By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com
Friday Estimates by Still Snipin’ Klady
On my way to a family-style screening of Sponge Out of Water, which should probably have been the Secret Screening at Sundance, given the deep spiritual journey that an anthropomorphic sponge without its life-sustaining surroundings suggests. Anyway… crap box office weekend, so…
American Sniper has a normal drop… for a change. The film hit $200 million in wide release on its 11th day of expansion ($3.42m in exclusive until then), making its run comparable to the last Rings movie and Despicable Me 2 on that basis. Because of the long limited release and the Wednesday opening of The Passion of the Christ, direct comparisons are iffy. So, 3rd Friday vs 3rd Friday, Sniper did $2 million more than Passion on the day, but is about $13 million behind Passion overall. Both films showed, in their early weeks, a tendency to a huge Saturday bump. If that trend continues as it has been for Sniper, it will pass $250 million by a few million by the end of this weekend… and still be about $11 million behind The Passion. But with numbers like these, there is nothing but good news.
The openings for newcomers… all suck. One of the hot gimmicks these days is promoting the low budget for movies like Project Almanac ($12m), making an $8m opening seem okay, if not good. It still costs money to sell these things. The wolf is not hanging around Paramount’s (or any studio’s) door because of these projects. It’s really a numbers game. If they lose $50 million on five of these that flop and the sixth is a hit, there is still a fortune to be made.
For a TV show that is now being highlighted in IMAX, a near-$2 million weekend for “Game of Thrones” is impressive. Less so in the normal context. $250k for the weekend for Oscar-nominated shorts is also a nice haul, considering the general lack of commercial interest in shorts and the fractured indie theatrical marketplace. Oscar-nominee Timbuktu leads the indie scene with near $9k per screen for the weekend.
GIRLHOOD deserved better.
Yeah, the amount of flops is definitely eyebrow raising this month. Six write-offs in a three week period, with two more to come next weekend.
No FÉLIX ET MEIRA numbers?
Lex, how was THE LOFT? I thought it was boring, empty and misogynistic! (not a term I usually throw around lightly)
And I was kind of excited for it too, so….
I don’t think that the Oscar Shorts programs should have their box office results combined. The animated, live action, and documentary programs are three different shows, each separately ticketed.
As I said in my review of The Loft: Imagine what might have happened in The Apartment had Jack Lemmon NOT foiled Shirley MacLaine’s suicide attempt.