Weekend Estimates by Mr Klady & Themistokles
302 pretty much had a weekend to match its opening day, off 37% from the original film… which projects out to a $133m domestic gross or almost exactly 3x opening weekend. That’s probably a reach, considering that the response to this film is not an event of cultural zeitgeist, which the first one was. But $100m domestic seems sure. And internationally, the number could be bigger for this one than the first. That’s where the commercial success of this film will ultimately be defined.
Mr. Peabody & Sherman scored a significant uptick from the Friday estimate, now estimating more than 4x Friday for the weekend. This was critical for DreamWorks Animation, as they almost has another Rise of the Guardians or Turbo on their hands. Personally, I really enjoyed Turbo, but the stock market did not. And it isn’t going to love this either, but it probably will not punish DWA for a $32m opening and likely $100m+ domestic gross as much.
The Grand Budapest Hotel is an impressive start… and really easy to overstate. You may recall The Master doing $736k on 5 screens in 2012 before grossing $16.4m domestic. I love the movie and would be happy to see it crack the Wes Anderson record of $52.4 million, grossed domestically by The Royal Tenenbaums 13 years ago. That may well happen. But what you can take from this opening with overhyping it is that Wes Anderson has established a bigger audience than he used to have. For a long time, Tenenbaums was the exception and $20 million or so domestic was the rule. The new rule for Wes seems to be $40m+, which is a great thing for truly independent-minded cinema.
Son of God had a big ol’ drop, as the religious right seemed to line up against the film and filmmakers. It will still be plenty profitable.
12 Years A Slave, by way of estimate, got a slightly bigger bump than Friday indicated… but still, the number is small. Likewise for Frozen, which dropped only 19% by estimate. The one part of this that is important for 12 Years is that when it hits $55m domestic, it will become the #6 highest grossing (domestic) of the last decade of Best Picture winners, outgrossing Crash, The Hurt Locker, and The Artist. The rest of the recent BP winners all grossed over $100 million.
The headline will be the $200,000 per screen, but the raw dollar figure is incredible for GRAND BUDAPEST HOTEL. Consider that the only four Searchlight movies to make more than $800,000 in less than 100 theatres are BLACK SWAN, DESCENDENTS, 12 YEARS A SLAVE, and 500 DAYS of SUMMER…and those all opened in at least 18 theatres, not 4.
Also, consider that LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE and JUNO made half as much in 7 theatres when they opened, and MARIGOLD HOTEL made less than the BUDAPEST HOTEL despite opening in 27 theatres.
Also, movieman, you were right. It opened to $10 million overseas. The Berlin exposure and Euro setting set it up perfectly.
That $200,000 per-theater average comes from 4 snooty arthouses. Wait until the movie hits mainstream theaters.
Also, ask Fox why the need to feature a pullquote from Mr. Quote Whore himself, Peter Travers.
“That $200,000 per-theater average comes from 4 snooty arthouses. Wait until the movie hits mainstream theaters.”
Do you really think anybody who reads this blog frequently doesn’t know that?
“Do you really think anybody who reads this blog frequently doesn’t know that?”
As one frequent reader of this blog, it wouldn’t surprise me in the least.
The religious right has come out against the new Jesus movie? Really? I would have thought they’d be supporting the movie against the slings and arrows of heathen critics.
It’s Chucky. There’s no use speculating on what he thinks.
TURBO was the bastard child of CARS and BREAKING AWAY. Really, no one else noticed the obvious cut-n-paste insertion of hero worship for the Italian racer who–surprise!–turns out to be a cheaty, protagonist-injuring saboteur?
Also, the religious right tore Roma Downey and Mark Burnett a new asshole last year when they realized the reason “The Bible” felt a bit off is because Downey is a full-on New Ager; during an interview last year she said she felt so “centered” she could practically levitate.
Christians aren’t into “centering”, or levitation, BTW, thus the built-in distrust for SON OF GOD.
Kinda shocked to read that Peabody & Sherman apparently cost $145m. Looks like a totally low rent, third rate CGI tune based on trailers and commercials. I know it’s DreamWorks, but I just assumed that it was their farm team doing the work here, a la Planes for Disney.
Sam: The funny thing is, when I interviewed Roma Downey, we both shared stories about being taught by ruler-wielding nuns during childhood. And the movie, according to her, seemed to have the, ahem, blessing of some big-deal Christian leaders.
http://houston.culturemap.com/news/entertainment/02-28-14-ison-of-godi-looks-to-dominate-less-pure-movies-roma-downey-unapologetic-in-praising-her-vision/
You’ll hear any opinion you’re looking for out on the internet. The success of “Son of God” alone is a reason for some attention seekers to go off on it. There are some Christians out there who object to any dramatic interpretation of Scripture because it can’t possibly be totally faithful. Theyre the same people who have been making noise about Noah too. I remember some Fundamentalists ten years ago who disliked ‘The Passion of the Christ’ because it was “too papist”.
“The religious right has come out against the new Jesus movie? Really?”
The movie the evangelicals are clamoring for? Something called “Persecuted,” screened at CPAC this weekend, in which an American pastor named John Luther (subtle!) must fight against the evil Senate Majority Leader, Robert Harrison (Bruce Davison, making a career out of it after playing the gay/mutant murdering Senator in the X-Men films) and his Faith and Fairness Act, the most evil piece of liberal legislation…since state run health insurance exchanges were introduced into the marketplace…no, actually, ever. Spoiler alert: Harrison is the antichrist.
@smith, PEABODY has been in pre-production at Dreamworks since 2006. They didn’t go into “let’s make the whole movie…twice!” mode like Disney did with the $260 million “Tangled,” but one might assume…Robert Downey Jr. was originally involved for instance….that costs were high for that reason.
went to see The Wind Rises, but they started playing Mr Peabody instead – much chagrin. Beauty vs BS. Thankfully beauty prevailed.
The theater must still be using 35mm if that screw-up happened.
As for “The Grand Budapest Hotel”, my bad. That inflated per-theater average comes via the Loews Lincoln Square on the Upper West Side and the Regal Union Square in lower Manhattan.
As someone who occasionally frequents the Loews in Lincoln, I can tell you that the audience is a lot less “snooty” than you’d think. Saw “Her” there in a packed theater on New Years and the “That was weird…I didn’t get it” seemed to outweigh the rapturous reaction I had.
Seems like “the religious right” saw Son of God the first week, and poor reviews hurt its shot at breaking out beyond that.
“The religious right has come out against the new Jesus movie? Really? I would have thought they’d be supporting the movie against the slings and arrows of heathen critics.”
SamLowry is right about the reason that fundamental Christians are distrustful of the filmmakers, but one can be more specific about how their New Age slant skews the portrayal of Jesus in the film, which de-emphasizes if not outright ignores the core part of Jesus’ teachings about sin and repentance.
It’s not a surprise that a group whose unifying characteristic is a world view would reject a film ostensibly representing it but actually containing a different world view.
But Son of God was edited from last year’s miniseries, which had explosively good ratings. When was the outcry then?
I assume most people watching the channel known for the history of Ancient Aliens, the health status of Nessie, and Bigfoot’s latest sightings think stuff like “The Bible” is high art.
I can’t find the original page I read (and I have no idea how the heck I got there) but it was both funny and spooky at the same time. Written by someone I’ll call The Church Lady, she decided to do a little digging after being befuddled by one head-scratching moment after another in “The Bible” (none of which she ever described) and only then did she uncover the New Agey background of the show’s producers (Downey graduated from the University of Santa Monica with a master’s degree in “Spiritual Psychology”–a quick search reveals the place is a New Age organization).
The humorous part was when The Church Lady tried to alert the rest of the flock to what she found; she hinted with some disapproval that they had watched the miniseries rather credulously and hadn’t even noticed the problems she had. So she put the page together as a warning and, in a rather spooky manner, kept repeating “Do not trust them” throughout the article.
And Joe, hearing that Downey was raised a Catholic doesn’t help her one bit with the religious right; it wasn’t all that long ago when some of their sheet-wearing ancestors lumped ’em in with blacks and Jews and communists and homosexuals and any other ostracized group you can think of.
Many of them are still distrustful of Catholics. Anytime you hear someone refer to a Catholic as a “Roman” you know they’re not a fan.