3rd Update 9:21 PM: With an estimated opening of $9.3M projected from east coast late nights, Lionsgate’s Blair Witch is dying. But so is Universal/Miramax/Working Title/StudioCanal’s Bridget Jones’s Baby (third place estimated $8.5M) and Open Road’s Snowden (fourth place $7.6M) as Warner Bros./Village Roadshow’s Sully flies the friendly skies with moviegoers to a second estimated No. 1 of $21.5M and a 10-day gross by Sunday of $70M.
As we pointed out last month, with 33 wide releases in the marketplace before Thanksgiving week, it’s the survival of the fittest with anywhere from three-to-five wide entries a weekend. Few will thrive, and casualties will abound. This is only the beginning. A motif for the weekend? In the case of Bridget Jones and Blair Witch, they’re dusty franchises abandoned by their target audiences. Snowden‘s problem? He’s the rebel to Sully‘s hero (see below). Overall, distributors’ B.O. projection systems broke down this week: Some were showing Blair Witch with a $20M opening and a shot at upsetting Sully for the top spot.
Well, so much for a reboot. Blair Witch‘s current projected 3-day is lower than the $13.2M that the 2000 sequel Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2 opened to, and fans hated that one! Blair Witch arrives at the end of a summer that’s been a heyday for horror with Conjuring 2, The Purge: Election Year, Don’t Breathe and Lights Out grossing a combined of $323M stateside. And after horror fans have feasted on these (mostly) critically acclaimed titles as though they were pate, why would they crave chopped meat with a threequel that’s been panned by critics with a 38% Rotten Tomatoes score? Lionsgate was expecting to open Blair Witch to a gross in the mid-teens, which economically would have been fine for this pic which cost $5M along with a mid-to-high $20M P&A. At this level, it’s clear: Ding-dong, the Blair Witch franchise is dead. Lionsgate had to know this was a downer, and it’s no coincidence that today, of all days, they announce that their franchise-meister Rob Friedman is stepping down as the studio’s co-chair.
Blair Witch’s failure to deliver has to do with the property itself, and less with Lionsgate’s marketing. Let’s face it, that surprise screening at Comic-Con where attendees thought they were going to see The Woods, when it was really Blair Witch, was pretty clever on the distributor’s part and began generating buzz (apparently not enough). But this horror franchise was never screaming for sequels. 1999’s The Blair Witch Project was a huge success at $140.5M because the masses believed it was real; that it was some paranormal snuff film. Boosting the film’s profile further was a Blair Witch documentary —Curse of the Blair Witch — that Artisan aired on the Syfy network back in the day. Everyone thought it was true; that three students went missing inexplicably in a Maryland forest. With the latest installment, Lionsgate built a story around the younger brother of the girl who disappeared in the 1999 film. Along with a group of friends, he ventures back to the woods that took her. However, moviegoers really don’t care, as they slapped Blair Witch with D+ CinemaScore tonight. That’s just a little better than the D they gave Relativity’s horror film The Disappointments Room last week. That piece of bankruptcy collateral damage fell a horrendous 81% (steeper than Morgan‘s -76% second weekend) with sophomore FSS of $268K. Even if Freddy Krueger and Friday the 13th‘s Jason co-starred in Blair Witch, no one would care.
Unlike certain franchise tentpoles that appeal across several generations, there’s a big gap between The Blair Witch Project and Blair Witch. Criticized one rival Gen Y studio development executive about Blair Witch’s reboot, “My generation was super into the first title, but the second film destroyed it for us. So, why would we be interested in this sequel? Then for the younger generation, they’ve already seen a slew of found footage movies like this one.”
The power of Sony/Screen Gems/Studio 6’s Don’t Breathe among horror fans can’t be denied with a $4.8M projected weekend, down a modest -41%, on its way to $75M. It will soon topple 2005’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose as Screen Gems’ highest grossing horror title at the domestic box office. That’s $4.8M less that Blair Witch isn’t making.
In regards to Snowden, it doesn’t help that a movie with 56% Rotten middling reviews is following in the shadow of the beloved Sully who owns the majority of the 25+ crowd. However, Sully vs. Snowden is more about the sterling American Hero vs. the controversial government whistleblower. Critics are severe because Edward Snowden is multi-faceted guy, and each tweed has their own idea on how his complex life should be portrayed (i.e., mini-series). Couple this with the fact that it’s feasible for the masses to embrace a guy like Sully who saved lives, while the U.S. government has painted Edward Snowden as a traitor who has comprised the nation’s security. Hard to get the red states inside the theater on this one. Stone’s highest grossing movies i.e. Platoon ($138.5M), JFK ($70.4M) and Born on the Fourth of July ($70M) have benefited from being year-end holiday releases and awards season crossovers. Snowden gets an A CinemaScore tonight which indicates that the former CIA contractor’s supporters showed up — but clearly not in bulk.
Talk about tracking being way off. Bridget Jones’s Baby was suppose to post the highest opening of the series, but now it’s coming in as the third lowest, $200K short of Edge of Reason‘s $8.7M. The only saving grace for this Universal/Miramax/StudioCanal/Working Title femme film is overseas. Again, blame Sully. He’s popular with the older women (drew 56% females last week, with 90% over 25) who were suppose to show up with their friends at Bridget Jones. But then again, the tracking on this threequel seemed to good to be true for a film that’s over the hill, and a leading star –Renee Zellweger–who has been absent from the big screen for the last six years. Early results out of the UK for Baby are really strong we hear, offsetting the underwhelming results stateside.
PureFlix’s faith-based documentary about the musical Australian church, Hillsong -Let Hope Rise, is in need of more collections at 816 theaters and an estimated $1.58M FSS. In regards to docs alone, we’ve seen them make this much money on half the number of screens. And for a low-budget faith-based movie, we’ve seen better.
The top 10 films for the weekend of Sept. 16-18 per Friday evening industry estimates:
1). Sully (WB), 3,525 theaters / $6.3M Fri. (-48%) / 3-day cume: $21.5M (-39%)/Total cume: $70M/Wk 2
2). Blair Witch (LG), 3,121 theaters / $3.8M Fri. (includes $765K previews) / 3-day cume: $9.3M /Wk 1
3). Bridget Jones’s Baby (UNI), 2,927 theaters / $3M Fri. (includes $364K previews) / 3-day cume: $8.5M / Wk 1
4). Snowden (OR), 2,443 theaters / $2.6M Fri. (includes $390K) / 3-day cume: $7.6M /Wk 1
5). Don’t Breathe (SONY), 3,208 theaters (-176) / $1.4M (-43%) Fri. / 3-day cume: $4.8M (-41%) / Total cume: $74.6M / Wk 4
6). When the Bough Breaks (SONY), 2,246 theaters / $1.47M Fri. (-72%) / 3-day cume: $4.5M (-68%) /Total cume: $21.7M/ Wk 2
7). Suicide Squad (WB), 2,740 theaters (-363) / $1M Fri. (-28%) / 3-day cume: $4.1M (-28%) / Total cume: $313.1M / Wk 7
8). The Wild Life (LG), 2,493 theaters / $538K (-27%) Fri. / 3-day cume: $2.8M (-16%)/ Total: $6.8M/Wk 2
9). Kubo and the Two Strings (FOC), 1,757 theaters (-578) / $449K Fri. (-33%) / 3-day cume: $2.4M (-28%) / Total cume: $44.1M / Wk 5
10). Pete’s Dragon (DIS), 1,948 theaters (-737) / $457K Fri. (-33%) / 3-day cume: $2.2M (-29%) / Total cume: $73M / Wk 6
11). Hell or High Water (CBS/Lionsgate), 1,505 theaters (+60) / $522K Fri. (-29%) / 3-day cume: $1.7M (-30%) / Total cume: $22.5M / Wk 6
NOTABLES:
Hillsong (PUR), 816 theaters / $500k Fri. / 3-day cume: $1.58M /Wk 1
Mr. Church (FREE), 354 theaters / $90k Fri. / 3-day cume: $292k /Wk 1
The Disappointments Room (REL), 1,554 theaters / $81K (-83%) Fri. / 3-day cume: $268K (-81%)/Total: $2.1M/Wk 2
Beatles: Eight Days a Week (ABR), 50 theaters / $75k Fri. / 3-day cume: $224k /Wk 1
12NOON Update: Warner Bros./Village Roadshow’s Sully will remain at a high No. 1 altitude this weekend according to matinees with an estimated $21.3M weekend, down a decent 40%, for a 10-day take that’s just under $70M. Lionsgate’s Blair Witch is bound to take Friday away from the Tom Hanks film, $7M to $6.5M.
It will be interesting to see how front-loaded Blair Witch is as it heads toward an estimated $17.2M in second place, which for a $5M horror film is still pretty solid. Given the momentum of horror films lately at the B.O., tracking was drunk on a $20M-plus projection, particularly give the brand here. Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, which was a disaster in the wake of the huge success of 1999’s Blair Witch Project ($140M), cost an estimated $15M and opened to $13.2M (finaled at $26.4M). A different economy of scale is in place here by Lionsgate, who spent an estimated mid-to-high $20M in P&A on this third pic.
Universal/Working Title/Miramax/StudioCanal’s Bridget Jones’s Baby is currently projected to come in toward the lower end of its projections with a $4.7M Friday and $13M weekend; still the best debut this series has seen stateside next to its previous chapters, 2001’s Bridget Jones’s Diary ($10.7M) and 2004’s Edge of Reason ($10.7M). Numbers could spike on Saturday when the ladies hit the plex. Baby only cost an estimated $35M before P&A, and the fortune to be reaped here is abroad where a Bridget Jones movie can rack up $200M-plus.
Open Road’s Snowden is also flying low with…