Friday Estimates by Head Klady
Disney marketing did a nice job lowering resistance to Inside Out going into the opening weekend, pushing the film to the highest opening for an original in the company’s history, perhaps delivering the company’s second opening over $90 million ever. $70 million has been a glass ceiling for Pixar openings – although they tend to be leggier than other summer films – as parents wait for word-of-mouth to develop, but fear and disgust have been pushed aside in the name of finding joy in sadness and laughing at anger. Only two Pixar films have managed $300m domestic and it seems that Inside Out will join the group.
Also in play is the Pixar $750m worldwide club, which currently has only two members. And the Pixar $700 million worldwide club, which has only four.
The drop for Jurassic World is a bit heavier than predicted after a strong weekday-to-weekday showing for the film. But 55% is a pretty happy drop-off number for an opening this large (minus the $18.5m Thursday sneaks). If 55% stays the number, it will be a $86.5 million second weekend gross and a $382.5m domestic cume, easily passing Furious 7‘s current #2-for-2015 domestic total.
J-World continues to outpace the first Avengers and will probably be the fourth $600 million domestic grosser, although Avatar‘s $760 million is way out of range. (Age of Ultron, if you’re still interested, is fighting to hit $450m domestic.)
The only other wide opener is Dope, which is doing okay with a $2.3 million Friday launch. The comps for this number this year are Hot Tub Time Machine 2 and Black or White… which when you think about it, could be the mash-up that ends up being Dope. One of those movies went on to do $12m domestic and the other $22 million… and Dope could well end up somewhere in between. This opening is right smack in the middle of the Open Road portfolio of openings.
Not a very exciting weekend for anything else in the marketplace.
A nice opening for The Overnight, the third opening from new distributor The Orchard. $15k – $16k per-screen on three screens isn’t going to set the world on fire, but it’s a nice indie number these days.
Sony Classics’ Infinitely Polar Bear, starring Mark Ruffalo, will do around $6k per on five. Eden, from newcomer distrib Broad Green Pictures, will do a similar per-screen on 3.
Your weekend estimate on JW seems a bit low, seeing that the Friday number is comparable to Avengers, can’t see it drop off by that much.
What’s interesting is that this weekend will also be in the top tier of biggest weekends ever, due to the strength of Inside Out.
David, that 600 m isn’t going to happen. There’s too much competition. Way too much, for JW to hold on. Seriously, people caught onto what that film is, and it’s downhill from here. Take care, shitty dinosaur movie. A record Avengers held for 3 years that you ALLEGEDLY beat, will be taken down in months by Star Wars. Don’t let the door hit you.
Caught on? It made 100 mil during the week alone, averaging 20 mil a day and it’s going to top 100 mil this weekend, pushing it to 400. You’re crazy if you think 600 isn’t within reach.
Also, way too much competition? From Ted 2 next week? Both are likely to clear 50 million next weekend. Magic Mike or a really unimpressive looking Terminator in 2 weeks? It’s got plenty of room to breathe. You might not like it, but it’s got far better audience buzz than you’re giving it credit for.
JURASSIC WORLD is awful but it’s going to make so much more money.
Look at it this way….if it collapses like “Deathly Hallows 2” which was astoundingly front loaded, from here on out, it’ll still do 550 million.
So many potential indie breakouts dying in the vine because of this….Polar Bear, Earl, Manglehorn. Sad.
Wait, is the allegedly JS refers to a belief from some sort of avengers weekend record holder truther sect?
I have to think that at this point, it’s all an act from JS. All your posts in the past week was hinting at and most likely hoping for an epic collapse this weekend. Didn’t happen. Even when all the signs pointing to it not being heavily frontloaded, he lets his biases cloud his judgement regarding box office numbers.
And as for your statement, “Seriously, people caught onto what that film is, and it’s downhill from here.” What people? The people that shelled out between $90-$104M this weekend. Those people?
And what does “Allegedly” refer to? Whether they broke the Opening weekend record or whether they broke the second weekend gross? If it’s the second then sure, we have to wait til Monday for that if the estimates are close, but I hope you’re not getting all Birther on us with the first weekend record. Marvel even sent a congratulatory card to Universal on breaking their record admitting that they are now in second place. Next thing you’ll be telling me is that Dylann Roof isn’t a racist, even after he admits to being as much.
JS Partisan, the Fox News of Box Office.
“THE SECOND WEEK FRIDAY GROSSES WERE COVERED IN THERMITE PAINT. WAKE UP SHEEPLE!”
Ha….you beat me to it Trey.
I like how we all are comparing JW to Avengers, forgetting that according to prognosticators it wasn’t even supposed to beat Avengers AoU in the first place. JW just “puny human-ed” AoU. It’s not even close domestically. In 14 days or so of release that race will be over and JW can collect it’s trophy. Who’d have thought that?
Bulldog, that’s the best you can do? Sorry, but there is way too much business from other movies, to get in JW way. If you think people won’t go and see a shit Terminator movie, when they went and saw a shit Jurassic Park movie, then you aren’t paying attention.
If you’re comparing a shit Terminator movie with an above average dinosaur flick, then you aren’t paying attention.
They are both nostalgia trips, dude.
As opposed to being the bleeding edge of modernity when compared to a group of comic book characters who were first introduced when segregation was still legal?
Pc, this has nothing to do with the Avengers. JW is going to make more than Ultron. That’s a given. This is about… you know… MATH!
You people are all twisted towards me, because your own fucking bizarre misconceptions about me. This leads to you missing glaring points that I make, that you would get if you still weren’t mad about something that happened in 2009.
My assertion is thus: where is JW going to find the people to make it this huge? Where?
Next week is Ted 2, and that’s probably going to open huge.
After that, you have Magic Mike and Terminator jumping in for Fourth of July Weekend, so JW is getting knocked down to fifth. Still, doing solid business, but you are crazy to dismiss those three movies.
You are even crazier to dismiss Minions, which is going to be huge. Hell. Here’s a crazy fucking thought: what if Universal has two 200m dollar openings in a month?
After that, you have Ant Man and Amy Schumer, and that’s where I have to ask again? Where is all of this repeat business and secondary screen business coming for Jurassic World? Where? I can see it getting close to 500m, but anything more than that ignores all of those big movies coming down the pike. Please dudes, ignore Magic Mike, and have your mind’s blown when it makes bank.
Finally, DAVID POLAND has written on this blog, about the gamesmanship with the box office numbers. You can go on about ACTUALS, but this shit is god damn ESTIMATED GROSS! It’s not a REAL OFFICIAL NUMBER, so studios have been known to fudge the numbers to get movies over the line. It’s happened, and WE’VE DISCUSSED IT ON THIS BLOG!
I know many of you, have been here for like two minutes compared to some of us. Thing is, it has been speculated to happen, but feel free to make a shitty internet retort towards me, because I happen to enjoy the MCU. It’s your choice, but there’s no reason to do so.
Pc, that’s one year, dude. One year, but good retort.
People like the dinosaurs.
Wow.
I’m surprised. I figured 250 total.
Audiences must actually like JW.
And to do 85-100 on a second weekend against massive competition from a film taking the family audience? All the more impressive.
Sometimes films just resonate with an audience.
Subjective assessments of quality aside, it’s nice to see a move this summer FINALLY work for an audience. Hopefully it works as a gateway drug for kids and gets them excited about the movies.
That’s what’s great about these kinda hits — they can birth lifelong movie lovers.
Let’s not get carried away. PHANTOM MENACE did somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 million in today’s dollars without 3D. Was it a movie everyone HAD to see thanks to generational nostalgia/passing down? Yup. Did people like it? Not really, but kids under 15 LOVED it.
16 years between ROTJ and TPM. 16 years between JP3 and JW.
Only 14 years difference between JP3 and JW. Regardless, the JP “trilogy” wasn’t Star Wars, and was never as loved. This was kind of sold as a semi-sequel, but more of a reboot, with the use of World instead of Park. I saw it today and liked it. Nowhere near as good as the first film, but definitely better than the other sequels, not that that’s saying too much. I’m not sure what people were asking from this movie. It had some decent action sequences and none of the characters were terribly annoying. Nothing they could have done was ever going to recapture the magic of the first film.
I was impressed how Claire was able to run around so well in her high heels without them ever breaking. Those must have been made of steel. And how the big bad hybrid escaped initially has got to be the silliest/worst part of the movie. Yeah, send in people before turning on the tracker. Why not have the tracker on all the time with something so new and cost so much to create? That’s really my only gripe, aside from some silly family melodrama about a divorce that was only written in so the brothers had something to talk about that was beyond boring and lazy screenwriting. But other than that I thought the story flowed pretty well. I liked the little nods to the original film, and Pratt’s presence/character helped elevate the film to a higher level than it probably deserves. I didn’t understand how anyone can say the movie ignores the thousands on the island. There were at least 2, maybe 3, scenes that involved the park visitors directly. It wasn’t a great movie by any means, but it delivered as advertised, and I usually don’t ask for more than that from a movie like this.
@brack, Good call on JP3, but the loved thing is one of those arguments made by movie fans, like me, living in the bubble. What excuse will cinephiles make when “Avatar 2” hits 800 million? “Avatar” and “JP” don’t inspire the same type of intense fandom/idolatry of SW or Potter, but that doesn’t mean a ton of people don’t looove those movies. Crazed fan bases don’t mean as much as we think and once every few years we’re reminded of this. I literally haven’t run into a single person who loved JW but practically everyone I know has seen it or plans to because it was a digitally transformative childhood/adolescent experience they want to relive.
Do people on this blog really know people over age 14 not named Richard Roeper who found JW to be some kind of trascendant, once in 5 years cultural touchstone they plan on re-watching multiple times or buying?
JS I don’t get the sour grapes or revisionism on Jurassic World – do you know how big the first movie was?? It sold as many tickets as The Avengers and that was just over 20 years ago – the first two Jurassic movies both set records with their opening weekends, it’s not unheard for a long-awaited sequel/reboot to blow it out of the water like this. Did I love the movie? Not really…I actually found it kind of disappointing, not even as good as The Lost World. But Universal hit the sweet spot with the marketing and people seem to like it….this isn’t a true abomination of taste like a ‘Pirates or Transformers sequel making a billion dollars.
And no worries, your overlord Kevin Feige will be fine….he’s still raking in bank despite Avengers’ under-performance. And to clarify, it is NOT an under-performance based on COST but on EXPECTATIONS….all of the studios pretty much cleared the decks for two weeks leading up to and after the Avengers opening, EVERYBODY was expecting it to out-gross the first movie at least early on. I actually liked it a lot more than Jurassic World, but neither of them can hold a candle to Mad Max. But Feige’s streak is likely ending….as ALL streaks do, it’s all cyclical.
I still say the key is to get Black Panther and Captain Marvel out there…..push some cool new characters with diversity, they’re making a mistake by pushing every one aside for Spiderman: if the next one makes its release in 2017, we will have SIX stand-alone Spiderman movies in just about 15 years featuring THREE different actors playing Spiderman – they’re in danger of running this character into the ground, especially if they’re going to insist on him being Peter Parker again. This seems like a case of Feige’s ego getting the better of him…he needs to give that character some space.
Despite Jurassic’s success, does any one now suspect that Universal might be cannibalizing themselves a bit launching JW, Ted 2, and Minions all within a month? They obviously didn’t expect JW to be this big and need to hold on to so many screens in the third weekend – I have a feeling launching Ted 2 in early August would have been better.
Considering the original Star Wars films did extremely well, and didn’t fall from interest like audiences did for JP2 and 3, I still believe more people like, even love, those first three Star Wars movies than the first three JP movies. Don’t get me wrong, people loved the first JP. The box office numbers don’t lie. JW was seen as a reboot, or a “true” or proper sequel to the first film. I wasn’t talking about crazed fans. I’m just looking at the numbers, and the numbers don’t add up when you look at the numbers for JP2 and 3. Yeah, they made money, but not JP money. JW is making JP money when you adjust for inflation.
Geoff – is Ted 2 now rated PG-13 and in 3D? 😉
Kidding aside, comedy rarely competes with anything else except, well, other comedies. There was room for both JW and Inside Out this weekend, for example. I know JW isn’t a kid movie, but it’s a “family” movie nonetheless. Ted 2 has a different demographic. As far as cannibalizing goes, it’s better to do it to yourself than two studios going at it and both losing in the process. But Minions is in more direct competition with Inside Out than anything else.
“Considering the original Star Wars films did extremely well, and didn’t fall from interest like audiences did for JP2 and 3,”
Actually, the original run of EMPIRE was down over 30% from Ep IV’s first-run, which is similar to LOST WORLD’s drop, and is pretty stunning given that most consider it the best installment. (TPM actually did better than EMPIRE or ROTJ in their respective first runs) Lucas would not stand for this, however, and lo and behold, a race of easily marketable plush toys was created to inhabit the moon of Endor. Box office went back up.
Def agree JW dropping only 15% or so from the original in attendance is really, really impressive. I just don’t think it’s indicative of the quality of the movie as much as this weird nostalgia for the 90s and that’s picked up steam in recent years (and desire to share it with today’s kids). And that movie-lovers discount how much people adore movies like JP without rabid fanbases. Also, TPM is a worse movie…if it had been merely bearable/mediore like JW this result would be less surprising since it would have performed even better.
“Lucas would not stand for this, however, and lo and behold, a race of easily marketable plush toys was created to inhabit the moon of Endor. Box office went back up.”
Box office went back up because everyone wanted to see how Star Wars was going to end, not just because of Ewoks. And it wasn’t a huge drop off either. It’s the 12th highest grossing movie domestically adjusted for inflation. Where does The Lost Word stand? Some of that can be attributed to re-release, but still, not a huge drop off when one considers the tone of Empire.
The Lost Wold could have done great business after such a huge opening weekend, but it left a bad taste in the mouths of most audience members, and why JP3 did even worse.
Again, you are trying to compare a love of dinosaurs vs the characters of Star Wars, but clearly the former can grow stale if all a movie has are a string of set pieces with no real sense of danger or caring about the characters. We cared enough about the action in JP because of the characters; the sequels, not so much. We enjoyed a whole trilogy of Star Wars because of the characters. JP was more of a one trick pony, though a good one. Star Wars was/is a true phenomenon. Jurassic World isn’t simply a nostalgia flick. It feels like what a sequel to JP should have been to begin with. Plus the marketing with Pratt on a motorcycle riding with velociraptors was money.
What other 90s properties are doing well, or think are going to do well? Terminator: Genisys? You think it’s going to do T2 business? JW would have dropped off if no one thought it was good experience, and it’s not parents telling kids what to see. Inside Out and JW are both doing well despite some direct competition for families. Your opening weekend is based on marketing, the rest is based on word of mouth. JW has good word of mouth, despite whatever you think the quality of the film is. You compare TPM to JW, kind of strangely since adjusted for inflation, JW can’t hold a candle to TPM. So yes, Star Wars is loved more than Jurassic Park movies as a whole. There’s a lot of anticipation for a seventh SW movie. I wonder how much excitement there will be for a seventh JP/JW movie. Something tells me there won’t, or even can’t. And TPM, adjusted for inflation, is barely behind JP. JW will not get even close.
And JP did well with merchandising, and sold plenty of toys, unlike Avatar, which didn’t really have much merchandizing. I’m not writing off love for JP, just JP as a franchise compared to SW, where it pales in comparison. That’s not discounting, that’s reality.
A better comparison would be JP to Jaws, though far more successful as a franchise due to a variety of dinosaurs, where Jaws usually had just one shark. Both are one trick ponies in the sense that a continuing series really doesn’t work well for their stories. SW can go anywhere, however.
“It’s the 12th highest grossing movie domestically adjusted for inflation.”
Why is this relevant? What you were saying was the subsequent movies didn’t have a big drop-off from the original, which isn’t in fact the case. Does EMPIRE dropping indicate its quality? Did TRANSFORMERS 2 rising by 25%? Quality is not as relevant as you seem to think it is.
“What other 90s properties are doing well, or think are going to do well?”
Probably none…because there’s no comps here. This will be the 3rd time they’ve effed up TERMINATOR in the last 12 years (judging by the universally hated trailer). They’ve effed up MIB twice. A real LION KING 2 might blow the roof off…we’ll probably never know.
ID4-2 will do very well, but it’s not a singularly unique concept and is more character-persona driven. (people think of Will Smith, Bill Pullman, Jeff Goldblum and the White House blowing up, not the aliens).
“You compare TPM to JW, kind of strangely since adjusted for inflation, JW can’t hold a candle to TPM. ”
Sigh…this seems to be an issue. I’m comparing percentage patterns. LW’s drop from JP is similar to EMPIRE and Episode IV. JW will perform in relation to JP like TPM did. People forget Episode IV was literally in theatres for like 2 years. And in reality, it only earned in the ballpark of $750 adjusted before getting thrown back in theatres in ’78, ’79 and ’82. So it makes for an impossible direct comparison, but in true first-run terms, TPM came about as close as JW looks like it will to JP now.
I’m not here saying every movie grosses as much as every previous movie. I’m saying historically, JW’s performance shouldn’t have been so unpredictable…we just tend to undervalue franchises without highly visible fandoms, and overvalue the impact mediocre 15 year old sequels have. Everyone automatically assumes Episode 7 box office will ignore the stench of the prequels…should have thought the same thing might happen here.
Agreed, though JP merchandizing was out for years and years at toy stores. Your comparison of it to Avatar didn’t seem to make sense. Still, a $208m opening was surprising even to Universal, and even if the movie opening to “just” $100m, as a lot of places predicted, that already indicated that there was interest in the movie, though not record-breaking interest.