Weekend Estimates by Bad Kladys
As indicated by opening day, Jason Bourne arrives right in between the domestic openings of the last two Bourne films… not the dream, but hardly a surprise after a 9-year layoff for DaGrass. Bad Moms opens over $20 million, putting nascent STX right where they want to be. Nerve brings in just enough to be frustrating to struggling Lionsgate. And in arthouse, another really strong per-screen weekend for Don’t Look Twice, as well as Indignation and Equity… plus nice numbers for Miss Sharon Jones!, the Bosch doc, and Gleason.
Jason Bourne also got off to franchise-best $50 million international in 46 markets… which suggests that this franchise is reliable as a $300m – $350m worldwide grosser with Damon in the lead. It’s not going to go crazy and break out like Fast & Furious all of a sudden. But if U is happy with that number, they can probably go in and get it a few more times.
Bad Moms is a big deal for STX. The opening is the second best by a non-major this year-to-date (below only LGF’s The Divergent Series: Allegiant). The problem going forward for STX is that the rest of their 2016 looks a lot more like what came before this hit, and it’s not likely we will see as commercial a film from them again this year. The films may be profitable, but niche product and tough release dates are not in their favor. They need to pick a niche to work hard while they do other genre stuff. Can you build a studio in 2016 on being The Home Of Female Comedy? Maybe so. (I’d probably resist the urge, however, to rename The Edge of Seventeen – although a bad title and too evocative for arthousers of the Sundance coming of age beloved – “Bad Teens.”)
Nerve is a head-scratcher. A $15 million 5-day isn’t a horror show… but it’s not great. Lionsgate threw expensive standees, Virtual Reality games, Emma Roberts in her underwear, and everything else they could thing of… but in the end, they got Ms. Roberts’ best opener as a sold-on-her lead. That would be the target, right? And Dave Franco is still “fetch” as a box office star. So they did okay, given that pedigree. But… not much of an opening. Yet… definitely could have been worse. The film was made by the Catfish and Paranormal 3/4 guys, so I would guess that it was very cheap. So there is that. (shrug)
Who knew that this would be the Wild West in arthouse land? We have six films with a per-screen over $9k, from the still-huge $33k per-screen of Don’t Think Twice to the $9,170 on the powerful ALS love story, Gleason. In between, high per-screen to low, Indignation, Equity, Hieronymus Bosch: Touched by the Devil, and Miss Sharon Jones!. And you have the full range of players in this group as well, from the most established, Sony Classics, to Summit releasing via Roadside Attractions to tiny specialized Kino to ambitious distributor on the rise The Film Arcade. Then the streamer/cable net group has Amazon through Open Road behind Gleason and Starz taking out its made-for-cable Miss Jones. Interesting times.
Woody Allen has had four hits outside of his normal gross range since Match Point kind of rebooted him in 2005 via DreamWorks. Two of the hits – including his biggest, Midnight in Paris – were released by Sony Classics. The fourth of this group was Weinstein-driven Vicky Cristina Barcelona. But most of his career has been under $20 million domestic and really, $15m and under. Anyway… hard to get a read on where Café Society is headed. If you go by recent expansions, it is headed to the low-to-mid teens, likely between Magic in the Moonlight and To Rome With Love. The tricky part is that one hit $10 million in 5 weeks and the other in 10. Patience…
Really good horror drop for Lights Out via WB… and really bad animation drop for Ice Age: Collision Course, which passed $250 million worldwide this weekend in spite of crap business in the U.S.
Will Fox make another Ice Age because of international or will the domestic results stop them?
Nerve’s problem was that it really only attracted teen girls and the storyline prevented it from going outside that niche. Don’t expect great legs either.
Bad Moms is no Bridesmaids but it will be STX’s top earner by the end of next weekend. They should stick to mid-budget comedies and low budget horror films as their biggest hits have been The Gift (thriller), The Boy (horror), and now Bad Moms. Edge of 17 looks like a bomb, it looks more like a direct to VOD title than something that should get a theatrical release. The Duff numbers are probably the best case scenario but I doubt it gets even that high.
The Space Between Us is a bomb waiting to happen. The plot is ridiculous and it has no starpower that matters to its target audience (Sorry Gary). Desierto is another dud. Probably under 10M total if it gets a wide release.
Bye Bye Man cost peanuts (under 4M) so if it does The Boy numbers STX would have to be ecstatic. Anything over 20M total would be a win with its budget.
Moving on, the takeaway from this summer is that horror is your best bet. Every horror release is going to be very profitable for their studio with WB in particular being huge winners with two uber-profitable releases. Even a miss in the horror genre will likely break even if the budget is low enough.
Lionsgate lost its way when they got away from being the defacto horror studio. They should try and get back to that if they don’t want to file for bankruptcy in the not too distant future.
Interested to see whether BOURNE can make half as much as the lowest of the seven, soon to be eight Mega-Movies this year…$165 million is 50% of what BvS made, and no film has topped $155 million. Rothman’s statement earlier this summer about floors/ceilings is becoming eerie.
Speaking of that, the record for most $300 million domestic grossers in a year is toast on Tuesday or Wednesday. Reminder: it’s still summer.
Lionsgate has Blair Witch in early September. That could prop them up.
Not sure it will. Was anyone really asking for a sequel to Blair Witch? Today’s teens weren’t even born when the original came out, and so many movies since have ripped off its aesthetic that I imagine it will be seen as been-there-done-that.
Yea, “prop up” is probably too strong a phrase. I would imagine it didn’t cost much. If it does anything close to Lights Out numbers that would be a win. I don’t know the budget and can’t parse numbers as well as Dave and some others here. But in my gut I would imagine $30 million is doable, although I bet LG wants more based on the name recognition.
That’s a dead spot. traditionally, for moviegoing isn’t it? BW will get the “Geek $7 Million” (or whatever the phrase was Dave used to use). It has to go beyond that but for what little it’s worth the mood is mostly positive among horror geeks, like me. If people like it it could have some legs going to October horror time.
Or it could completely misfire. I can see that too.
Off topic; Finally saw Midnight Express last night, and really enjoyed it. I like how it didn’t over-explain itself and left a lot of mystery behind. Performances were great. I love Michael Shannon. I want to go back and watch Take Shelter again now.
Midnight Special. Midnight Express is a very different movie. 😉
A remake of Midnight Express with Michael Shannon in the John Hurt role, Logan Lerman as Billy Hayes, Chris Evans with 20 lbs on him in the Randy Quaid role, and Donald Trump as The Jailer.
HAHA! Sorry. Yea…..Midnight Special. I knew what I was talking about at least. I was telling my daughter about the movie today and I kept saying Midnight Express then too.
I would watch that movie Dave proposes.
I miss Brad Davis.
Wasn’t there already a BLAIR WITCH 2 some years back?