The Weekend Report

The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge in the Water was the undisputed champion with a flushing estimated debut of $55.8 million. That left only disappointment for two other national newcomers. The futuristic Jupiter Ascending slotted third with $18.7 million while the supernatural power struggle Seventh Son bowed to $7.1 million.

In the niches new Indian imports ranged from a solid $413,000 debut for the Tamil Yennai Arindhaal to a flaccid $224,000 for the Hindi Shamitabh. In Quebec the French import Samba danced off to a nicely choreographed $93,200 and a solo bounce for Korea’s Gangnam Blues was an encouraging $14,800.

Best of the exclusive debs were the dance doc Ballet 422 with a two step of $31,200 and the American indie Old Fashioned downing $40,400 from a triple shot.

Weekend revenues ballooned to roughly $155 million for a 52% puff from seven days back. It was nonetheless a slight 1% dip from 2014 when the launch of The Lego Movie asssembled $69 million and bridesmaid The Monuments Men arrived with $22 million.

It’s been more than a decade since the venerable animated TV charmer SpongeBob Squarepants took to the big screen and tracking indicated a strong response for Sponge Out of Water. However estimates of $35 million or so seriously under appreciate his full appeal. The film had already got off to a good start last weekend with a $7.7 million gross in six foreign territories.

The character has been around long enough to instill adult interest and that provided much of the difference. It was also anticipated that the film would skew female but studio exit polls identified viewers as 53% female with 60% of the audience aged 25-years and younger. It also helped that early February has traditionally been a strong period for films with appeal to families and kids.

The session head scratcher was pitting two films with similar audience appeal against one another with the verdict that neither Jupiter Ascending nor Seventh Son would reach full commercial potential. The inside story added the fact that Seventh Son had been part of Relativity Media’s WB deal and was wrested away (with some difficulty) when the company migrated to Universal who slotted it in early February. Meanwhile one of Warners’ summer 2014 titles _ Jupiter Ascending _ missed crucial delivery deadlines and charitably opted not to go up against next weekend’s debut of 50 Shades of Grey.

Jupiter’s opening crowd was 57% male with 82% of ticket buyers aged 25-years and older while Seventh Son was 61% male and 68% aged 25-years and older.

With Oscar two weeks off one’s hard pressed to equate box office interest (or ancillary sales) to eventual winners. Nonetheless there are several handfuls of titles that have benefited from the awards spotlight and unquestionably a statuette is going to reap big rewards for several movies, particular those yet to substantially mine foreign soil.

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