Weekend Estimates by Deeply Peculiar Klady
Three new 3000+ screen releases arrive to tepid audience interest. The best performer of the trio was the latest Tim Burton, at the bottom of his list of 2000+ screen non-animated openers. An action-drama about the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster just hit the $20 million bar. And a long-shelved release from the attempting-to-come-back Relativity barely registers.
Not a ton more to say about this weekend.
I don’t recall the last time three 3000+ screen movies opened on one weekend, I am a fan of two of the directors, and I didn’t see any of them before release. It’s a bad idea to personalize these things to come up with a general idea of how studios feel about their releases, but the studios for both of the higher grossers in the group have been all over me about other movies they are soon to release… and crickets on these two.
I’m not sure there was any more money than this in Deepwater Horizon. It’s not a religious or military play. And how many people really want to relive that moment?
Miss Peregrine? I loved their outdoor/wild-posting campaign. But the ad campaign felt like, “Here’s the premise… we don’t want to tell you anything remotely substantive about the story.” I don’t want whole stories in ads, but is it a coming of age? Are they under attack? Where is this film headed? No idea. I love Tim Burton and this still never became a priority for me, a primed, ready audience member.
Masterminds? Didn’t look good 18 months ago. Still looks dumb. But Ryan Kavanaugh has tweeted his way to me not really wanting to ever support a Relativity movie ever again. So, no big whoop. He has made a ton of schlock. A couple okay genre pictures. But as the face of the company, he seems invested in letting as many people as possible know that he is not only an extremist, but that has contempt for his potential audience.
Bleecker Street has another very good movie but that is is also a hard sell in Denial. It might have been easier if they had done more than dropped it at Toronto and walked away. They have a small problem in that its star is prepping for a tough stage show in NY and doesn’t have loose time. So you move the date. Still, solid numbers on five screens with a solid reach-out to the Jewish community. This is a timely movie, which happens to have the Jewish holocaust as its background.
Also opening with strong numbers on limited screens (four) is Andrea Arnold’s American Honey, an A24 special. Arnold is one of our great filmmakers who is extremely camera-shy.
Music Box’s A Man Called Ove, a movie I love and think audiences will adore, opened slowly. Music Box has overcome their small marketing budgets with slow, steady growth before. I still think this one could get nominated (and potentially win) the Oscar for Foreign Language. But it needs to be seen.
According to Netflix, “Ove” is being released on DVD next month.
Doesn’t give it a lot of time to generate WOM in theaters and become the type of slow-burning arthouse sleeper it might have been once upon a time.
NO MANCHES FRIDA is on track to become the 2nd highest-grossing foreign language film of the past 10 years (!!!). #1 is INSTRUCTIONS NOT INCLUDED. Why doesn’t Lionsgate do more than one of these every 12-18 months?
Damn Don’t Breathe is approaching $90 million. That’s impressive. Would never have guessed it would make that much, especially since I don’t think it’s very good.
The Magnificent Seven made for a decent matinee on a rainy day. It’s too long and gets off to a pretty slow start in order to showcase Pratt. It also doesn’t have a very memorable villain. But for the most part I was engaged if not overly impressed. Amusing that Haley Bennett looks like a college girl in a sexy Halloween costume. It also might be the most violent PG-13 movie ever. Just a ridiculous amount of gunfire and stabbings and beatings. Meanwhile Don’t Think Twice is R for a single F-word?
Saw a couple flicks at the local film fest over the weekend. Under the Shadows is a fantastic horror flick, and Orange Sunshine is a solid doc. Other than a vague familiarity with Timothy Leary I didn’t really know anything about The Brotherhood of Eternal Love.
‘Ice Age: Collision Course’ only made US$63 million in US but it reached US$403.3 worldwide. This franchise is fading but not at “Divergent’s” speed.
What on earth is Masterminds? Heard nothing about it.
Also Deepwater? No one cares dude.
I’m just happy to never have to see another trailer for Deepwater Horizon. That thing was EVERYWHERE.
Wow.
“Katwe” had a lower PSA than bomb-of-the-week “Masterminds,” and on 1,800 less screens.
Don’t think Disney will be expanding it further anytime soon.
And I’m guessing they’ve already reallocated the money set aside for its awards campaign.
I bet the 1996 Miramax could have turned it into the type of slow-burning hit that ran for months in arthouses.
DP, one big issue with “Peculiar” is it is all of those things and more — there’s also a grandfather/grandson thing, a weird parenting thing and a romance. The movie is also the really bad combo of a non-pre-sold “original” that feels instantly familiar because it’s like every other movie in Burton’s wheelhouse. I honestly think the studio got as much money out of this loser as they could have.
Both of my teen daughters have read the Peregrine books and neither was interested in the movie. One of them is even a big Tim Burton fan. No interest. I don’t know what that says. I love Burton, too, and couldn’t care less.
Teaser for latest Pirates of the Caribean movie is out… and no shot of it’s start Johnny Depp is in it.
Think that’s a small HINT Disney’s nervous about that one (domestically speaking, international-wise those films as bad as they are minted).
Deepwater Horizon was really good. Just a solid, straightforward takes-place-over-one-day drama where the first half is meeting everybody and setting it up, and the second half is people fighting for survival on the Towering Inferno at sea. Loved Kurt Russell here.
Movies I Want to See But Don’t Want to See the Trailer for Anymore:
The Accountant
Jack Reacher 2
Hacksaw Ridge
Movies I Don’t Want to See and I’m Sick of the Trailer Too:
Bad Santa 2
You forgot “Inferno” in the “Movies I Don’t Want to See and I’m Sick of the Trailer Too” category, John.
KATWE is a movie about a female African chess whiz. In what universe would that ever break out of the arthouse (pardon my language) ghetto? Even chess movies with white people don’t sell tickets.