By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Friday Estimates by InterHero Len
So… another weekend in which the #1 movie is not the #1 movie on each day of the weekend. Happened last weekend too. Then this week, Nightcrawler “won” Monday and Tuesday, the non-digital limited launch of Interstellar “won” Wednesday, Fury “won” Thursday and now, Interstellar‘s expansion “wins” Friday while Big Hero 6 will surely “win” Saturday and Sunday.
Being #1 really is meaningless aside from its marketing value. And that’s not even taking in the reality of international box office domination into account. If you are reading this, you know my routine on this… but still… demand better from your “box office analysts.” Not having a sophisticated view of box office in 2014 is an abuse of readers, wholly separate from whether people agree on the ultimate meaning of the numbers.
Anyway… strong starts, but not overwhelming starts for both Interstellar and Big Hero 6.
The 10 best launches in November are all after the first weekend of November. The five best openings on the first weekend of November are 4 animated films, ranging from $49 million to $70.5 million. The top live-action opening on the first weekend of November is also the only one to open to more than $45 million is The Matrix Revolutions, with $48.5 million. The #2 in this category is American Gangster with $43.6 million.
So Big Hero 6 has started right between the animated Ralph and Monsters. Figure mid-50s.
Interstellar will surely pass Gangster, but will probably be a little short of Matrix 3 (which by the way, siphoned off $35m of its opening weekend on Wed-Thurs)… but close. Could be anywhere $46m – $49m. It would not be surprising at all for the estimate tomorrow to be over $49 million and the “actual” to be $48m or less. And, of course, this film will have much better legs than Matrix 3. Also, for the record, this opening is about 23% off of the summer opening of Inception.
No one else will see $7 million this weekend.
Many of the Friday estimates are seeming better than they otherwise would because of Halloween last Friday.
Ouija continues to hold unexpectedly well. Can you say, “girls”? 44% is one of the bigger drops on the board… but it’s horror… in its third weekend.
Gone Girl has gone into second run, boosting their take Friday-vs-last-Friday by 2% yesterday and probably something similar tomorrow.
Nightcrawler had a pretty good Friday after opening drop, even with Interstellar coming in strong. High 30s drop is where this will probably land, which is actually quite good.
Fury is the silent hit of the season. The film is over $100m worldwide already and will pass the worldwide on Moneyball by the end of the weekend… domestic in a few weeks.
Nice hold for St. Vincent.
In the limited release market, Focus’ The Theory of Everything will do mid-30ks per-screen on 5 this weekend. Solid, but not overwhelming.
Birdman is up to 462 screens and looking at around $4k per for the weekend.
Nothing exciting for well-loved films Actress and National Gallery.