UPDATE, Friday 11:09PM: Weekend ticket sales have been sliding since Labor Day.
But not this weekend.
The fight for No. 1 between Paramount’s Tom Cruise vehicle Jack Reacher: Never Go Back ($24.6M) and Lionsgate’s Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween ($23.7M), is spurring this weekend’s stubs to at least $120M, a 24% boost over last FSS’s tally.
Note, it’s not 100% certain that Jack Reacher 2 will win the weekend. Should Madea notch up, it’ll be because Lionsgate was able to pull in younger crowds on Saturday night to this older-skewing property. Jack Reacher 2 has the benefit of being in about 1,500 more theaters than Madea. On Friday, Boo! edged out Jack Reacher 2, $9.15M to $9.08M. How these two titles finally go down…we’ll have to wait for Saturday.
But with two other major studio releases in the mix, raising this weekend’s wide release count to four, doesn’t that just cannibalize business? Apparently not, as there’s something on the marquee for every demographic, and it’s these types of weekends that distribution executives consider to be ideal moviegoing periods.
Warner Bros.’ Ben Affleck drama The Accountant looks to be holding at a fantastic -39% for $15M, which percent wise is close to the second weekend of his sophomore feature directorial The Town. Universal/Blumhouse/Platinum Dunes/Hasbro’s Ouija: Origins of Evil, a destination for young women, is projected to turn in close to $12.6M, which is still fine for a horror title that carries a microbudget of $9M. Ouija 2 gets a C, just like it’s predecessor. However, Ouija 2‘s debut is about 36% off from the first chapter.
The only title getting bruised is 20th Century Fox’s comedy Keeping Up With the Joneses which if its weekend estimates of $6M hold up, will (gulp) open lower than Relativity’s previous Zach Galifianakis PG-13 comedy ensemble disaster, Masterminds ($6.5M). Joneses received the same CinemaScore as Masterminds: B-. But the competition isn’t killing Joneses. At one point, before the Greg Mottola-directed comedy went back for reshoots, Joneses had a dream release date: April 1. What was so special about the post-Easter frame? Joneses was the only major studio release then, and when it moved off, there were none. Oddly enough had Joneses remained on April 1, it would have given its actress Gal Gadot three wide releases in a four week corridor wedged between Batman v. Superman on March 25 and Criminal on April 15, the latter of which wasn’t a B.O. winner for her). By planting Joneses on this weekend, Fox was trying to counterprogram Jack Reacher 2 by going after upscale, date night crowds; in addition they believed they could be the broad comedy for some weeks. But as a wise former major studio distribution chief use to say regularly, “Great movies rise to the occasion at the box office” and Joneses just isn’t that great with critics blasting it with a 17% Rotten Tomatoes score. To what degree do critics loathe Joneses? New York Times critic Ben Kenigsberg yelled, “One way to end the scourge of ‘TV is better than film’ articles is to stop making movies like Keeping Up With the Joneses, a pedestrian comedy that almost seems intended as evidence for the cause.”
In terms of stunts, twists and explosions, the Jack Reacher franchise is no Mission: Impossible, and the reason why Paramount went ahead and made a sequel (which is based on Lee Childs’ novels) was because the the first film generated 63% of its global ticket sales overseas or $138.2M (Cruise fare always does well abroad too). The 2012 release earned an A- CinemaScore and yielded a 5.2 multiple stateside of $80M because of the Christmas holiday corridor. Jack Reacher 2 gets a B+, but lacks the year-end foot traffic. However, with an opening in this range and that CinemaScore, it could pull off a 3x multiple.
Despite the fact that Jack Reacher is destination for older guys, Paramount promoted this sequel so aggressively, you’d think it was a five quad film. A bulk of their marketing was centered around mass-appealing sporting events. There was a Summer Olympics stunt on Aug. 10 across broad and digital that reached 26M people. Jack Reacher 2 media was featured in over 25 stadiums (NFL and NHL). There was the first-ever NFL co-branded Draft Kings partnership with a mobile and desktop takeover of custom Jack Reacher content.
On Sept. 20, the studio celebrated National Punch Day by installing punch standees with key partners in high traffic locations across the country; total reach was 11.4M. In addition on that day, Paramount dropped an 8-bit digital game Jack Reacher: Never Stop Punching via the web and Google Play.
Given that Reacher is an ex-military cop, Paramount obviously went after the military crowd. Pic’s co-star Cobie Smulders visited Fort Belvoir in Virginia on Oct. 15 where she hosted a special screening of the film for the hundreds of women enlisted on the base. The outdoor campaign was aimed at 15 military markets.
In partnership with LA-based pop art Gallery 1988, the studio commissioned posters that portray Jack Reacher’s badass demeanor which were then distributed online to fans.
Jack Reacher 2 had the second largest social media universe of 100.2M out of all the releases this weekend, filing after Madea which clocked 117.5M. Key in regards to spreading the word is the film’s star and master promoter Cruise, who continually talked up the movie to his 17.3M social media fans across Twitter and Facebook and has gone around the globe showing off the film in its production location of New Orleans, as well as Beijing, London and future stops in Berlin, South Korea and Japan. RelishMix reports “Jack Reacher: Never Go Back may not have that viral clip or that amazing effects-driven mobile app. What the movie does have is Tom Cruise, and like so many of his other projects, this super-star is all in He posted a video on Wednesday alerting the fans on Facebook that he’ll be on the red carpet Thursday and the clip clocked 1M views and counting. The Facebook page for Jack Reacher 2 has 555K Fans, just to put that view count in perspective.” Notable items on line, were James Corden’s Role Call from The Late Late Show, whereby the host and Cruise reenacted scenes from his canon. The clip drew 2.6M views in the last 24 hours. Jack Reacher author Lee Childs also took over @Goodreads Twitter handle for a Q&A and the first-ever digital book signing.
Even though it was announced back in January that there was another Madea movie, the news actually set in when Perry took the stage at CinemaCon to show off the Boo trailer. To generate word of mouth for Boo, during his tour the filmmaker would show the trailer. Perry told exhibitors at the Las Vegas confab how another Madea movie came to fruition: “In Chris Rock’s movie Top Five, he jokes about a Madea Halloween movie selling out with a line down the block. So I got a call from Lionsgate executives who thought it was a good idea.” Boo, which carries a production cost of $20M, has 11 days to make good at the B.O.. Interestingly enough, that’s a similar release plan that Lionsgate implemented with the last movie, 2013’s A Madea Christmas. That movie opened on Dec. 13 –12 days before Christmas– and during that time made 67% of its total $52.5M. And duly note, these holiday titles, particularly beloved Tyler Perry ones, are evergreens for the Lionsgate film library. RelishMix observes–and again this is why Boo has a shot at beating Jack Reacher 2 this weekend–that Perry cast YouTube stars Fousey and Lexy Panterra (known for her twerking vids) in the movie. These celebrities are gold with the under 25 crowd and further cross-promoted Boo across their official pages. But while word of mouth is positive overall on social for Boo, RelishMix also notices that the YouTube stars may create a polarizing element among the franchise’s fans, who are turned off by the casting of Fousey. Boo! lands a solid A for tonight, which beats the A- earned by Perry’s last movie, 2014’s The Single Moms Club ($15.97M) and Madea Christmas.
Among specialty releases, A24’s Moonlight from director Barry Jenkins is just crushing it, bound to rank as the year’s second best opening theater average with an estimated $82K after Mike Birbiglia’s pic about improv comedy, Don’t Think Twice which earned $92K per site. Moonlight‘s four-day of $331K is going to whip its fellow TIFF competition title American Pastoral from Lionsgate which is dying with an estimated $112K at 50 sites. Moonlight has a 99% certified fresh grade from RT, while American Pastoral is suffering from an 18% Rotten rating.
Industry-reported weekend estimates for Oct. 21-23 as of late Friday night:
1). Jack Reacher: Never Go Back (PAR), 3,780 theaters / $9.08M Fri. (includes $1.325M previews)/3-day cume: $24.6M /Wk 1
2). Tyler Perry’s Boo! A Madea Halloween (LG), 2,260 theaters / $9.15M Fri. (includes $855K previews)/3-day cume: $23.7M / Wk 1
3). The Accountant (WB), 3,332 theaters (0) / $4.5M Fri. (-50%)/3-day cume: $15M (-39%)/Total: $48.9M/ Wk 2
4). Ouija: Origin of Evil (UNI), 3,167 theaters / $5.3M Fri. (includes $722K previews)/3-day cume: $12.6M / Wk 1
5). The Girl on the Train (UNI/DW), 3,091 theaters (-150) / $2.4M Fri. (-38%)/ 3-day cume: $7.7M (-37%)/Total: $59.3M/ Wk 3
6). Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children (FOX), 3,133 theaters (-702) / $1.6M Fri. (-31%) 3-day cume: $6.4M (-28%)/Total: $74.8M/Wk 4
7). Keeping Up With the Joneses (FOX), 3,022 theaters / $$2.1M Fri. (includes $300K previews)/3-day cume: $6M / Wk 1
8). Storks (WB), 2,145 theaters (-921) / $1.1M Fri. (-22%)/3-day cume: $4.4M(-22%) /Total: $65M/ Wk 5
9). Deepwater Horizon (LG), 2,828 theaters (-575) / $1.1M Fri. (-39%)/ 3-day cume: $4M (-38%)/Total: $55.6M/ Wk…
