The Weekend Report

Estimates for DreamWorks Animation’s Home make it the best opening for the studio since moving to Fox for distribution, topping even last summer’s Oscar-winning Dragon sequel. Get Hard is the #3 opening of Will Ferrell’s live-action career, very similar to Blades of Glory. Radius/Weinstein throws It Follows into theatrical release without the threat of immediate VOD and it will become their #1 theatrical grosser ever, in just a few more days.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Home lands in the top third of DreamWorks Animation openings, right in the range of last summer’s How To Train Your Dragon 2, prompting a much-needed sigh of relief for DWA and Fox marketing. Get Hard opens to a number remarkably close to another Will Ferrell late-March opening, Blades of Fire, which also happens to be one of his Top Five career openers as a lead. And, finally, some life on the arthouse scene, as Radius’ decision to withdraw It Follows from the day-n-date VOD market will pay off with a $4m+ weekend that would not have happened with day-n-date. And Noah Baumbach’s While We Are Young is looking at a $40K+ per-screen on four.

The DVD Wrapup: Into the Woods, Unbroken, Errol Morris, Michael Almereyda, Mr. Bean and More

It’s no secret that the Disney empire owes a great debt of gratitude—if not any licensing fees or screen credits–to the Brothers Grimm, whose many wonderful stories the company has cherry-picked for movies, television shows, Broadway, amusement parks, plush toys and costumes. If proceeds from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs allowed Uncle Walt to create Disney Studios in Burbank, the success of Cinderella, 13 years later, probably saved it from financial ruin.

The Weekend Report

Insurgent, the second chapter in the YA series, led weekend viewing with an estimated $53.2 million. The potent bow left little more than scraps for the counter-programmers that debuted nationally. The muscle-flexing The Gunman flabbed with a $5 million launch while the faith-based Do You Believe? had a skeptical $3.8 million box office. Exclusive debuts ranged from an excellent $74,200 bow for Danny Collins for neophyte distrib Bleecker Street to a dismal $4,600 for Accidental Love, the remnant of David O. Russell’s 2008 production formally titled Nailed and now credited to the Smithee-esque Stephen Greene.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Insurgent brings us the second weekend in a row with a $20 million Friday. It’s not quite Cinderella but then, who is? Speaking of Cindy, she takes a reasonable hit, but nothing else in the Top 10 manages to gross even $2 million on Friday, including the opening day of The Gunman. At the arthouse, only Al Pacino as Danny Collins manages over $3k per screen on opening day.

The DVD Wrapup: Top Five, Soft Skin, Disorder, Mondovino, Troop Beverly Hills and more

If Chris Rock’s film career isn’t nearly as celebrated as those of Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy–standup giants before turning to feature films–it isn’t because the movies he’s in don’t make money. Most of them, especially the animated features to which he adds his distinctive voice, do well enough at the box-office to think that they probably did even better on DVD. It’s likely that Rock was responsible for selling as many tickets as Adam Sandler to the critically reviled, yet financially successful Grown Ups and Grown Ups 2.

Wilmington on Movies: The Salvation

The movie Western is a durable genre that has sometimes fallen on hard times. But that genre gets a powerful reworking from a couple of knowledgeable foreigners—not-so-gloomy Danes Kristian Levring (director-writer) and co-screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen—in the Go-Eastwood-Young-Man revenge shocker The Salvation.

Wilmington on Movies: Run All Night

Why doesn’t Liam Neeson make movies today like Schindler’s List or Michael Collins?

The Weekend Report

Cinderella broke through the glass (slipper) ceiling to command weekend viewing with an estimated $69.1 million. The venerable partygoer put a damper on the session’s only other wide newcomer, brooding thriller Run All Night, that came to ground with $11 million.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Cinderella slips into a comfortable $22.3 million, while a gloomy Liam Neeson only threatens $2.8 million with Run All Night.

The DVD Wrapup: Liberator, Watchers of the Sky, R100, Code Black, Red Road, Red Tent and more

Because American students have never been required to be proficient in the history of the Americas south of the Alamo, the vast region continues to be something of a mystery to us. After learning how the conquistadors demolished and/or converted the indigenous population and sent their treasures back to Spain to fill the depleted coffers of the monarchy, we were left only with misconceptions. It took the martyrdom of Che Guevara, fear of communism and outrages of fascism to rekindle our interest in the affairs of South and Central America. The scourge of cocaine, black-tar heroin and illegal immigrants added a sense of urgency heretofore unwarranted. Affordable airfares and improved tourist accommodations have done more to educate Americans about the new realities of life in the western hemisphere than all of the textbooks that ignored imperialism and CIA meddling in national politics.

The Weekend Report

Not exactly a happy Chappie but nonetheless the debut yarn of a “human” robot led session viewing with an estimated $13.1 million in an inclement frame. Two other new national releases bowed with Vince Vaughn vehile Unfinished Business posting dire results of $4.7 million, while The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel provided a ray of sunshine with $8.4 million.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Chappie leads crappy. But this will all change again next weekend as the fairy godmother sprinkles box office fairy dust around. Focus drops 55% vs last Friday, despite its fairly soft opening.

The hero of the weekend is The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which opened wide and will eclipse the best-ever weekend for the the original ($6.4 million) as a result.

Unfinished Business charts a big dip in the Vince Vaughn franchise. This will be his worst wide opening ever, which follows directly on the heels of the previous owner of that inauspicious honor, Delivery Man. Time to go rebuild in supporting roles, as he did with Mr. & Mrs. Smith.

The DVD Wrapup: Better Angels, Humbling, Tinker Bell, Blacula, Outlander and more

It’s difficult to imagination that any film starring Al Pacino, directed by Barry Levinson and adapted by Buck Henry, from a novel by Philip Roth, couldn’t find distribution outside the festival circuit and a couple of big-city art houses. Thirty years ago, such a thing would be unthinkable.

DVD Geek: Batman – The Complete Series

Under the mistaken assumption that it would teach me fiscal prudence, my parents limited my comic book purchases as a child to two magazines a month.  This was a wrenching dictum, because there were four or five that I enjoyed very much, and all of them came out monthly, but while I may have varied…

Wilmington on Movies: Fifty Shades of Grey

FIFTY SHADES OF GREY (Two Stars) U.S.: Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015 Based on the wildly popular bestseller by E. L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey takes what sometimes seems a teenager’s view of S&M, and turns it into erotic kitsch for so-called grownups. The movie, co-written and co-produced by James, asks us to play voyeur to a…

The Weekend Report

The audience enjoyed the scams of Focus led weekend viewing with an estimated $18.9 million. The session’s other wide newcomer The Lazarus Effect slotted fifth with $10.7 million.