ronin. I doubt Universal has any regrets about its strategy.

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