A Weekend Flop at the Box Office
It was a brutal weekend at the box office with four new films barely mustering $20 million between them and none breaking in to the top three spots. With that, The Martian regained the top spot in its fourth week earning an estimated $15.9 million and bringing its domestic total to $166.4 million. The film bumped the previous week’s leader Goosebumps into second place. That film earned $15.5 million to bring its domestic total to $43.7 million after two weeks. In third was Bridge of Spies which earned $11.4 million to bring its domestic total to $32.6 million after two weeks.
Now, on to the stinkers from the weekend.
The Last Witch Hunter showed that actor Vin Diesel may have issues drawing an audience when cars aren’t involved. The film came in fourth and earned just $10.8 million. A disappointment no matter how it’s spun. The Paranormal Activity franchise opened a new film that earned $8.2 million. Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension is the sixth film in the series and while the first film opened to much less, the newest film opened with over a $10 million difference between it and the other films of the franchise. Now, it also opened in half the theaters because the film will go to video on demand sooner than other films in a deal set up, and with a budget in the teens for millions, the film easily make its money back. Rock the Kasbah was brutalized in reviews with some of the lowest percentages of the year on Rotten Tomatoes. The film earned just $1.5 million at the box office which comes to $750 per theater.
That $750 per theater isn’t the worst performance though. Jem and the Holograms earned just $1.32 million which comes out to $547 per theater. The film has a reported budget of just $5 million, so it will likely make a profit, but that’s a brutal opening for what I’m sure was hoped to be a franchise. I had noticed advertising for the film was rather weak building up to it, which led me to believe that confidence wasn’t there. The film has the fourth worst opening in very wide releases, and 15th in per-theater averages adjusted. It was the worst opening for a film opening in more than 2,400 theaters. Still with a $5 million budget, it’s not all that bad and can easily be spun. The most likely scenario is decision makers will walk away with the wrong lessons from the film’s performance.
In other geeky films, Inside Out continues to earn adding $270,000 to its total, Ant-Man also earned $230,000.
Domestic
- Jurassic World – $651.52 million
- Avengers: Age of Ultron – $459.01 million
- Inside Out – $355.32 million
- Furious 7 – $351.03 million
- Minions – $334.60 million
Worldwide
- Jurassic World – $1.6655 billion
- Furious 7 – $1.5117 billion
- Avengers: Age of Ultron – $1.4028 billion
- Minions – $1.1540 billion
- Inside Out – $842.2 million
Goosebumps did just enough to take first place this past weekend at the box-office earning an estimated $23.5 million. The previous champ of the past two weekends, The Martian, was in second adding an estimated $21.5 million.
Pan, the latest spin on the Peter Pan story, tanked this weekend as the film estimated to have earned just $15.5 million over the weekend.
The Martian took the top spot at the box-office, earning $55 million. That’s just shy of the record for October which was $55.7 million. The film also earned an “A” CinemaScore, which means the film should do well for some time.
Hotel Transylvania 2 has broken a September record and earned an estimated $47.5 million this past weekend. The first film opened two years ago, and was the previous record holder. This one beat that by $5 million.
The Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials won this past weekend’s box-office, earning an estimated $30.3 million. That’s really close to the first film’s opening weekend. This film earned a “B+” CinemaScore, while the first film earned an “A-“.
Two new films took the top two spots this weekend. The Perfect Guy was the top of the box-office with $26.7 million, and The Visit was in second with $25.9 million. Last week’s top spot, War Room, dropped to third with $7.4 million.
Three weeks at the top of the box-office was it for Straight Outta Compton, which fell to second place in its fourth week out adding an estimated $8.85 million to its total. It was bumped off by the faith-based film War Room, which earned $9.35 million in its second week. Faith-based films tend to have a strong grassroots marketing program, so it’s not surprising it did so well, but a first place finish is.
The competition was rather week, which had Straight Outta Compton easily sail to keep first place at the weekend box-office. The film has been in first place for three weeks in a row, in what shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. It was a slow weekend though with an estimated $68.8 million earned by the top 12 films, and that’s 22% lower than last year’s $88.2 million, and even that was an off year.