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David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Friday Estimates by Sext Klady

friday estimates 2014-07-19 at 10.55.09 AM

All three openings this weekend are off expectations. The Purge 2 is off about 23%, but with a budget so small that only the Universal ad spend is at issue. Planes 2 is (amazingly) also off about 23% from opening day for the first film in the series. And Cameron Diaz’s Sex Tape is off a painful 54% from Bad Teacher‘s opening (in which she was also teamed with Jason Segal and Jake Kasdan).

Should it make women worried about inequality in Hollywood happy that a spread-eagled, pink-pantied Ms. Diaz isn’t drawing? Not so much. The 41-year-old Ms Diaz is in spectacular shape for a women half her age, but even if Esquire’s Tom Junod deigns to get aroused by her, taken out of MILF mode, she doesn’t seem to have a young, male audience and without being in “sisters are doing it for themselves” mode, a young female audience.

Sony made a similar miscalculation with Friends With Benefits a few years ago, teaming Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis, thinking the combination irresistible to young audiences. They weren’t quite as resistant as they seem to be to this pairing and the film became nicely profitable because of international audiences… which might happen with Diaz too. Bad Teacher was a $115 million comedy overseas. But at home, the interesting idea of having Diaz play “normal, attractive, middle class mom” is not lighting up the scoreboard.

Why did I start with Sex Tape? Because the other two films aren’t very interesting as box-office conversation. The Purge 2 has a low budget—allegedly under $10m—and even with a drop in opening day, it is likely to be profitable. And Planes: Fire & Rescue is a DVD spin-off writ larger… but hardly a large investment for Disney. And it, too, has a bigger international audience than domestic, pretty much assuring that it will be a profit center.

In other words, you can expect “Purge 3” and “Planes 3, “regardless of where they end up in the US this weekend. Both will be profitable. You can stop whining about them now (if you were).

Boyhood expanded to 34 screens this weekend and on Friday did $330,000. That suggests a million-dollar weekend on just 34 screens. Impressive. But again, not shocking or unheard of. The film is going to do well. $8m seems like the bottom for its domestic gross. But growing it into the $20m+ range is certainly a possibility.

Interestingly, IFC is being quite transparent in its short-term planning. 44 more screens next weekend. (See the schedule of releases through August here.) This might be a mistake. Companies that play in this game for bigger theatrical dollars tend to be a bit more flexible and aggressive in the face of a hit. But IFC will figure it out, no doubt.

IFC’s biggest non-doc release since the Bob Berney era of 2002, is Frances Ha, with $4 million. Its biggest weekend was $550k on 60 screens. You can see how much bigger Boyhood is, in that it will almost double that number on almost half the screens. But it’s also worth noting that Frances achieved that high in the second weekend.

The one thing that seems clear is that Boyhood has a much better shot at theatrical revenues (and award season) by removing the glass ceiling of VOD. And in this regard—making a clear case for why VOD is not for every “small” film—Boyhood could change distribution for indies.

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7 Responses to “Friday Estimates by Sext Klady”

  1. Jack1137 says:

    Well next week should prove to be somewhat interesting. Probably

  2. Jack1137 says:

    A lesson on being careful about first reveiews.On Friday Disney held a ‘press screening’for Guardians of the Galaxy and Embargoed them til the Friday it Premieres I’ve heard.Well lucky this link(Who was part of the Screening)had some very positve leaks that help the Buzz.Go figure http://tinyurl.com/ptgbsgd

  3. eric says:

    Either that rumor about holding reviews on Guardians until opening day is untrue or Marvel/Disney exec’s thought it was going to be a real stinker and are really shocked right now about the early response.It would be nice if they come out and say when the embargo officially breaks to clear some of this up.

  4. Chucky says:

    “Boyhood” looks like a loser for 2 reasons.

    #1: This movie’s bookings tell me it will be stuck in the Arthouse Ghetto.

    #2: The obligatory and nefarious Academy Award Nominee above an actor’s name. Movie promotion for mouth-breathers.

  5. christian says:

    Chucky, go watch soccer on cable where you can be free of any corporate name-checking for mouth-breathers between beer and car ads. I’d hate to see you traipse through a day.

  6. Chucky says:

    Has it ever occurred to you that a big problem with the movie industry is that it treats the public like children?

    As for “Boyhood”, come back to me when it gets into mainstream theaters that don’t play arty product.

  7. Casey says:

    Eric:

    The embargo still holds. Most of those early Twitter “reviews” are from the fanboy press. Their responses aren’t likely to be in line with the more mainstream reviews.

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