UPDATED, 11:04 PM: In recent memory, this has happened over the last two years: Following a huge Easter weekend, the box office goes sideways and this year we have five wide releases — Open Road’s The Promise ($4.7M), Disneynature’s Born in China ($4.6M), Warner Bros.’ Unforgettable ($4.4M), Cinelou/Scott Free’s Phoenix Forgotten ($1.56M) and A24’s Free Fire ($773K)— that are being run over by Universal’s The Fate of the Furious, which will cross the No. 1 finish line in its second go-round with an estimated $37M, -63%.
Last year Easter fell at the end of March and none of the major studios had the cajones to program a wide release against the second weekend of Batman v. Superman, especially after 20th Century Fox’s Keeping the Joneses vacated the date.
As such, when it comes to playing in the wake of a big tentpole at this time of year, few studios wants to put their prime goods out there. It’s just a wasted effort, especially with fewer kids out of school (K-12 dropped from 74% off on Good Friday to 12% today) and that’s why we’re seeing so much cheaply-budgeted driftwood this weekend.
And the odds are very good next weekend that Fate of the Furious rides atop the B.O. chart again against STX/EuropaCorp’s The Circle, Pantelion’s How to Be a Latin Lover, and BH/Tilt’s Sleight. Business is on pause until Disney/Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, already propped by hot buzz, arrives with a $150M opening, which if that projection is met, would outstrip its first chapter’s 3-day by 59%.
With The Promise, there was an earnest attempt here by the late MGM mogul Kirk Kerkorian to make a period film with a David Lean sensibility set against the Armenian genocide of the early 20th century. Following Kerkorian’s death, producers Mike Medavoy, William Horberg and Eric Esrailian have made good on his vision. But even when you have big stars like Christian Bale and Oscar Issac, a period film is automatically challenged at the box office when its doesn’t have critical support, and The Promise is slowed significantly by a 46% Rotten Tomatoes rating. Many critics find the epic to be too sudsy and empty. Those who bought tickets enjoyed The Promise giving it an A- CinemaScore.
Jose Haro
The ideal roll out for a film like this is a platform release, so that word of mouth builds among upscale audiences. But when you lack the critical buzz, and your movie costs $90M before P&A, there’s no choice but to go wide and make as much money back as possible.
Why was The Promise dated on this weekend, instead of during an Oscar corridor? That’s because April 24 marks the time when the Armenian genocide took place 102 years ago; when Ottoman authorities rounded, arrested and deported close to 300 Armenian intellectuals and community leaders from Constantinople to the region of Ankara, where many met their fate. The genocide is still denied today by the Turkish government.
Open Road, which has a distribution fee on The Promise, targeted adults over 40 with a mainstream campaign, buying spots on older-skewing cable networks like History, Discovery, A&E, Bravo, TLC and NatGeo as well as select network primetime hits like How to Get Away with Murder and The Black List.
Survival Pictures, a company which Kerkorian set up with Esrailian, is donating all proceeds from The Promise to philanthropic organizations. Barbra Streisand, Elton John, George Clooney, Cher, Kim Kardashian and more have gotten behind the #KeepThePromise social impact campaign.
However, the takeaway from The Promise is that it finally got made and released, so as to educate the global public about the genocides of the 20th and 21st century. The opening weekend is an afterthought. The pic is sold in all major territories around the globe.
Warner Bros.
Another film with good intentions behind it that’s also getting buried is Warner Bros.’ Unforgettable. Yes, it’s a pulp Lifetime-like female thriller of the week, but the movie marks the feature directorial debut of Denise Di Novi who has been a revered producer for the Burbank lot over the last 25 years. She was responsible for getting Mad Max:Fury Road back on track when that production went over budget and over schedule in Nambia. Unforgettable was greenlit under the Greg Silverman regime, and the studio really tried to keep this as cheap as they could at an estimated $12M negative cost before P&A.
However, a $4.4M opening isn’t going to cut it (nor is a $4.9M one if it rises to that as WB forecasts), and it’s arguably the third low-budget clunker that WB has had this winter/spring in the wake of Chips and Fist Fight (Going in Style has some promise given its slow leg appeal among older adults raising to $31.3M by Sunday in its third weekend). We know Warner Bros. can open branded DC and Harry Potter properties, but when you’re low budget fare is getting brutally panned by the critics and executives foresee this in advance (at any studio), no one is going to throw good money after bad P&A-wise. Audiences didn’t like Unforgettable with a C CinemaScore.
With an estimated $4.6M, Disneynature’s Panda doc Born in China is at the lower end of its doc label’s openings, squeezed between that of 2015’s The Monkey Kingdom ($4.5M) and 2014’s Bears ($4.77M). These nature docs typically end their runs in the mid-to-high teens. Born in China earns an A- CinemaScore tonight on par with Monkey Kingdom. Since opening the division in 2009, the best opening posted by a Disneynature doc belongs to 2012’s Chimpanzee ($10.7M) while the highest grossing one is 2009’s Earth at $32M.
Cinelou
Phoenix Forgotten: What is and where did this movie come from? It an 85-minute sci-fi horror film from Cinelou Films that’s produced by Mark Canton, Ridley Scott, Wes Ball, Courtney Solomon, and T.S. Nowlin. The pic is inspired by a 1997 UFO incident in Phoenix, Arizona where three teens went missing and takes place 20 years after revolving around found footage. Apparently the movie cost less than $3M. But we live in an era where if you want your microbudget horror movie to work, you’ve got to make great for critics and they would like to forget Phoenix Forgotten even happened at 57% rotten. This is the second microbudget casualty for Scott Free following 20th Century Fox’s Morgan ($8M production cost, $8.8M global B.O.) Phoenix Forgotten enlisted the help of YouTube celebrity Joey Graceffa, who posted a nine-minute clip for his 7.5M Subscribers. He attended SXSW with a pal of his and shared his little “day trip” to Austin, which included the drone execution to promote the film. Nonetheless, RelishMix reports that the social conversation for this movie “is best described as skeptical. Many fans are comparing the trailer to another documentary horror film, The Blair Witch Project. In fact, a great deal of comments claim this film looks like it, but with aliens instead. Also, moviegoers are using the comments to site Phoenix as another example of Hollywood re-treads.” No surprise, Phoenix Forgotten burns tonight with a C- CinemaScore.
Studiocanal
When A24 has the goods with a cult film like Ex Machina or The Witch, they nurture it and let word of mouth spread slow and wide. The fact that they’ve gone wide with Free Fire versus a platform indicates that the movie doesn’t have the mojo to stoke the hipster specialty crowd. You would think Free Fire has enough bullets to succeed this weekend as it’s the only wide adult wide release with a fresh Rotten Tomatoes score of 63%. Similar to Open Road with The Promise, A24 likely had to make their money back quick on this one, hence the 1,070 theater break. Similar to Yorgos Lantimos’ movie The Lobster, A24 recused Free Fire from the Alchemy fire sale. Brie Larson who has a 1.2M social media reach hasn’t pumped up the word for the movie on her channels that much, ditto for Armie Hammer. Plus the film is further pained per RelishMix by a non-social cast. The one social media stunt that RelishMix found was this ‘Don’t Talk’ PSA for Alamo Drafthouse featuring the chain’s chief Tim League and the Free Fire cast. Otherwise, word of mouth is split on social for this one with naysayers put off by the fact that the movie is one shoot-out over 90 minutes. — Anthony D’Alessandro posted the late night update.
Post-Easter weekend April 21-23’s top 10 and notables per Friday night industry estimates
1.) The Fate of the Furious(UNI), 4,329 theaters (+19) / $11.4M Fri. (-75%) /3-day cume: $37M (-63%)/Total cume: $161.9M/Wk 2
2.) The Boss Baby (20thCentury Fox/DWA), 3,697 theaters (-46) / $3.1M Fri. (-53%) / 3-day cume: $11.9m (-25%)/ Total: $136M/Wk 4
3.) Beauty and the Beast (DIS), 3,315 theaters (-277) / $2.7M Fri. (-47%) / 3-day cume: $10M (-27%) / Total cume: $471M/ Wk 6
4/5/6/7) The Promise (OR), 2251 theaters / $1.7m (includes $200k previews) Fri./3-day cume: $4.7M/Wk 1
Born in China (DIS), 1,508 theaters / $1.65m Fri./3-day cume: $4.6M/Wk 1
Smurfs: The Lost Village (Sony), 2,737 theaters (-873) / $1.1M Fri. (-57%) /3-day cume: $4.6M (-31%)/Total: $33M/Wk 3
Going in Style (WB/VR), 3,038 theaters (-38) / $1.35M Fri. (-36% )/3-day cume: $4.6M (-27%)/Total: $31.3M/Wk 3
8.) Gifted (FSL), 1,986 theaters (+840) / $1.3M Fri. (+27%)/3-day cume: $4.48M (+45%)/Total: $10.7M/Wk 3
9.) Unforgettable (WB), 2,417 theaters / $1.6m Fri./3-day cume: $4.4M/Wk 1
10.) The Lost City of Z (BST/AMZ), 614 theaters (+610) / $597K Fri. (+1450%)/ /3-day cume: $1.99M (+172%)/Total: $2.1M/Wk 2
NOTABLES:
Phoenix Forgotten (ENT), 1,592 theaters / $550K Fri./ 3-day cume: $1.56M/Wk 1
Free Fire (A24), 1,070 theaters / $280K Fri./3-day cume: $773k/Wk 1
UPDATED, 12:20 PM: Early matinee numbers are rolling in for…