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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Posted Saturday, November 29th, 2014 - 8 Comments »
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Friday Estimates by Hungry Klady 3

Fridat Estimates 2014-11-29 at 8.36.39 AM

The Top 14 Thanksgiving weekend openings of all time are… for kids.

The best non-kids opening on that weekend ever is Life of Pi with $22.5 million. Pi, Rocky IV, and The Bodyguard are all $100m+ domestic hits that opened over Thanksgiving. But it just isn’t where that happens much anymore. If your film is bigger, you open the week (or two weeks) before to get a running start at the long weekend. If your film is borderline, you don’t want to get lost in the cranberry sauce.

This weekend, a spin-off and a sequel jump into the fray. The spinoff, Penguins of Madgascar, looks soft compared to other films, like Madagascar sequels or Big Hero 6, but could well become one of the top 5 Thanksgiving Day openings of all time. This is not as great a stat as DWA would like, but the perspective is fair.

The sequel, Horrible Bosses 2, is likewise looking like an underperformer. It should end its 5-day opening with just under $25 million or just a little less than its surprisingly popular predecessor. How it holds will tell the story. My personal sense is that the idea of this film didn’t capture the imagination of the public quite the same way, so the audience going this weekend are fans of the original and anyone remotely borderline on this one is waiting for word-of-mouth.

Big Friday bump ups for Big Hero 6 and Interstellar as families went to the movies on Friday.

On the awards circuit, The Theory of Everything added 609 screens on Wednesday (for a 749 screen total) and then another 53 on Friday and is going nicely with a $7k+ per screen likely over the 3-day weekend. Birdman is shedding screens now, but still got a nice uptick and is looking a bit strong commercially than many of us had it pegged. And The Imitation Game finally opened… on four screens… for that $120k+ opening feeling that Harvey Weinstein loves so much… great marketing, not very significant on gross.

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8 Comments »

8 Responses to “Friday Estimates by Hungry Klady 3”

  1. movieman says:
    November 29, 2014 at 11:32 am

    There’s nothing remotely interesting, or really surprising, about this weekend’s box-office.
    Except I kind of thought “Babadook” would have opened a little bigger on the strength of its rave reviews. (Unless it’s available as a VOD in NY/LA. I know that it’s not an “Amazon Instant Video.”)

  2. EtGuild2 says:
    November 29, 2014 at 11:34 am

    David, sometimes you don’t come across as well as you should (throwing yourself on the cross in sacrifice for your insatiable need to be the media truthsayer), but you are dead on this year box office wise and deserve recognition.

    Who the hell asked for a HORRIBLE BOSSES sequel or the 4th animated feature starring Penguins in 8 years….the 7th heavily featuring penguins in 9 years! There will be mindless stories written about this year’s downturn and mindless stories about next year’s “explosion,” which kicks off with TAKEN 3 to start the New Year. Who the hell asked for NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 3, an ANNIE remake, or a 3rd HOBBIT movie? Truly, this holiday season is dung. I wish it had been last year, because the quality of Oscar contenders is also lower in 2014.

  3. Sideshow Bill says:
    November 29, 2014 at 12:20 pm

    THE BABDOOK is available on VOD here in the Chicago area. [edit]

  4. Pete B. says:
    November 29, 2014 at 3:27 pm

    You kinda need a 3rd Hobbit movie after the way the 2nd one ended. Just saying.

  5. leahnz says:
    November 29, 2014 at 5:44 pm

    holy shitballs batman, mockingjay has already made almost 200 mil in the US alone? you go girl
    (the babadook is in TWO theatres, what’s up with that, i mean why even bother? i don’t get it. gloriously messed up movie though, i wish more directors had some guts and style)

  6. scooterzz says:
    November 29, 2014 at 8:29 pm

    ‘the babadook’ is certainly on my top 10 for the year…..so nice to see a ‘grown up’ horror movie….

  7. cadavra says:
    November 30, 2014 at 11:23 am

    Re HB2: Studios will never understand that just because something was successful once doesn’t automatically mean people want more of it. I have no love for Kristen Wiig, but I give her full props for resisting the boatloads of money Universal offered to make BRIDESMAIDS 2.

  8. leahnz says:
    November 30, 2014 at 11:44 pm

    scoot (or anyone else) if you read this – since it’s the only thread i’ve seen with babadook talk – i was wondering what you thought of the ending of the movie (i thought it was quite unexpected and interesting – and depended on really paying attention to the details revealed in the reading of the bbdook book especially early on); i was surprised to talk to a couple people recently who pooh-poohed the ending a bit, they either just didn’t like it or thought it was too ambiguous, which i don’t think it was and this assessment made me wonder if they actually understood ‘the thing’ of it — anyway i’m trying not to write a bunch of spoilers and asking for a babadook thread might be a bit of a stretch so just wondering what others here thought since the hotbog movie nuts are usually pretty savvy

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

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So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

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