3rd UPDATE, Friday 11:20PM: Never before in recent memory have so many movies bombed in a given weekend at the box office. With Monster Trucks, Sleepless, Silence and Live By Night dead, and Patriots Day underperforming, this MLK weekend completely blows away the disasters seen during the Oct. 23-25 weekend of 2015 when four titles tanked: The Last Witch Hunter, Jem and the Holograms, Rock the Kasbah and Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension.
Typically in prior MLK weekends, there’s one big tentpole that rules them all, i.e. American Sniper or Ride Along.
But this year, MLK has turned into a dumping ground for adult scale movies sans awards traction, plus some poor counterprogramming plays. All in, it’s largely a cannibalistic marketplace technically counting six wide entries; three of them that busted wide.
Some lackluster films like Sleepless and Monster Trucks are scheduled here because this is the last big moviegoing weekend before Presidents Day where studios can pull the most amount of dollars out of moviegoers’ pockets.
On the other hand, many movies that attempted to be awards contenders are scheduled here because it’s about a week-and-a-half before Oscar noms, and the most ideal distribution plan in hindsight is to play into that potential heat. Essentially, for those titles, if you haven’t accumulated any awards season goodwill or great reviews already, you’re just dead.
So, one by one, let’s go through some of this weekend’s openers and most notable expansions and see what’s faring well and what’s not:
Hidden Figures (Fox) It’s holding on to No. 1 with an estimated $24.4M four-day, and over three-days it’s only -19% from its wide break a week ago. It’s a no brainer why this film is excelling: A CinemaScore, 93% certified fresh Rotten Tomatoes rating, and a string of recent noms including best PGA feature, WGA adapted screen, SAG best ensemble and supporting actress for Octavia Spencer. Fox further played into the spirit of MLK weekend by taking Hidden Figures even wider than last weekend with 815 more runs for a total of 3,286.
Patriots Day (CBS/Lionsgate) With a four-day of $14.6M in 5th place, the second collaboration of director Peter Berg and star Mark Wahlberg follows their lackluster Deepwater Horizon ($20.2M opening, $61.4M) and is nothing to boast about. Right, now, it’s a complete upset considering that many box office analysts thought this movie had a shot at No. 1 with a $20M-plus four-day juiced by some of the flyover state American Sniper crowd (through I hear NRG had Patriots Day much lower between $16M-$18M in its pre-weekend forecasts).
Two things are currently hurting the movie: The pic has had zero awards momentum with key orgs (except for being one of the National Board of Review’s top titles), and some feel as though audiences aren’t ready to relive the tragedy that occurred at the Boston Marathon less than four years ago, despite the fact that the film was sold on its human emotional elements. World Trade Center and United 93 were released five years following 9/11, but there’s high stakes in whether these real-life dramas will work on the big screen. While World Trade Center opened to $18.7M and finaled at $70.3M stateside (that’s when Nicolas Cage opened movies), United 93 with its lack of stars fizzled with $11.5M FSS, $31.5M final.
One thing that should be mentioned about Patriots Day is that it may not see as much red ink as Deepwater because it cost $40M after incentives, 63% less than that $110M action-drama before P&A. Most of the media spend here come from spots on CBS. Even with all that value added, Patriots Day still trails the spends by Live By Night and Monster Trucks says one-well-placed film media buyer. Pic’s A+ CinemaScore –the second in 2017 after Hidden Figures–carries a multiple of 4.8, which means that based off its estimated 3-day of $12.3M, Patriots Day could get to just under $60M. While we wrote about the hearty limited play of Patriots Day in New York, Los Angeles, and Boston, non-Lionsgate distribution sources tell us that most of that business was fueled by the latter city, logically since it’s the pic’s setting.
Except for the 35-49 crowd who gave Patriots Day an A, the Peter Berg-directed movie earned an A+ in every category – but again, where is this movie being polled? Are they polling just in Massachusetts and New England theaters where audiences will applauds this film? This needs to be considered. 84% of the audience came out for the subject matter (A+), while 30% bought tickets because they’re Wahlberg fans (A+).
Reports RelishMix, “What’s notable is simply how controversial these pictures are, much like Deepwater, by the way. There are numerous Facebook posts from USA Today and other reputable sources asking about the fact checking, the attention to detail and whether this story needed to be told this way.”
La La Land: As Patriots Day nosedives this weekend, Lionsgate breaks even this weekend with Damien Chazelle’s original musical which is looking at its highest weekend of $16.6M in third place. While Patriots Day isn’t anything to wave a flag about, La La Land is the more popular choice with its collection of seven Golden Globes, SAG noms for leads Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, DGA and WGA noms for Damien Chazelle, and a PGA best feature nod. Lionsgate is wisely expanding right into and capitalizing on this heat, widening its theater count, but not too wide, from 1,515 sites to 1,848. This is how great Weinstein Co. titles like Silver Linings Playbook and The King’s Speech, by keeping the titles wide, but not oversaturated, so that there’s lingering demand in pockets around the country as La La Land dances into the Oscar nominations.
The Bye Bye Man A well-placed source to the production told me today that this movie didn’t cost $7.4M per studio sources, rather $12M which changes the whole dynamic a bit on how profitable it is down the road. On the bright side, it’s beating its tracking with a $14.1M in 4th four-day versus the $10M-$11M where many thought it would rest. Some attribute this goosed opening to Bye Bye Man’s Friday the 13th release date, which some fans on social have observed per RelishMix. “Convo is pretty typical for a horror film,” said the social monitor with Bye Bye’s universe at a moderate 18.6M across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube views. By comparison, that universe size is on part with an indie like The Boy (23M) but trails a Blumhouse/Universal title Ouija 2 (82M). The Stacy Title movie gets a C CinemaScore tonight which isn’t great for a horror movie; anything in the B range would be significantly better.
Monster Trucks Before Paramount even released this movie, Viacom write it off at $115M. Essentially according to accounting rules, once a film starts accruing debt, it can go down as that especially when revenue isn’t going to come. Given that, a studio doesn’t throw good money after bad money when it comes to damaged goods.
Hence, if by some reason Monster Trucks became a complete hit this weekend, that would stir a slew of Wall Street observers to say “Hey!”. That was never going to happen, so here Monster Trucks sits parked within its tracking range of $12M-$14M with $13.2M over four-days in 7th place. Pic gets an A CinemaScore tonight; which has a lot to do in what cities this movie was polled in.
Prior to the weekend, RelishMix reports, “Monster Trucks is reaching its target audience of parents with small children, many of whom are saying how excited their son will be to see this movie in theaters. While convo is light in its volume compared to other family animated movies, overall, it’s positive. However, it’s interesting to see the audience discussing the $125M budget for Monster Trucks, as if they are suspicious that such an expensive endeavor doesn’t have a more recognizable cast and/or a more favorable release date. The Trucks convo is another indicator of how smart today’s audience is when it comes to ultimately buying tickets.”
Sleepless (Open Road) If there was an attempt to pull in the African American audience, well that doesn’t make any sense then when there’s a crowdpleaser like Hidden Figures in the market. Jamie Foxx as a guy who takes justice into his own hands when is family has been wrong screams Law Abiding Citizen all over again ($21M opening, $73.3M), and of course, moviegoers know this and that’s why only some of them spent an estimated $9.3M over four-days on this $30M production this weekend. This puts pic in 8th place. One distribution czar screamed today, “If the whole point of Open Road is to supply its investors AMC and Regal with a steady supply of titles throughout the sleepy points of the year, then why are they releasing this movie during one of the most crowded weekends ever?!” Sleepless gets a B+ CinemaScore tonight.
Live By Night (WB) At a reported $65M, Ben Affleck’s feature adaptation of Dennis Lehane’s novel set around a Boston gangster during Prohibition, is more expensive than Argo which cost $44.5M. At $7.3m in 9th place, Given Affleck’s Oscar pedigree, Warner Bros. intended to prop this during this awards season, but the film didn’t catch on, right off the bat with the Broadcast Film Critics, and it was all downhill from there as critics piled on top of this with a 32% Rotten Tomatoes rating. I hear Affleck is very proud of this movie, from its performances down to its set design. But Live by Night is just another example, like Paramount’s poor Allied (61% fresh, $12.7M opening, $40M domestic), that when you have a period film that lacks a groundswell of champion critics, and little awards conversation, you’re dead at this time of year. One insider thought maybe Live by Night should have been released at a different time of year and sold as mere pulpy gangster movie (Warner Bros. did open its non-awards…
