By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Friday Estimates by Dr. Dredy
There were also three wide openings last year on this date (last year, the Friday was August 22); If I Stay, When the Game Stands Tall, and Frank Miller’s Sin City: A Dame to Kill For. Friday numbers, respectively, were $6.8m, $2.9m, $2.6m. Two of three of those numbers were significantly down this Friday. Of course, every movie is its own journey, but blaming the date won’t work. Blaming the holdover isn’t realistic either. The second Friday of Straight Outta Compton is delivering a bigger number than anyone expected before the opening last week, but it’s no second weekend monster, sucking all the air out of the market. It is more than last August’s fourth Friday of Guardians or the third Friday of TMNT. And M:I5 is still doing business. But no excuses. Probably not the best idea to throw three youth-appealing, R-rated films that weren’t strongly pre-sold into the market on the same day. Lionsgate was, no doubt, hoping for Zombieland… which opened in October against The Invention of Lying and Whip It.
Two exclusive release openings over $10k per-screen this weekend. Grandma, from Sony Classics, will do over $20k per on four. And Learning To Drive, from Broad Green, will do over $10k per on four.
The holdover for Straight Outta Compton was… fine. The film crosses $100 million domestic today. Clearly a big hit. Percentage of drop will fall into the 50s for the weekend. This weekend’s numbers… pretty much a non-story outside of the bigger context. [edit re: weekend tally]
“The film crosses $100 millions domestic today…Should be near $100m buy the end of the weekend”
Nice analysis… [ed.: corrected, thanks]