Friday Estimates by Holdover Harry Klady
The Martian continues to hold well and will pass Gone Girl, last year’s big adult drama from Fox some time this week. It’s still not catching up with Gravity, the big adult drama of two years ago, but it seems sure to crack $200 million.
Goosebumps had a decent hold, given that Friday isn’t a big family day and that we are still a week from what should be a pre-Halloween bump.
The Last Witch Hunter is an oddball, as Vin Diesel has so little recent history in anything but Furious films. This one is just behind Riddick, although that was a sequel. And it is ahead of Babylon A.D., which totaled $22 million. The guy is a big star… when driving a car or mocking himself. That’s more than many actors ever get.
Bridge of Spies has a solid second Friday hold… nothing great, nothing upsetting. Modest success, box office-wise.
Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension is part of a short-window experiment by Paramount. It’s been set up as a no-can-lose proposition. If it gets to $16m total domestic, it will be in line with the drops the series has taken as it hits the sixth film. It will get close enough to blame the screen count. And we’ll soon hear about how it did in VOD… or not, if it doesn’t do significantly increased numbers from a normal post-theatrical VOD release.
Steve Jobs is a disappointment. But the journey to that fact has been a trip down the rabbit hole this weekend. The bad but now standard choice to project grosses based on tracking offered by studio sources who have a vested interest started the guessing at $19 million for the weekend. That was drawn down to $11 million when Friday east coast estimates – another now standard and utterly unreliable journalistic tool to project box office – got reported on Friday afternoon and the “Disappointment” shrieking started… more to cover butts than to accurately relate what was happening on the film. And now, pretty-much-actual Friday numbers that show that $7.5 million for the weekend will be a happy number relative to Friday at this point… so yes, an actual disappointment. Can the film recover? We’ll see. But the very strong numbers in exclusive suggest, comparatively, that this is a film with strong support in a few major cities and that Universal marketing just didn’t find the audience that was not anxious to see a Steve Jobs movie or a Danny Boyle movie or an Aaron Sorkin movie or a Michael Fassbender movie.
Painful per screen number on the Levinson. Murray emerged from his 90s fallow period seeming like one of the more discerning big-time movie stars, but now back to putting his face as either lead or key support on a string of half-baked, manipulative cinematic dogs. Rushmore and Lost in Translation seem like a long time ago indeed. Hell, if Rock the Kasbah is what he’s choosing, why not take a serious paycheck by top lining Ghostbusters 3? Who gives a crap?
Wow I was sure wrong about JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS. I need to stick to my demographic.
Also, do you think the cerebral nature of THE MARTIAN is the reason why it seems like it’ll finish far behind GRAVITY and INTERSTELLAR internationally?
Also, I haven’t seen PA4….but they didn’t bring back Katie Featherston? Seems like they really mailed it in, moreso than SAW at the end.
Although I’m sure awards buzz will push it over, there’s still an embarrassing possibility of Steve Jobs grossing less than the Ashton Kutcher version ($16.1 mil)
I remain convinced that the general public has no idea who Michael Fassbender is.
Agree with alynch. It seems that very few people actually know who Fassbender is. To many of the ones who do know him, he’s more famlous for the size of his junk than any of his movie roles, 12 YEARS and X MEN reboots included. As for the film itself, which I loved, someone at Universal marketing blew it. I recently posted a rave review and a stirring recommendation on FB, asking people to support the film and see it. Many of my friends, most of whom are in the entertainment industry, remarked that with the “bad” reviews and the already worked over subject matter, they had no intention of seeing it. When I replied it had received raves from the NY and LA Times (and had a high rating from Rotten Tomato), a few said they would try to see it. A couple of friends asked why I was posting about an old movie with Ashton Kutcher. Then there is the seemingly problematic presence of Seth Rogen in the film. Despite his truly excellent performance, he could be scaring away moviegoers as well. (Remember THE GUILT TRIP? Even devoted Streisand fans did not want to see Rogen in a serious film.) STEVE JOBS is a great film which deserves an audience. Not sure it’ll happen.
And it won’t happen because “Steve Jobs” received the Peter Travers Seal of Approval.
Earth to Hollywood: if you want to make money, avoid using Peter Travers pull quotes.
…or a lot of people thought, “I’ve already seen an Aaron Sorkin walk-and-talk about an on-the-spectrum tech genius with no personal skills.”
True on Fassbender. When we saw the Steve Jobs trailer last week, my wife asked me to remind her who he was. The answer that usually works fastest is “young Magneto.”
I thought that Ashton Kutcher was Steve Jobs? Is this a reboot? What is going on??
It’s always fascinating to me…plenty of movies get bad reviews but maybe, what, once or twice a year something pretty high profile with respected talent involved will come out and the reviews are so astonishingly bad it’s kind of entertaining to read them…Rock The Kasbah, wow, any critics hate that film at all? Like, do Levinson and Murray have a sort of awkward phone call after the reviews come out? “Ummm, yeah, this didn’t go so well…”
“Remember THE GUILT TRIP? Even devoted Streisand fans did not want to see Rogen in a serious film.”
Where on god’s green earth was “The Guilt Trip” sold as a serious film?!?
Nobody seems to be pointing out that Fassbender does not resemble Jobs at all. That could be a bigger reason for it’s failure than fassbenders lack of heat with jo blo moviegoer. Or it is a combo of both. Or it could be that people just did not care period and Christian Bale would not have brought much to the box office either. I guess we will never know
Steve Jobs just seems like one of those movies I can catch later. Has a TV movie feel. Yes, the crappiness of the Ashton Kutcher movie combined with the self-importance of both the subject Steve Jobs and writer Aaron Sorkin is also a little off-putting. I’m still gonna see it, but it didn’t scream must-see this weekend.
“Nobody seems to be pointing out that Fassbender does not resemble Jobs at all. That could be a bigger reason for it’s failure than fassbenders lack of heat with jo blo moviegoer.”
I highly doubt anyone decided not to go to the movie because he doesn’t look like Jobs.
I stopped going to Tim Burton films because Helena Bonham Carter looks nothing like Steve Jobs.
She looks more like Steve than Fassbender does.
At Etguild: “Also, do you think the cerebral nature of THE MARTIAN is the reason why it seems like it’ll finish far behind GRAVITY and INTERSTELLAR internationally? ”
Honest question, is this sarcasm? I really can’t tell, because I thought that Interstellar was as cerebral as you can get, and sometimes too much for it’s own good.