By Leonard Klady Klady@moviecitynews.com
The Weekend Report
Well, no one saw that coming … or did they?
It was the scrappy little sci-fi thriller The Purge that emURGEd as the weekend movie favorite with an estimated debut of $36.3 million. Meanwhile, its presumed competition The Internship mustered less than 50% of its opening to rank fourth overall with $18.2 million.
Exclusive newcomers saw a couple of very encouraging openings, including the nonfiction Dirty Wars that cleaned up $62,200 from four excursions. The much-updated Much Ado About Nothing arrived with $197,000 from five new Globes.
The session also featured considerable and effective expansion for alternative product. The East, Frances Ha, The Kings of Summer and Love is All You Need continued to add playdates and hold their own against the mainstream wave.
In the niches, the Hindi Yamla Pagla Deewana 2 had fair response of $221,000 at 100 venues and the Telugu Prema Katha Chitram grossed a very dull $32,300 from 20 screens. Québécois Sarah préfère la course ran toward $53,500 at 18 locations.
Weekend revenues amassed roughly $155 million in ticket sales for a 7% dip from seven days prior and a sharper 15% decline from 2012. A year back, the openings of Madagascar 3 and Prometheus held sway with respective bows of $60.3 million and $51.1 million.
Let’s start with the obvious … the buddy comedy as we have known it is over … at the very least until a new dynamic pairing comes along to bring it back to life.
The other notion that emerges from the weekend dust-up is that the infamous declining 18-25-year-old crowd is becoming less visually literate. The dominance of The Purge most certainly had less to do with state-of-the-art technology than a high-concept premise that tapped into a youthful zeitgeist. Studio exit demos revealed 56% of viewers were aged 25-years and younger. Conversely, The Internship had just 39% of the same age bracket. One could spit-ball that a generation accustomed to seeing moving images on smartphones just might not be tapped into pictorial nuance The other factor that just might have contributed to the rush to see The Purge was a marketing campaign that emphasized its underdog status. Considerable ink was spilled to get across its very modest budget versus its high chill factor. Historians can cite similar positioning for the likes of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity (with which it shares a producer) as templates to the current June surprise. The film had top end expectations of $25 million and an unquestionable aspect of its wider popularity was its unforeseen female appeal with women comprising 56% of opening weekend viewers.
The Internship had a 50-50 gender breakdown and all the signals for a $25 million debut. The commercial chemistry of Wilson-Vaughan of The Wedding Crashers provided goodwill but that wasn’t a sufficient hook for a younger crowd that anecdotally were tweeting Friday night that the picture lacked the audacity and crudeness that many anticipated.
Weekend (estimates) June 7 – 9, 2013 | |||||
Title | Distributor | Gross (avg) | % chng | Thtrs | Cume |
The Purge | Uni | 36.3 (14,310) | NEW | 2536 | 36.3 |
Fast & Furious 6 | Uni | 19.7 (5,230) | -44% | 3771 | 202.9 |
Now You See Me | Lionsgate | 19.1 (6,320) | -35% | 3020 | 61 |
The Internship | Fox | 18.2 (5,420) | NEW | 3366 | 18.2 |
Epic | Fox | 12.0 (3,350) | -28% | 3594 | 84.1 |
Star Trek Into Darkness | Par | 11.7 (3,720) | -30% | 3152 | 200.2 |
After Earth | Sony | 11.1 (3,270) | -60% | 3401 | 46.5 |
The Hangover Part III | WB | 7.4 (2,280) | -55% | 3242 | 102.4 |
Iron Man 3 | BV | 5.8 (2,010) | -31% | 2895 | 394.3 |
The Great Gatsby | WB | 4.2 (1,950) | -35% | 2160 | 136.2 |
Mud | Roadside | 1.2 (2,090) | 1% | 582 | 18.6 |
Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani | Eros | .84 (5,590) | -46% | 151 | 2.9 |
The Croods | Fox | .74 (1,790) | 11% | 414 | 181.7 |
Frances Ha | IFC | .57 (2,560) | 7% | 223 | 2.4 |
Before Midnight | Sony Classics | .55 (10,580) | 36% | 52 | 1.5 |
42 | WB | .37 (1,000) | -28% | 370 | 92.9 |
Oz The Great and Powerful | BV | .35 (1,090) | -16% | 322 | 233.6 |
Oblivion | Uni | .24 (820) | -38% | 298 | 88.5 |
The East | Searchlight | .24 (5,900) | 214% | 41 | 0.31 |
Yamla Pagla Dewana 2 | Viva | .22 (2,210) | NEW | 100 | 0.22 |
The King’s of Summer | CBS | .22 (4,930) | 268% | 44 | 0.29 |
Love is All You Need | Sony Classics | .22 (2,170) | 30% | 101 | 1 |
Much Ado About Nothing | Roadside | .20 (39,400) | NEW | 5 | 0.2 |
G.I. Joe: Retaliation | Par | .16 (690) | -41% | 236 | 121.9 |
What Maisie Knew | Millennium | .16 (1,300) | -17% | 122 | 0.78 |
Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films) | $149.40 | ||||
% Change (Last Year) | -15% | ||||
% Change (Last Week) | -7% | ||||
Also debuting/expanding | |||||
Stories We Tell | Roadside | .15 (2,100) | 29% | 70 | 0.73 |
Kon-Tiki | Weinstein Co. | .11 (1,480) | -21% | 75 | 1.1 |
Ephraim’s Rescue | Excel | 81,400 (3,540) | 1% | 23 | 0.23 |
Fill the Void | Sony Classics | 71,200 (5,480) | 72% | 13 | 0.25 |
Dirty Wars | IFC | 62,200 (15,550) | 4 | 0.06 | |
Sarah préfère la course | Seville | 53,500 (2,970) | 18 | 0.05 | |
Lost and Found in Armenia | Gigapix | 46,400 (5,160) | 9 | 0.05 | |
Hannah Arendt | Zeitgeist | 37,800 (18,900) | 21% | 2 | 0.11 |
Prema Katha Chitram | Blue Sky | 32,300 (1,620) | 20 | 0.03 | |
Wish You Were Here | eOne | 25,700 (2,340) | 11 | 0.03 | |
Gibsonburg | Xcelerate | 11,900 (500) | 24 | 0.01 | |
Tiger Eyes | FreeStyle | 10,100 (590) | 17 | 0.01 | |
Violet & Daisy | Cinedgm | 9,700 (570) | 17 | 0.01 | |
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet | Kino | 6,750 (3,380) | 2 | 0.01 | |
The Prey | Cohen Media | 5,800 (1,160) | 5 | 0.01 | |
Evocateur: Morton Downey Jr. Story | Magnolia | 5,100 (1,020) | 5 | 0.01 | |
Hey Bartender | 4th Row | 3,900 (3,900) | 1 | 0.01 | |
Domestic Market Share (Jan. 1 – June 6, 2013) | |||||
Distributor (releases) | Box Office (millions) | Market Share | |||
Buena Vista (7) | 698.2 | 16.40% | |||
Universal (9) | 628.5 | 14.80% | |||
Warner Bros. (13) | 586.6 | 13.80% | |||
Paramount (11) | 484.1 | 11.40% | |||
20th Century Fox (8) | 422.1 | 9.90% | |||
Weinstein Co. (11) | 325.2 | 7.60% | |||
Lionsgate (16) | 311.7 | 7.30% | |||
Sony (7) | 247.4 | 5.80% | |||
FilmDistrict (5) | 119.1 | 2.80% | |||
Relativity (3) | 105.9 | 2.50% | |||
Open Road (4) | 93.9 | 2.20% | |||
Focus (6) | 53.3 | 1.20% | |||
eOne/Alliance (13) | 23.2 | 0.60% | |||
Roadside Attractions (3) | 20.8 | 0.50% | |||
Sony Classics (11) | 20.5 | 0.50% | |||
Other * (148) | 114.1 | 2.70% | |||
4254.6 | 100% | ||||
* none greater than 0.45% | |||||
Top Limited Releases (Jan. 1 – June 5, 2013) | |||||
Title | Distributor | Box Office | |||
The Impossible * | Lions Gate | 18,499,801 | |||
Quartet | Weinstein Co. | 18,267,756 | |||
Mud | Roadside Attractions | 17,390,687 | |||
Amour * | Sony Classics | 6,503,477 | |||
The Company You Keep | Sony Classics/eOne | 4,909,506 | |||
Hyde Park on Hudson * | Focus | 4,486,248 | |||
Emperor | Roadside Attractions | 3,343,986 | |||
Stand Up Guys | Lionsgate | 3,310,031 | |||
Top Gun 3D (reissue) | Par | 3,103,003 | |||
Hubble 3D * | IMAX | 2,924,210 | |||
Filly Brown | Lions Gate | 2,864,583 | |||
Home Run | IDP | 2,856,714 | |||
The Gatekeepers | Sony Classics | 2,405,971 | |||
No | Sony Classics | 2,333,332 | |||
Trance | Fox Searchlight | 2,322,593 | |||
The Sapphires | Weinstein Co. | 2,236,210 | |||
To the Arctic | WB | 2,200,343 | |||
2013 Oscar Nominated Shorts | Magnolia | 2,142,342 | |||
Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani | Eros | 2,052,425 | |||
Anna Karenina * | Focus | 2,021,250 | |||
* does not include 2012 box office |
Yes, I agree with you, and also a comparison with how much the predicted income was.