Weekend Estimates by Not A Bad Weekend Klady
Split holds strong and will be Jason Blum’s second franchise (wasn’t one… is now) to crack $100m domestic. A Dog’s Purpose did well… but didn’t explode with families on Saturday, muting the celebration a smidge. Hidden Figures is holding like a champ, passing $100m, though it is still chasing La La Land, which is $2.5m ahead. Resident Evil: The (Alleged) Final Chapter had, by a good bit, the worst opening of the series… but the international is where the money is and Sony knew that going in. Gold barely opened. CBS and Lionsgate really pushed hard for Patriots Day, but haven’t found the hook, even for the Peter Berg audience. The Salesman leads at arthouses, likely to open well before Trump’s Muslim ban, but surely buoyed by Farhadi’s inability to come to The Oscars, scoring $22,900 per screen.
There’s not a whole lot more to dig into here than in the brief above. Was A Dog’s Purpose hurt by the bad publicity drummed up by TMZ and PETA? Maybe. A little. But not a lot. The only real argument that it had any effect at all is if you believe it was going to blow up surprisingly large because of the dog-loving audience. That didn’t happen. But was it going to happen either way? I have no idea.
Jason Blum has created (with others) a cash-cow genre for studios large and small, but Split looks like it will be his biggest success, especially in a mature segment. His top domestic grosser is $108m and that is sure to be cracked by Split by post-Super Bowl weekend.
xXx: The Return of Xander Cage is another nail in the coffin of studios chasing old IP of mediocre value.
Toni Erdmann was considered the likely Oscar winner for foreign language. But The Salesman is now looking like it might be the rarest of Academy events… a straight-up political vote in defiance of Donald Trump.
So how much did the controversy over how the dogs were treated affect A Dog’s Purpose’s box office?
Where does Lionsgate go from here after the wildly mixed results of their experiment in prestige filmmaking and distribution in 2016? LA LA LAND, which reaped huge rewards from nominations overseas this weekend, has a clear path to $300 million worldwide (maybe much more), and will plainly be the most profitable film that the company has ever released outside of THG/TWILIGHT.
On the other hand, Hacksaw Ridge is probably a minor loser, and limited exposure or not, they can’t be happy with the Peter Berg movies.
I can’t believe SPLIT is going to be Blum’s high water mark, but Blumhouse certainly needed it with no good non-sequel results last year. They are branching out big time now…only 1 of their next 4 releases is horror.
@ Etguild, IMDB list Hacksaw Ridge’s budget at $40m. Currently at $163m WW, I don’t think its a loser at all.
This story claims A Dog’s Purpose had been tracking to open with $24 million before the video was released. http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/weekend-box-office-resident-evil-rakes-1m-a-dogs-purpose-fetches-455k-thursday-969208
@Bulldog, the Chinese inflation is surprisingly strong with this one (it almost matched the gross here in China…yes watching Japanese die is fun I guess), but I had the budget pegged at $65 for some reason…so a breakeven proposition perhaps. I’m assuming they were hoping for FURY numbers though…an extra $50 million with less reliance on China.
Etguild, what’s “wildly mixed” about Lionsgate spending probably $80 million combined on Hacksaw Ridge and La La Land, probably making more $450 million worldwide combined and with BOTH films getting Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor nominations?? And ONE of them was directed by Mel Gibson who actually went out and PROMOTED the film as well? That’s called SUCCESS. 😉
Hacksaw is going to end up being just as profitable as Fury but with more awards and possibly more home/BluRay/streaming sales – not sure what you’re reading that says otherwise. Was ANY ONE expecting this film to break out and be a HUGE blockbuster?
Geoff, adjusted for China it’s $206 million on $68 million (with a higher domestic take) vs. $133 million on $40. Not the same, though it’s a nice sentiment to think Lionsgate/CBS can compare to Sony on the home market.
Again, I’m not targeting HACKSAW here as much as the Berg films, which are (again “limited exposure” on LGF’s part or not) borderlne disasters.
“Again, I’m not targeting HACKSAW here as much as the Berg films, which are (again “limited exposure” on LGF’s part or not) borderlne disasters.”
Ok my bad Etguild – I missed your mention of the Berg films, yes those ARE disasters! Deepwater Horizon was quoted at about $150 million production budget until release, then it was $110 million – still at less than $120 million worldwide, that’s a HUGE money-loser. Patriot’s Day is going to top out at around $50 million worldwide right around ITS production cost – honestly can Peter Berg just ADMIT that he’s NOT Michael Mann (more like the white Antoine Fuqua already) and stick to making action films?
I really liked both, so I find it sad, but recent historical movies, with two notable exceptions (ZD30 and SNIPER) don’t make money.
I want to see “The White Antoine Fuqua” emblazoned on Peter Berg’s business cards.
That is classic!
The MOONLIGHT vs. THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT race is back on. So is MANCHESTER vs. SPOTLIGHT.
I was going to see Patriots Day this weekend since the reviews for Rings and Space Between Us are so bad, but it’s already out of all the theaters near me.